Chapter 9 - I Could Not Annul A Marriage Simply Because I Regretted It
I wanted an annulment.
Of course I did.
Twenty years old.
Married for hours.
Surely everyone could just agree it never happened.
My attorney explained that law was not built around emotional neatness.
A short marriage is still a marriage.
An age gap, even an extreme one between consenting adults, does not automatically invalidate it.
Abuse after the ceremony does not necessarily mean the marriage itself was void from the beginning.
Could we argue fraud or coercion?
Possibly.
But we had to prove the legal standard.
Robert had concealed controlling tendencies.
That was morally important.
Whether it constituted fraud sufficient to erase the marriage entirely was another question.
I chose not to spend years chasing symbolic purity.
I filed for divorce.
I also sought a protective order.
Robert fought both.
Not primarily over money.
Our prenup made financial division relatively straightforward.
He fought the narrative.
He wanted the marriage described as a misunderstanding destroyed by my overprotective father.
His attorneys emphasized Dad’s slap.
Fair enough.
Dad had hit him.
But security footage from the foyer entrance showed the aftermath.
It captured Robert holding the candelabra.
Claire—me—on the floor beside the clock.
Lily crouched against me.
Dad entering.
The officers behind him.
It did not capture the original shove clearly because of the interior angle.
The officers had heard part of the confrontation.
Lily had seen it.
I had bruising consistent with striking the clock.
And Robert’s own statements changed repeatedly.
He could challenge interpretation.
He could not make the event disappear.
The protective order was granted.
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Divorce proceedings continued.
The wedding photographs had not even been delivered yet.
