I thought burying my husband of 27 years would be the hardest day of my life. I was wrong.

The legal fallout has been a nightmare. Because we were legally married, his life insurance and his primary estate defaulted to me. But the Portland house was structured in a way that protected her and the children.

I could have fought it in court. My lawyers told me I had a strong case to drain their assets based on marital fraud and the misuse of our joint funds to maintain his second life.

But I didn’t.

I looked at the photos of those three kids. They lost their father in a horrific accident. They didn’t ask to be born into a web of deceit. Punishing them wouldn’t give me my twenty-seven years back. It wouldn’t erase the betrayal.

I signed away any claim I had to the Portland house. I split his life insurance policy down the middle and wired half of it into a trust for the children’s college education.

Sarah and I don’t speak anymore. It’s too painful for both of us to be reminded of the other’s existence. I sold the house with the garage and the red Craftsman toolbox. I moved across the country to start over. People tell me I was too generous, that I should have destroyed her.

But the only person who deserved to be destroyed was the man in the mahogany casket, and he was already gone.