After Startup Failure, My Fiancée Punished Me With Three Foodless Days

After yet another failed startup, I braced myself for my fiance to tear into me.

Instead of yelling, she just smiled and laid out a full spread of food.

Nerves on edge, I reached to pick up a piece of meat.

She slapped my chopsticks away.

The smile on her face slowly froze over.

You've actually got the nerve to eat?

I opened my mouth.

Her tone turned sharp in an instant. "All I asked was for you to build a company. I didn't ask you to pull the moon down from the sky."

"How can a person be this stupid?"

"Everyone else can make it."

"Why is it only you who can't?"

Head down, I said, guilt-ridden, "I'm sorry, I"

"Three days without food. That's your punishment."

"Sit and think about what you've done."

I thought she was just trying to scare me.

I was wrong.

She meant it. I went a full three days without eating.

Right before I fainted from hunger and hit the floor.

I could still faintly hear her cursing me, furious that I couldn't measure up.

"I must have been out of my mind to pick a fool like you."

"You can't make something out of nothing."

"You're not even good enough for me!"

...

Faith Henson's words were cold and cutting, and that look of disgust in her eyes.

It was the way you'd look at a piece of worthless 'trash merchandise.'

In that moment.

I understood one thing clearly.

What was between her and me had never been love.

I was nothing more than a trophy under her overpowering need for control, the proof she was desperate to show everyone that she'd chosen right.

The only trouble was.

I kept letting her down, one failed startup after another, and that didn't just embarrass her.

It made her see me as useless trash.

After I passed out.

I don't know how long I was gone.

I felt someone pry my lips apart with chopsticks.

A sweet, clean taste flooded my mouth.

When I opened my eyes.

It was still that familiar face.

Except

Her eyes were colder than before.

"You're awake?"

Seeing my eyes open, Faith stopped feeding me at once.

I let out a soft sound.

"A grown man, and you faint after a few days without food."

"Your body really is pathetic."

"Just like your abilities."

"Worse than anyone could imagine."

I had only just come back from unconsciousness.

Seeing her feed me.

It had warmed something in my chest.

But the words that came out of her mouth.

Always so harsh, so ugly to hear.

"A deputy department manager at a listed company, pulling in hundreds of thousands a year, and somehow I picked a useless thing like you?"

"Can't you make me look good for once?"

"You know what my girlfriends say about you?"

"That you're a kept man, living off a woman."

"No real skill of your own."

"You think I want to push you into building a company?"

"All I want is for you to succeed, to become a man who can carry his own weight!"

Here it was again.

Faith's presence, the tone of her voice, and her reasons for demanding I succeed.

Like an invisible boulder pressing on my chest, day and night without let up.

I couldn't feel the smallest sweetness of being in love.

Not a shred of say in my own life.

Everything had to go according to her plan.

Being with her.

I was so suffocated I could barely breathe.

After a long silence.

I said calmly, "Let's break up"

Faith's eyes went sharp the instant she heard the word breakup.

She glared at me and asked, her voice cold, "What did you say?"

If this had been before.

That look of hers would have terrified me.

I wouldn't even have dared to meet her eyes.

But now.

It was as though something in me had let go.

I looked straight back at her.

"I said."

"Let's break up."

Faith slammed the bowl to the floor.

It shattered with a crack.

Broth splattered everywhere.

"Sebastian, I'm going to pretend you were talking nonsense just now."

"Don't ever let me hear the word breakup out of your mouth again."

I sat up and looked at her.

"Faith, the truth is, you're right."

"I'm a man who's content with things as they are."

"I have no head for business at all."

"And you know it, what I'm best at is studying. What I want is to do research someday."

"But you insisted on making me start a business."

"You insisted on molding me into some successful man according to your plan."

"That kind of life has worn me out. It's suffocating."

"And you're not wrong."

"I'm not good enough for you."

"So breaking up is a good thing, for both of us."

The moment I finished.

Faith stared at me, shaking all over.

That cutting look in her eyes.

Like she wanted to tear me apart and swallow me whole.

The truth is, these past two years.

I really had been miserable.

I wanted to keep studying.

She forced me to give it up.

I wanted to do research.

She said making money mattered more.

Without money, how do you support a family?

I thought she had a point.

So I gave up my own dream.

And started a business the way she planned it.

And failed, over and over.

She was the youngest department manager at a listed company, wrapped in every kind of prestige, and everyone envied me for landing a powerhouse of a wife.

Then look at me.

Nothing to show for myself, failing at everything I touched.

At every gathering, I was the punch line for her friends.

And she didn't just fail to stand up for me.

She joined in with them, running me down.

Saying I had no drive.

Cursing me for being useless.

It wasn't that I never thought about laying it out for her, telling her I didn't want to start a business.

But the moment I let even a hint of not following her plan show.

She'd fly into a rage at me.

And little by little.

I stopped daring to say what I really felt.

Until this time, when she punished me with three days of no food.

I finally understood.

She wanted me to succeed, and it had nothing to do with loving me.

She simply believed.

That the man she chose had to succeed.

That she could never be laughed at by her friends for the rest of her life.

She wanted to use me to prove to the whole world.

That her judgment was right, that she'd made no mistake.

But I'd had enough.

I didn't want to be controlled by her anymore.

Even less did I want the rest of my life completely ruled by her!

So I decided to leave her.

"Faith, let me go."

"We don't fit."

"My life is ordinary."

"Yours is dazzling."

"We were never from the same world to begin with."

Faith was proud to the bone. Once she decided something, no one could change it.

Not even when I was the one asking to break up.

Her first reaction was simple: no.

"Sebastian, you were unconscious all night."

"Your head isn't clear right now."

"This kind of talk."

"I don't want to hear it again."

She turned and walked out of the room.

She wanted to leave me alone to cool off.

What she didn't know was that my mind was already made up.

After dark.

Faith came back, but this time she wasn't alone.

She brought my grandmother with her.

My parents dumped me on Grandma the day I was born, then vanished from my life.

Grandma raised me by herself.

The moment I saw her come in, leaning on her cane, I understood exactly what Faith was doing.

In this whole world.

Grandma was my one weak spot.

And sure enough.

She came to the side of my bed, took my hand, her eyes rimmed red. "Sebastian, honey, Faith told me you don't want her anymore. Is that true?"

I looked over at Faith, not knowing how to answer.

Grandma adored her.

Everyone around me thought that landing a fiance like Faith.

Was the best thing that had ever happened to the Gilbert family.

But nobody knew.

In the places outsiders never saw.

Just how much pressure I'd been carrying.

Faith lifted a hand and wiped away the tears she'd just forced out.

"Grandma, all I ever wanted was for him to succeed."

"But he thinks I'm trying to control his whole life."

"Is it wrong to want my man to succeed?"

Grandma hurried to comfort her. "Sweetheart, you did nothing wrong. You're wonderful. You're the most capable, most impressive girl I've ever met. Whatever Sebastian did, let me apologize on his behalf."

"Sebastian, this is your fault."

"Faith wants you to succeed."

"You need to work hard."

"Don't let her down."

Facing Grandma's earnest, pleading words.

I nodded hard. "Grandma, I'm sorry. I just spoke too fast and said the wrong thing."

"I never meant to leave Faith."

I paused.

Then I apologized to Faith too.

When I saw the smile lift at the corner of her mouth.

For some reason.

A thread of loathing rose in me for this woman I'd once loved so deeply.

"Grandma, this is a hospital, the smell is awful. Let me take you home first."

Faith took Grandma home, then came back.

Seeing that I was fine.

She spoke as she packed up her things. "I've already handled your discharge."

"This hospital stay cost three thousand, start to finish."

"I paid it, but you're paying me back."

"Same as always. The usual rules."

"Sign an IOU once you're home."

I answered flatly. "Got it."

Back home, I wrote out the IOU and signed it.

Faith happened to get a call from one of her girlfriends right then.

"I heard your Sebastian's startup crashed and burned again?"

"Yeah. Failed."

"Ha, the guy really can't catch a break."

"Everyone else makes it. He's the only one who flops."

Faith shot me a glance, her eyes full of disdain.

"He's just slow."

"Honestly, maybe he's just not cut out for business."

"Faith, you should stop pushing him too."

"If it really doesn't work, just have him go get a job somewhere."

"What's the point of bankrolling him day after day?"

"No way!"

Faith refused flat out. "I've invested so much in him, poured so much money into him. If he dares not to succeed, I'll haunt him from the grave before I let him off."

Here we go again.

I sighed.

The startups were her idea, forced on me. I never once asked for any of it.

But once they failed,

every bit of blame landed on me.

After she hung up,

Faith dug up a stack of entrepreneur success stories, memoirs, and videos and told me to memorize them.

The old me would have watched every one of them, nerves on edge, then memorized them all.

But this time,

I dumped the whole pile straight into the trash.

Faith stared at me like she couldn't believe it.

"What are you doing?"

"You keep forcing me to study other people's lives. I can't learn to be them."

"Can't you show some backbone, let me hold my head up just once?"

"Sorry. I'm just me."

"From now on, I'm only going to be myself."

I turned and went back into the room.

Faith was shaking with rage.

That night, she deliberately slept on the couch, refusing to share a bed with me.

She meant it as punishment, but I felt nothing but light.

The next day, she cooked a whole spread of good food herself.

"Sebastian, these are all your favorites."

"Eat up."

I shook my head. "I don't like them."

"What?"

Seeing the confusion on her face, I smiled. "I used to say I loved them because you made them with your own hands. Even when they were too salty to swallow, I told myself they tasted like heaven."

With that, I ordered delivery right in front of her.

She watched me dig in like I was enjoying every bite.

Her brow knotted deep. "I want you to succeed, and you want to leave me. Do you have any idea how many men would kill for a chance like this?"

I made a face. "I don't know whether they would or not. All I know is I don't want it."

"You won't let me go? Fine. Then I'll drag it out with you."

"Drag it out until you're old and worn."

"As for the startups..."

"To hell with them."

"Whoever wants to do it can do it."

"I'm never starting another business."

Faith bit down hard on her lip, tears spilling over.

"So you're happy to be a nobody your whole life?"

"I just want to breathe for once."

Faith went quiet all of a sudden.

After a long moment,

she seemed to come around to something. "Since you don't want to succeed, I won't push you anymore. You can't polish dirt into gold anyway. Once you've paid back every cent you owe me, we're done, no more ties between us."

"But let me remind you. You've got no money. The only way you'll manage it is to sell your grandmother's old house."

"She's almost eighty, and she'll be out on the street."

"You sure you really want to split up?"