It started with trust.

A relationship spanning 13 years, a freelance collaboration, and the fatal mistake of believing a contract wasn’t necessary between two people who knew each other so well.

Nine months later, I found myself making an impossible choice: accept payment tainted with misogynistic insults, or walk away from a four-figure amount that was supposed to help me through my rough patch in Canada.

I chose my dignity.

I’m not writing this to teach anyone anything. I’m writing it because I need to process what the hell just happened to me. Maybe putting it into words will help me make sense of it all.

How it started

The collaboration began with excitement and genuine belief in a shared vision. A “friend” I’d known for 13 years approached me with an opportunity to contribute to his newly founded startup. It seemed natural. After all, we had history.

Note: I use the term “friend” here to describe how long we’d known each other. But I never viewed this as a standard friendship. The lines were always blurred, and looking back, that was the first problem.

I made two mistakes:

Mistake #1: No contract. Why complicate things with paperwork between people who know each other, right? Wrong.

Mistake #2: Mixing professional and personal boundaries. The lines were blurred from day one, and I convinced myself that was okay.

I delivered substantial work. I invoiced at rates far below market value, motivated by goodwill and the naive belief that fairness would prevail.

Everything was fine. Until it wasn’t.

The broken promises before the payment drama even started

Before we even got to the money situation, there was the employment issue.

I was promised a permanent recruitment opportunity with specific dates: February 1st, then March 1st, then April 1st, then “just after Eid” (which occurred between April 30th and May 1st). Each deadline dissolved into vague explanations and casual postponements, as if my time and my precarious circumstances meant nothing.

I sent my resume on March 21st with his business associate CC’d. No acknowledgment. No “we received it,” no “we’re reviewing it.” Nothing.

A week later, I got a casual voice message announcing yet another postponement, like this was all perfectly normal.

That voice message, so nonchalant, so dismissive of everything I’d invested, was the final straw. I ended the collaboration entirely in late March 2025.

The nine-month nightmare

When I ended the collaboration, I sent a detailed, professional email explaining my decision. I invoiced for my work fairly, transparently, and still well below market rates. I gave a three-month deadline: payment due by the end of June 2025.

Then came the pattern that would define the next nine months:

Silence. Weeks of silence.

When he finally responded, it was always variations of the same theme:

• “I’m going through difficulties”.
• “Circumstances beyond my control”.
• “I got a lot on my plate”.
• “I’m sick”.
• “Just a bit more patience”.
• “Technical issues with transfers”.
• “I promise, soon”.

I sent follow-ups. I adjusted deadlines. As June 30th approached with only one small payment made on May 3rd, he asked for understanding of his “difficult situation.” Against my better judgment, I canceled the deadline entirely, choosing to trust his word.

He abused that flexibility immediately.

What followed was an endless cycle:

• I’d send a polite reminder → Silence for days, even weeks.
• I’d follow up more firmly → Same excuses.
• I’d set a new deadline → Ignored.
• Rinse and repeat.

I was in Morocco temporarily when this shit happened. Only when I told him I needed my money urgently to go back to Canada (it all happened suddenly and fast) did he wire me another small fraction. It was July 4th.

What being disrespected felt like

After I returned to Canada on July 8th, we agreed to switch completely to Wise from Western Union and Remitly.

But first, some context: Amidst all this mess, I made it clear that only email was allowed for communication. I deleted WhatsApp (associated with my previous Moroccan phone number) specifically so I wouldn’t have to deal with his annoyingly casual audio messages. He had this tendency to respond to my lengthy, professionally written emails with mundane, casual voice messages. He kept insisting on WhatsApp communication. I refused again and again. He kept insisting, so I ended up installing Signal against my will just to give him a way to reach me.

He contacted me on Signal for the first time on July 12th. By July 13th, we agreed to switch to Wise.

Between July 19th and 21st, things happened in this order: I reactivated my Wise account and asked him if it was okay. He sent me an audio message saying he’d wire me the rest gradually and asked for my Wisetag (a sort of QR code for payment). I agreed and sent it.

Then, on July 24th, I sent him a simple message asking when I should approximately expect my first payment. Nothing.

July 26th: “So?” Still nothing.

July 28th: “Yep, always the same scheme. Why am I not even surprised?” Still nothing.

July 30th: “I’d never imagined that you’d disrespect me like this. I’m disappointed in you. Your behavior only confirms what I’ve always outlined in my emails to you.” Still nothing.

Between July 24th and 30th, I was talking to a ghost on Signal.

When I stopped playing his game

By August, I was emotionally exhausted. I was living in precarious circumstances, struggling financially, completely alone in Canada. And here was someone I’d known for 13 years treating me like my time, my work, my survival didn’t matter.

Then I made a decision: strategic withdrawal.

I sent one final, extra firm message on September 1st. No more explaining. No more justifying my right to be paid. Just a clear statement: pay what you owe via Wise by September 15th. No communication, no excuses, no justifications. Just the money I desperately needed.

Then I went silent.

The effect was immediate and dramatic. Suddenly, I was being pursued.

He sent me his last audio message on Signal on September 2nd (probably a reply to that email). I refused to listen to it and deleted my Signal account altogether. He sent emails with subject lines like “are you here?” that I refused to open. I just wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine. I wanted him to feel what it means to be ignored and disrespected.

All I wanted was my money. All of it.

But on September 17th, he paid a smaller amount through Wise. The amounts he sent were getting smaller and smaller each time.

I had everything recorded on the invoice I sent him. It was a shared Google spreadsheet with two sheets: the invoice itself and a payment tracker. There was no room for misleading records.

The rest of September went on. Nothing.

October went on. Still nothing.

Then, November came. Still nothing.

No other payments to clear the full balance. That’s when I decided to take strategic withdrawal to the next level: request a Wise payment every week with no comment, just the full amount due. If he ignored the notification, I’d just request a new payment again. Rinse and repeat.

It didn’t work. Like I didn’t exist. Like I didn’t matter.

I knew I couldn’t keep going like this. It felt more humiliating already.

So on November 11th, I sent one last warning: “Last communication – Pay the rest of the balance.” It was a shared Google Document with viewing access only. I didn’t want to use email since I couldn’t take any more of his excuses. I didn’t want to give him any chance to elaborate on his bullshit.

He requested editing access to that document and wrote a message saying “he wants to communicate.”

Communicate what exactly? More excuses? More justifications? More “please give me more time”?

I refused to open communication. All I wanted was my money so I could move on with my life. How hard could this be? My patience already wore thin.

What he did instead was send me two micro-payments—insultingly small, one-figure amounts via Wise at odd hours, always accompanied by desperate messages asking me to “communicate” and “understand.” These weren’t payments. They were attempts to maintain control, to keep me in the cycle of hoping and waiting. They both occurred on November 19th and 22nd.

I kept silent. Didn’t budge.

For eight months, I had been the one chasing. Now, the tables had completely turned.

Then, on November 30th, he shared a Google Document asking if he could send me a four-figure amount (smaller than what was due) by Western Union because of some technical issue with Wise. I agreed.

The ninth month of this entire circus had officially begun.

December 2nd, he sent me a video to watch, attached a message that it would be even less money (three-figures now) and asked me to reply ASAP.

I was tired and sick already. Here was another broken promise! I completely refused to watch the video because I assumed it was just him making excuses again. I had to ignore it to protect my sanity, which was already suffering from all of this.

December 3rd, I received another one-figure micro-payment on Wise asking which “area” I lived in. I understood he needed to know my province and city for Western Union. That’s what the video was about, it finally occurred to me. But I refused to watch it. With the hell he’d put me through, I despised hearing his voice or looking at his face. So I had an AI analyze it for me. The video was him at Western Union asking for my details.

The same day, I reluctantly sent him my Western Union details via email. I had to agree, against every fiber of my being, to accept the smaller amount he was now offering.

I was very clear in my email: my delay in responding to his video was purely self-protection. After nine months, I instinctively assumed the video was just another elaborate attempt to recycle his endless list of excuses. My frustration was compounded by the fact that he took the unilateral decision to decrease the amount again, completely ignoring my desperate financial needs that had persisted for so long.

I told him that since all previous deadlines had proven worthless, he should just pay the rest of the debt whenever he could manage it, if ever.

Then I typed one single sentence that changed everything: “Otherwise, at least I know who you are now.”

I meant it simply: someone who doesn’t keep their word, who makes promises they can’t fulfill, who blames everything except themselves.

WTF, man!? Seriously?

All hell broke loose. What came back the very next day (December 4th) was an explosion.

When I read his response, my first thought was literally: “WTF, man!? Seriously?”

I realized it was time to put an end to all of this nonsense and say goodbye.

For a second, I wondered if he was drunk. But no, he’s not an alcoholic. And his message came hours later, not immediately. He had time to think, to process, to choose his words.

And he chose to insult me.

I was accused of:

• Despising men.
• Being materialistic and money-obsessed.
• Psychological manipulation and blackmail.
• Having a “true nature” that my circumstances (being single, struggling) somehow revealed.

That’s a new low, to say the least.

Let me break down what he actually said:

He multiplied the amount I was owed by 100 (turning a four-figure sum into six figures) and sarcastically suggested I’d “swim in it” as the gold-digger I apparently was. This was his ultimate, desperate move to make my valid claim feel shameful and trivial. He was trying to minimize the real debt while maximizing the label of “greedy woman” he’d slapped on me.

But the self-deception didn’t stop there. He actually prayed to God for victory over me. Think about that audacity. He took a simple, overdue financial obligation and tried to frame it as a cosmic battle between good (him, the debtor) and evil (me, the woman asking to be paid). He needed to believe he was morally superior to justify refusing to pay me.

He even compared me to his brother, who supposedly works for him for free, and to a business associate who betrayed him financially. How delusional can you get? I was neither his sibling to display some kind of endless solidarity, nor a business partner who screwed him over. I was a freelancer who delivered high-quality work and expected fair payment in return. Nothing more, nothing less.

And then came the final ridiculous moment: he threatened to bring in “legal evidence” just to prove he was somehow “ethically better” than me. It sounded like a kid daring me on the playground. You can’t win “ethical points” when you owe someone money. A person’s ethics are shown by whether they keep their promises, not by their last-minute empty, legal threats. To talk about being “ethical” while refusing to pay a debt you’ve owed for nine months? Pure bullshit.

Think about the absurdity: he basically spit on the money with his insults and then expected me to accept it. He had the audacity to send me peanuts whenever he felt like it, while attacking my character and womanhood. He wanted me to take his toxic money and be grateful for it.

I didn’t cry when I read his toxic, delusional reply. I wasn’t even shocked.

I was just numb.

Processing with my brain, not my heart, what the absolute fuck had just happened. This was a man I’d known for 13 years. Someone I’d believed respected women, admired women, spoke well of women.

The mask had completely dropped.

The absurdity of his victim complex

Let me be clear about the absurdity of his accusations: He claimed I was obsessed with money and “despised men.”

Meanwhile, the facts:

• I charged him rates far below market value.
• I canceled the June deadline out of compassion for his “difficulties”.
• I waited nine months with endless patience (March to December 2025).
• I only asked for what was legitimately owed for work already delivered.

If I were truly the gold-digger he described, I would have:

• Charged market rates (3-5x what I invoiced).
• Demanded payment immediately.
• Pursued legal action without hesitation.

Instead, I gave flexibility, patience, and understanding far beyond what any professional relationship should require.

But here’s what really happened: I dared to set boundaries. I dared to say “no more excuses.” I dared to stop being endlessly patient and understanding.

And to someone with his inflated entrepreneurial ego, a woman who refuses to be docile and overly accommodating is intolerable. My insistence on being paid wasn’t seen as a legitimate professional demand. It was seen as an attack on his manhood, his honor, his masculine authority.

He took my boundaries as an insult to his virility.

I gave him a taste of his own medicine with my strategic withdrawal, making him feel what I’d felt for months. And he snapped completely.

Whereas I had tried to keep my cool for as long as humanly possible. Even when I changed my tone and became more assertive, I never attacked his identity as a man. I criticized his actions, not his worth as a person.

He, on the other hand, went straight for my womanhood.

Would he have treated a man this way?

The answer is obvious: No.

Imagine if I were a man, a freelance consultant or service provider he’d hired formally. Would he have:

• Ignored my messages for weeks?
• Sent micro-payments as insults?
• Expected endless patience and understanding?
• Called me materialistic for wanting payment?

Absolutely not.

A man demanding payment would be seen as professional, assertive, protecting his interests.

But me? A woman? I’m supposed to be:

• Understanding (of his “circumstances”).
• Patient (indefinitely).
• Accommodating (of broken promises).
• Silent (about my own struggles).

How dare I claim what’s mine? How dare I set boundaries? How dare I refuse to wait forever?

In his twisted, misogynistic worldview, my assertiveness wasn’t professional. It was an attack on his masculine authority.

And the ultimate irony? He worked himself into such a victim complex that he actually prayed to God against me. He genuinely believed he was the wronged party, that divine justice would vindicate him against the “gold-digging misandrist” who dared to ask for payment.

The level of delusion is staggering.

The decision

I sat with his message for hours. The insults burned. The accusations stung. But more than anything, I felt an overwhelming sense of clarity.

This money had become toxic.

If I accepted it now, after those poisonous words, I would be accepting his narrative about me. I would be validating his right to disrespect me, to attack my character, to treat me as less-than just because of my gender.

I made my decision: I canceled the debt. Entirely.

Not as a gift to him. Not out of kindness or weakness. But as the price I was willing to pay to never tolerate his disrespect for one more second.

I wrote my farewell message, starting literally with “WTF, man!? Seriously?” and dismantled every single one of his accusations. I explained exactly why his words were unacceptable. I pointed out the absurdity of his victim complex.

And then I told him: Keep your money. All of it. My dignity is worth more than any amount you could pay me.

I can put up with a lot of crap to navigate difficult situations. Financial struggle? I’ll manage. Precarious circumstances? I’ll survive.

But disrespect? Toxicity? Misogyny? I become ruthless. So ruthless that I can make you wonder: “Is that really her?”

Yes. It is. Because some lines can’t be crossed without consequences.

What I know now (for myself, not as lessons for anyone else)

I’m not writing this to teach anyone anything. These are just things I now know, things I’m reminding myself of:

Always have legal protection. No matter how well you know someone, get it in writing. Trust is beautiful, but contracts protect that trust from being weaponized.

Watch for manipulation patterns. Consistent broken promises plus always blaming external forces plus making you feel guilty for having boundaries equals manipulation, not circumstance.

Set boundaries early. I waited too long. By the time I used strategic withdrawal, I was already exhausted. Boundaries should be set calmly, not desperately.

Misogyny reveals itself under pressure. Some men seem progressive until a woman holds them accountable. Then you see what was always underneath.

Don’t become the very thing you hate. As I build my own ventures, this experience is my blueprint of exactly what NOT to become. Success should never be an excuse for disrespecting others.

Who I am now

I’m not the same person who entered this collaboration with naive trust.

I’m someone who knows her worth isn’t negotiable. I’m someone who understands that walking away is sometimes the most powerful action available. I’m someone who will never again sacrifice dignity for financial security.

The money? I’m at peace with it.

I believe God will compensate me for this loss, multiplied many times over. I trust in that more than I ever trusted in payment accompanied by humiliation.

But my self-respect? That’s priceless and irreversible.

Money can be earned back. Dignity, once traded away, can never be fully restored.

Why this happened

I prayed for signs that I was taken for granted, being taken advantage of. Those prayers were answered, not gently, but unmistakably.

Sometimes painful situations aren’t punishment. They’re preparation. I needed to learn:

• How to recognize manipulation clearly.
• How to set boundaries without apology.
• How to choose self-respect over money.
• How to walk away from toxicity, even when it costs me everything.

These aren’t lessons you learn from books. You learn them by living through fire and deciding who you want to be on the other side.

I don’t have all the answers or the wisdom of the world. But I can tell you this: I walked away from money I desperately needed, and I have zero regrets.

Because at the end of the day, I have to live with myself. And I choose to live as someone who knows her worth, someone who refuses to be diminished by anyone else’s words or actions.

Some prices are too high to pay, even when you’re broke.

He might regret it someday. He might not. But he won’t walk away from this without consequences.

Because one does not simply walk all over me and face zero consequences. You just don’t get to.

And once some lines have been crossed, there is no going back.

Checkmate.

P.S. I kept his name and the specific amounts out of this because, unlike him, I have standards. I don’t care if he recognizes himself reading this. That’s between him and his conscience.

Featured image courtesy of Unsplash.