{"id":7128,"date":"2026-05-14T05:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/short-fic-the-wife-guy\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T05:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:39:07","slug":"short-fic-the-wife-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/short-fic-the-wife-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"SHORT FIC: The Wife Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE WIFE GUY<\/strong><\/p>\n

She was tired of crying. Tired of grieving her broken marriage. Tired of everything.<\/p>\n

But she was a mother so she had to keep getting up. Had to keep maintaining her expression so she could lie to her children and pretend that she wasn’t a raging inferno inside.<\/p>\n

That she didn’t want to scream and break things. To hit him, and hit him, and keep hitting him until he stopped wearing that stupid expression and finally understood what he’d done.<\/p>\n

That he had destroyed them. Ruined their family forever.<\/p>\n

He’d broken her heart, and that was bad enough, but he’d betrayed their kids. Made a spectacle of their whole family after spending years turning their family into a show for people to watch. For strangers to see and judge, every bit of their privacy stripped away in his quest for fame and money.<\/p>\n

She regretted every decision she’d made. Not just the ones to marry him and have children with him. But the ones where she’d let him include her and their kids in his videos.<\/p>\n

She’d let him turn their lives into content.<\/p>\n

Which meant that when he cheated on her, that became someone else’s content.<\/p>\n

He’d been “the wife guy.” Everyone knew him as her husband and the dad to her kids. He took sponsorships for family products, children’s clothes and toys, everything in their house was in some way part of his platform.<\/p>\n

She would go to the store and people would call her by name. Her children would go to school and everyone would know them before they met. Everywhere they went, there would be someone that would recognize them.<\/p>\n

Because he had turned their family into a product.<\/p>\n

It had been hard enough dealing with the unwanted fame. Sometimes she would fight to smile when all she wanted was to feel normal.<\/p>\n

To have a sad day.<\/p>\n

To have an angry day.<\/p>\n

To have a day when she could walk through a crowd of people and nobody would recognize her as his wife.<\/p>\n

As some kind of extension of him.<\/p>\n

She wasn’t part of him. She was a person with her own wants and needs and goals in life, yet somehow she’d let herself be talked into giving all that up. Even before she knew what his fame was going to mean, how big of an all-consuming monster it was going to become.<\/p>\n

Even before this scandal, she’d felt tired of it all.<\/p>\n

But there was nothing she could do, because he was “The Wife Guy” and she was “The Wife of The Wife Guy.”<\/p>\n

People would call her name, but they didn’t know who she was. She didn’t even think they thought she was human.<\/p>\n

She was like a cardboard cutout that he brought out when he was making videos. And the children were props he used to prove that he was successful at having a wife and family.<\/p>\n

There were times when she questioned whether he loved their children.<\/p>\n

It hurt her to even think about.<\/p>\n

But sometimes she really had to wonder.<\/p>\n

Because otherwise, what kind of loving father would use his children the way he did? Parading them in his videos. Displaying them to the entire world for money. Forcing them to act as props in his videos and as means of receiving sponsorships.<\/p>\n

He’d turned their family into a product. And she’d hated it, but she’d agreed to it, so she was willing to accept it. Because he was a good husband and a loving father. So she had thought that all of their sacrifices were going to be all right.<\/p>\n

Because they had each other.<\/p>\n

And then that video had dropped.<\/p>\n

She’d seen him with That Woman. Heard the way he talked about her and the kids. The utter contempt in his voice.<\/p>\n

He’d betrayed them. Lied to them. Cheated them. And it wasn’t just that he’d fucked someone else.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t that he was out there with other women doing God knows what. It wasn’t that he was out “having fun” while leaving her at home to be both mother and father to their children, to be their sense of stability.<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

It was that he’d made every part of their family public. He’d created a persona and he’d used her and the kids as part of that persona. Put them in the public eye, where they otherwise never would have been.<\/p>\n

He’d tied their family’s entire financial security to his persona as a good husband and father.<\/p>\n

And then he’d cheated.<\/p>\n

And there were videos of him cheating. More than one after that first horrible revelation. Cropping up like mushrooms after the rain.<\/p>\n

So many different women. So many different poisonous things he’d said about her and the kids. HIS KIDS.<\/p>\n

And she hated him for that.<\/p>\n

He cheated on her, and that hurt like hell, but she was a grown up. She could handle it. She could pull herself up and keep on going.<\/p>\n

But the kids?<\/p>\n

They were young, but they weren’t that young. Not anymore.<\/p>\n

They were at the age where they were beginning to understand things. Old enough to hear what people had to say and understand that it was about their dad and about them.<\/p>\n

Old enough to be hurt.<\/p>\n

And she hated him for that.<\/p>\n

And she hated herself for ever letting him talk her into putting their kids on the Internet. For ever trusting him when he said it was going to be all right because they were together and they would protect their kids together, as a family.<\/p>\n

Family.<\/p>\n

He’d destroyed their family.<\/p>\n

And he got to go on with his life. Got to struggle and try to remake his image. To get people to believe that he was still a good guy. Still worth getting sponsorships and ad spots and all that monetization.<\/p>\n

And meanwhile, she was a mom. She had to hide her anger and despair and keep moving forward for the sake of their children. Her children, because fuck him.<\/p>\n

He’d seen their family as a product instead of people with wants, needs, and feelings. It made her question whether he had ever loved them at all.<\/p>\n

She could accept that he didn’t love her the way she thought he did. She could accept that her marriage wasn’t as happy as she’d believed it to be.<\/p>\n

But the way he’d talked about her kids?<\/p>\n

She was tired of crying over him. Tired of grieving who she’d thought he was. Tired of everything to do with him.<\/p>\n

And as a mother, she had to pull herself up and keep moving forward. Because those kids depended on her.<\/p>\n

She was a mom lady. And that was a lifetime role, not something that could be set aside like being a wife guy.<\/p>\n

It was a 24\/7 responsibility. Even when she took them to school or entrusted them with caregivers, she was always their mom.<\/p>\n

Because they needed her. And she loved them.<\/p>\n

And their dad was an irresponsible fuck that had ruined his whole career and imploded their family life. All because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Because he didn’t love any of them enough to remain loyal the way he’d promised her he would be.<\/p>\n

She’d trusted him so much, and what happened?<\/p>\n

He’d used their family to make his career, and he’d ruined them.<\/p>\n

And his apologies?<\/p>\n

They were more like excuses she didn’t want to hear.<\/p>\n

Every single “I’m sorry” he said made her want to hit him until she saw blood. Because he said “Sorry” in the same tone that he’d say “Trust me” and “I love you” while he was manipulating her into agreeing to turn their family into content for his channels.<\/p>\n

As much as she’d loved him, she now hated him.<\/p>\n

Because she’d finally seen the true person behind the persona he wore. And it was an unpleasant stranger. A cringe-worthy monster of a man.<\/p>\n

Not someone that she wanted to be a father to her children.<\/p>\n

She hoped that he choked on his new identity. That he was miserable and unhappy in his new role as “The Divorced Guy,” because she didn’t trust any of his promises that sounded like lies. She would not give him another chance to hurt her children.<\/p>\n

Their family together was broken. But her family with her kids? That relationship would go on.<\/p>\n

She was strong and tough and she could find joy in the little things if it would protect her children. They would never know how angry and broken she’d felt.<\/p>\n

Everyone around them could talk about their dad and what he’d done. The things he’d said. The fool he’d made of himself and everything he’d ever proclaimed to stand for.<\/p>\n

But at the end of the day, she was their mom, and their mom had always been there for them and would always be there for them. She would never betray them. Never lie to them, or use them for money.<\/p>\n

All those videos and memories would become something from a completely different life. Disconnected from their future selves. That’s what she would do for them.<\/p>\n

Their father had turned them into content and treated their family like a product.<\/p>\n

She would make sure they understood that they were people, each with their own personality and charm. No longer the image their father tried to craft them into. Just kids living the rest of their childhoods as kids. Free to think and feel and dream and be whoever they wanted to be.<\/p>\n

Nobody would label her kids “The Pretty One,” “The Dumb One,” “The Tough One,” “The whatever One.”<\/p>\n

Not anymore.<\/p>\n

Now that he was no longer “The Wife Guy,” she no longer had to be “The Wife.” Permissive, accepting, consoling, agreeable… she didn’t have to be any of those things ever again.<\/p>\n

And thinking about it, that felt pretty nice.<\/p>\n

He’d ruined their family, and that sucked. But he’d also set her free from his web of lies, and while it hurt, she was glad to be free again. To be herself. Whoever that happened to be.<\/p>\n

She couldn’t wait to meet her.<\/p>\n

\/END<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE WIFE GUY She was tired of crying. Tired of grieving her broken marriage. Tired of everything. But she was a mother so she had to keep getting up. Had to keep maintaining her expression so she could lie to her children and pretend that she wasn’t a raging inferno inside. That she didn’t want…<\/p>\n Read More<\/span> SHORT FIC: The Wife Guy<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"Layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[834,974],"class_list":["entry","author-harperkingsley0-0","post-7128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","tag-unbirthday","tag-unbirthday-2026"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2pPoL-1QY","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7127,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/short-fiction-a-once-spirited-teen\/","url_meta":{"origin":7128,"position":0},"title":"SHORT FICTION: A Once Spirited Teen","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"May 13, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"A ONCE SPIRITED TEEN Ed loved her the first time he met her. An instinctive and overwhelming awareness that \"She is the one. I'm going to marry her.\" But they were young. He was shy. They went to separate colleges. And it was 16 years before they met again, both\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Fiction\"","block_context":{"text":"Fiction","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/tag\/fiction\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6738,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/happy-unbirthday\/","url_meta":{"origin":7128,"position":1},"title":"Happy unbirthday","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"May 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Unbirthday! Happy unbirthday to me. Happy unbirthday to you. Happy unbirthday to us. 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