The marriage of Elon and Justine Musk from her words (and quick analysis--in CAPS)

Justin admitted to loving older men and she was tortured, being a writer who was DRIVEN to make her own books and see it in the shelf. It was clear that she caught Elon's innocent heart and she was not prepared for the whirlwind that her very capable businessman genius husband would offer her in their life together.

From her first person essay

Still, there were warning signs. As we danced at our wedding reception, Elon told me, "I am the alpha in this relationship." I shrugged it off, just as I would later shrug off signing the postnuptial agreement, but as time went on, I learned that he was serious.

(YOU ARE DANCING. NATURALLY LET THE MALE LEAD. JUSTINE WAS SADLY NOT AWARE THAT A SUCCESSFUL WIFE PROMOTES AND ENCOURAGES AND FAVORS HER HUMBLE OR SUCCESSFUL HUSBAND'S JOYS AND DREAMS)

He had grown up in the male-dominated culture of South Africa, and the will to compete and dominate that made him so successful in business did not magically shut off when he came home. This, and the vast economic imbalance between us, meant that in the months following our wedding, a certain dynamic began to take hold. Elon's judgment overruled mine, and he was constantly remarking on the ways he found me lacking. "I am your wife," I told him repeatedly, "not your employee."

"If you were my employee," he said just as often, "I would fire you."

(THERE ARE DUTIES IN EVERY RELATIONSHIP AND IN MARRIAGE WHERE HE WILLINGLY PROVIDES MEANS THAT SINCE SHE DOESN"T NOR IS EXPECTED TO SHE IS EXPECTED TO AT LEAST BE YIELDING TO THE WORKER BEE HUSBAND, FOR THEIR PEACE AND HAPPINESS. AND ACCEPTING THE BLESSINGS OF THIS WEALTH! WHY WOULD SHE INSIST THAT IT IS A VAST IMBALANCE WHEN THEY ARE ALREADY MARRIED? TO BE A WIFE IS TO BE A HELPMATE.

ALSO HE IS RIGHT, IF THERE IS AN EMPLOYEE THAT WOULD KEEP SUBVERTING MY PLANS AS THE LEADER OF THE TEAM, HE OR SHE WOULD NOT BE CALLED BACK.)

By the time eBay bought PayPal in 2002, we had moved to Los Angeles and had our first child, a boy named Nevada Alexander. The sale of PayPal vaulted Elon's net worth to well over $100 million. The same week, Nevada went down for a nap, placed on his back as always, and stopped breathing. He was 10 weeks old, the age when male infants are most susceptible to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). By the time the paramedics resuscitated him, he had been deprived of oxygen for so long that he was brain-dead. He spent three days on life support in a hospital in Orange County before we made the decision to take him off it. I held him in my arms when he died.

Elon made it clear that he did not want to talk about Nevada's death.

(HE IS MALE. THEY ARE MADE DIFFERENTLY FROM US FEMALES.)

I didn't understand this, just as he didn't understand why I grieved openly, which he regarded as "emotionally manipulative." I buried my feelings instead, coping with Nevada's death by making my first visit to an IVF clinic less than two months later. Elon and I planned to get pregnant again as swiftly as possible. Within the next five years, I gave birth to twins, then triplets, and I sold three novels to Penguin and Simon & Schuster. Even so, Nevada's death sent me on a years-long inward spiral of depression and distraction that would be continuing today if one of our nannies hadn't noticed me struggling. She approached me with the name of an excellent therapist. Dubious, I gave it a shot. In those weekly sessions, I began to get perspective on what had become my life.

We were breathing rarefied air. The first crowded apartment we'd shared in Mountain View seemed like ancient history from our 6,000-square-foot house in the Bel Air hills. Married for seven years, we had a domestic staff of five; during the day our home transformed into a workplace. We went to black-tie fundraisers and got the best tables at elite Hollywood nightclubs, with Paris Hilton and Leonardo DiCaprio partying next to us. When Google cofounder Larry Page got married on Richard Branson's private Caribbean island, we were there, hanging out in a villa with John Cusack and watching Bono pose with swarms of adoring women outside the reception tent. When we traveled, we drove onto the airfield up to Elon's private jet, where a private flight attendant handed us champagne. I spent an afternoon walking around San Jose with Daryl Hannah, where she caused a commotion at Starbucks when the barista asked her name and she said, blithely, "Daryl."

It was a dream lifestyle, privileged and surreal. But the whirlwind of glitter couldn't disguise a growing void at the core. Elon was obsessed with his work: When he was home, his mind was elsewhere. I longed for deep and heartfelt conversations, for intimacy and empathy. (RIDE WITH HIS INTERESTS)

And while I sacrificed a normal family life for his career, Elon started to say that I "read too much," shrugging off my book deadlines. This felt like a dismissal, and a stark reversal from the days when he was so supportive. (GIRL, YOU ARE STILL WORKING ON YOUR BOOKS, TREATING YOURSELF AS A STARVING ARTIST, WHEN YOU HAVE THE WEALTHY HUSBAND THAT BYPASSES YOUR DREAM?!)

When we argued — over the house or the kids' sleeping schedule — my faults and flaws came under the microscope. I felt insignificant in his eyes, and I began thinking about what effect our dynamic would have on our five young sons.

(WHY ARGUE WHEN YOU SHOULD BE CONFORMING TO THE HEAD OF THE HOME? THIS WAS TAUGHT TO ME EARLY, DON'T BE THE HORSE THAT RUNS THE OPPOSITE WAY OF YOUR SPOUSE/ HUSBAND BECAUSE THE RIDE WILL BE ROCKY)

In the spring of 2008, eight years after our wedding, a car accident served as my wake-up call. The moment of impact seemed suspended in time: The details of the other driver's face, looking at me in horror as she held a cell phone to her ear, were so clear it was like the distance between us didn't exist. There was a crunch of metal as her car plowed into mine, and when we skidded to a halt, my first thought wasn't, Thank God nobody's hurt. It was, My husband is going to kill me. And in my mind's eye, I could suddenly see myself: a woman who'd gotten very thin, and very blonde, stumbling out of a very expensive car with the front-left wheel smashed in.

I barely recognized myself. I had turned into a trophy wife — and I sucked at it. I wasn't detail-oriented enough to maintain a perfect house or be a perfect hostess.

(GET HOUSEHELP, GOOD HEAVENS. IF YOU KNEWHOW TO SPEAK LIFE TO HIM AND BRING PEACE AND JOY HE WOULD PROVIDE FOR YOU ON THISE NEEDS TOO.)

I could no longer hide my boredom when the men talked and the women smiled and listened. I wasn't interested in Botox or makeup or reducing the appearance of the scars from my C-sections. And no matter how many highlights I got, Elon pushed me to be blonder. "Go platinum," he kept saying, and I kept refusing.

(GOSH, WHAT DOES IT COST YOU? WE DO THEIR DELIGHTS AND DO NOT ADD THEIR DISMAY.)

Not long after the accident, I sat on our bed with my knees pulled up to my chest and tears in my eyes. I told Elon, in a soft voice that was nonetheless filled with conviction, that I needed our life to change. I didn't want to be a sideline player in the multimillion-dollar spectacle of my husband's life. I wanted equality. I wanted partnership. I wanted to love and be loved, the way we had before he made all his millions.

Elon agreed to enter counseling, but he was running two companies and carrying a planet of stress. ( YOU HAVE BEEN EMPATHETIC ENOUGH BUT DIDN'T CARRY IT OUT ULTIMATELY. IT BECAME IN THE END ALL ABOUT YOU ALSO.) One month and three sessions later, he gave me an ultimatum: Either we fix this marriage today or I will divorce you tomorrow, by which I understood he meant, Our status quo works for me, so it should work for you. (YOU SHOULD HAVE WORKED HARDER?)

He filed for divorce the next morning. I felt numb, but strangely relieved.

Eight years after I signed the postnup, I began to understand just what I'd done. I had effectively signed away all my rights as a married person, including any claim to community property except our house, which was to be vested in my name once we had a child. But my lawyer is presenting a legal theory that could render the postnup invalid. A postnup, unlike a prenup, requires a complete financial disclosure because of something called "marital fiduciary duty": the obligation of one spouse to be honest and straightforward in financial dealings with the other. Around the time we signed the agreement, Elon was involved in a significant merger between X.com and a company called Confinity. Together, the two became PayPal and raised the value of Elon's X.com stock by millions of dollars more than what he reported on the postnup. Whether this was deliberate or an oversight, according to my lawyer, it could render the contract fraudulent, and thus invalid — if it weren't for the protection of mediation confidentiality. That period ended not when we left the lawyer's office or when we got married, but only once we'd signed. The question that will determine the outcome of our divorce case, which has been winding its way through the California legal system for more than two years, is a legal one: Should mediation confidentiality trump marital fiduciary duty, or vice versa? Two years after our separation, we ended up in court. The judge ruled in Elon's favor, but stressed that the case was "a long cause matter" and immediately certified it for appeal. Resolution is at least a year away.

In the months after our separation, I dyed my hair dark and cut it. I also developed a friendship that gradually deepened into romance with a man I'd known casually for years. One night he took me to a reading of Eve Ensler's new play. "This is power-woman central," he said, as we watched Arianna Huffington hold court in the front row. As he pointed out other prominent women in the audience, I realized the kind of social world I'd been living in: The females who populated it were the young wives and girlfriends of wealthy men, or the personal assistants who catered to them. Women disappeared after some point in their 30s, and any female ambition other than looking beautiful, shopping, and overseeing the domestic realm became an inconvenience. Being in that audience, watching that staged reading, I felt myself reclaim the freedom to write my own life.

Although I am estranged from Elon — when it comes to the children, I deal with his assistant — I don't regret my marriage. I've worked through some anger, both at Elon for rendering me so disposable, and at myself for buying into a fairy tale when I should have known better. But I will always respect the brilliant and visionary person that he is. I also can't regret the divorce (our case was bifurcated, which means that even though the property issues aren't settled, our marriage is legally dead). Elon and I share custody of the children, who are thriving. I feel grounded now, and deeply grateful for my life.

And something unexpected happened: Throughout the divorce proceedings, his fiancée and I discovered we liked each other. (THIS IS SAD. YOU HAD NO RESPECT FOR YOUR MARRIAGE BOND WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN FOREVER.)