Author’s Note: Unlike many of my challenges, this one is pretty simple and straightforward. Hopefully you will have some suspense filled moments! Please send me pics of your Stepford Wife and her A-hole of a husband. Looking forward to it.

BACKGROUND
You live in a world of few choices and many repercussions. A world not of your choosing, but of another’s design. You pause a moment in front of a mirror and consider your reflection. No hair out of place…check; makeup flawless…check; clothes neatly pressed….check. You exit your room and pause by the children’s bedrooms. Kids clean and playing quietly…check. Your “mental checklist” continues throughout the house until you hear the key turn in the front door lock. Your body tenses involuntarily as you whisper a silent prayer under your breath that you haven’t missed anything.

Your husband, the man who pledged his love to you always, enters his home and you greet him warmly. As per the usual routine, he immediately hands you his coat and hat and you place them neatly in the foyer closet. “How was your day dear?” you ask in a well-practiced pleasant voice. He barely acknowledges you as he begins his inspection only pausing to ask what you were serving for dinner. You follow him dutifully into the library and notice him running a finger over his expensive collection Shakespearean classics. He turns his hand toward you revealing the dust that had gathered on his fingertips. The next twenty minutes are a barrage of berating comments about your lack of appreciation for the life you have been given and how an evening of hard work might remind you to do a proper job dusting. A mixture of rage and despair wells inside of you but you slouch your shoulders in defeat. After dinner, you will dust the entire house for his "approval" and will not be permitted to go to bed until you have it. If only there was a way out...

GOALS
The intent of this challenge is to provide a realistic experience of being in a household that is completely controlled by your spouse. The roles could be reversed for you guys out there who wish to play (or you could even portray yourself as the egocentric control freak husband if you like). You have 30 days to make 15,000 simoleons (without your spouse knowing) in order to afford bus tickets for you and your children to another town, buy a small home, furniture, etc. At challenge start, you will live in a beautiful home, drive the best cars, and essentially enjoy the finer things in life; however, nothing belongs to you.

GENERAL GAME PLAY
1. Aging must be turned off. This challenge takes place over a very finite period of time. The 30 day time period can be equated to 30 days in the real world. Children won’t age up that quickly.
2. You may not control your spouse. If he chooses to stay home from work, then you are just out of luck. The only exception is if he is about to get fired (which is not likely to happen for a workaholic) or if he is about to die (to save him).
3. Seasons may be set as you like.
4. Dad does not tolerate pets; however, to add bit of spice, one of the kids can hide a pet in his/her room and pray dad doesn’t find out. If he does, it will raise his suspicions about you (see the suspicions section below).
5. Nothing is automatic. You must physically shop for groceries. If you paint a portrait, you must take it to the consignment store, etc.


THE “PERFECT” FAMILY
Spouse #1: The spouse you are attempting to flee must have the snob, , workaholic, family oriented (he wants more children to tie you down and add to his showcase), flirty (I have my reasons), and hot headed. Use the mailbox cheat to set him at Level 7 (Vice-President) in the business industry. It’s recommended that you not do anything to get him promoted since his hours out of the house will go down beyond that level.
Spouse #2 (You): Your skills must include natural cook, neat, nurturing, shy (from years of mental abuse), and fill in the rest as you see fit. She should not have any marketable traits (that would aid in making money) to add to the feeling of helplessness.
Children: You must start with 2 children (one child and one toddler). Each child must have the rebellious trait as soon as they are able to have it (due to their strained upbringing) and have a “dislike” relationship with dad.

EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED….ALMOST
Start out by locating a nice home with a sufficient amount of bedrooms. The house should be at least 100,000 simoleons or more. It should be immaculately decorated. Purchase at least two expensive cars. You are permitted a vehicle for running errands/getting groceries, etc. Use whatever money cheats you need to obtain this. The house should not appear “kid friendly” so no tree houses or other outdoor children’s items. Dad is more concerned about his career and complete control over his family.
I highly recommend Bridgeport or Monte Vista for this challenge. Any town with a separate “rich” neighborhood works well.


LIVING BY "HIS" RULES ALONE
Essentially this is a list of what is expected of you. If you fail in any of these areas, your spouse will become suspicious.
1. You are a representative of your husband’s status (i.e. an object) and you are expected to look your best at all times. No wearing the same outfit every day. Your “everyday” outfit should be different each day and be well coordinated. (This is optional if you have a ton of custom content and planning your clothes would be a pain,.
2. Your home is to be immaculate. You don’t go to bed with dirty dishes or leave a bed unmade. When your husband arrives home every day, nothing should be out of place. You may not use a maid (unless you are paying for it with your own money and your spouse never catches the maid at the house).
3. Your children must be enrolled in Smuggsworth Prep School. Regardless of how much you may miss them or how much they beg to come home, until you have the $$$ to leave you follow your husband’s wishes.
4. You must prepare breakfast for your husband before he goes to work and have dinner ready when he arrives home.
5. You must perform your “wifely duties” whether you wish to or not. Whenever he wants to woohoo, you must oblige him. Furthermore, your spouse wants more children for his showcase, if he gets a wish to have a baby, you must act on that.
6. His needs come first. If he has a wish for something that his wife can provide, then she must provide it. For example, if he wants to go out on a date with her, that wish must be saved and carried out. If he wants to eat something in particular, she must make it. If a cleaning wish comes up, save it and have her take care of it before deleting the wish. He sees himself as your priority, even above the children. If the baby needs a change and your husband needs breakfast, you're expected to cook the breakfast first.
7. You must entertain and show off his possessions (including yourself) at twice per week. One of these parties must be held at your home and you must prepare the food, serve the guests, make small talk, and otherwise ensure the party is a success. You may not wear the same dress twice to an event and you must look pefect.
8. You must be a dutiful wife. No arguing, do what you’re told, spend as much time as possible seeing to his needs. As in the prologue, if you screw up, give yourself a suitable punishment that he would give you.
10. You are not permitted to work. Being his wife is your full-time job (at least in his mind). Honestly all part-time jobs take place in the evening (when he is home) and a full-time job really isn’t an option either.
11. You may not engage in money-making activities. Obviously you’re going to be breaking that rule; however, he cannot know it. If you have an easel or sculpting bench in the house, you must sell any items made before he arrives home.
12. The children must be raised properly and be obedient. Toddlers must learn to walk, talk, and use the potty as well as read the toddler books. If children misbehave, that is a reflection on you and you will get some sort of punishment for it.
13. All guests must be greeted by you immediately and you are expected to cater to his co-workers/boss. Your hubby is a serious jerk. If his boss shows "interest" in you, he's not above having you sleep with him just to get a promotion out of it. To him that's you doing your part!
14. There must always be groceries in the fridge and you may not make anything unless you have the ingredients. If a dish has a price next to it, you do not have the ingredients to make it. No pizza deliveries. He wants a full meal prepared.
15. You must behave like a lady at all times. If he (or his friends) see you doing questionable things (i.e. pilfering a junk yard), he will find out about it and you will raise suspicions.

MAKING MONEY
OK so you’ve got all these limitations, how the heck are you supposed to earn a buck? There are several ways.
1. Collect Items: If you see flowers, insects, etc. get them and sell them.
2. Get crafty. By that, I mean pick something you can make money doing (i.e. writer, painter, sculptor, inventor, etc.). Keep in mind you aren’t supposed to be doing this. If he sees a painting on the easel or block of clay on the sculpting bench, you're raised his suspicions.
3. Fishing is fine but gardening isn’t as he will not permit a garden on his land.
4. Trips to the junkyard and dumpster diving are fine; however, if any of his friends see you, they will tell him and raise suspicions.
5. You may take on “ambitions” jobs like tattoo artist, stylist, etc.
6. If you can think of any other methods that make sense in this situation, go for it.


KEEPING THINGS SEPARATE
Make sure you keep track of how much money your character actually has! He is going to be coming home with a check every day that cannot count toward your income. The same goes for any other savings that you did not earn yourself.


BABYSITTERS
Your husband will not pay for a babysitter (that’s what he has you for). If you desperately need one, you will have to pay the bill. The only exception is when you are both going out for the evening. You may also use his money for a handyman.


RAISING SUSPICIONS
If you get busted for doing something against his rules or not taking care of your obligations, then he will be become suspicious (he is a paranoid SOB).
If suspicions are aroused, have him call into work and take the next work day off. During that day, he will watch you like a hawk so you will be restricted to normal duties (and not make any money).
This may not seem like a big deal, but you only have 30 days to earn $15,000. That includes weekends and holidays! That considered, you’ve probably only got about 20 actual days and losing one of them because he came home to a dirty house or found out about your little dumpster diving escapade can be challenging.
You may sneak out of the house while he is asleep but if you aren’t there when he wakes up, you’re busted.

AND THAT'S IT!
Hopefully you enjoy this!

This looks like fun! I don't typically get very far in your challenges because they are really complicated. I will definitely try this

Thanks. I am usually far more detailed but sometimes I just like to knock out a quick challenge. This one took me about 2 hours.

This is great! I'll give this a try once I get my Sim game up and running again :D

I'd love to try this as an Let's Play once I have my gaming rig setup and I'll even link it back here so others can see how it goes. Sounds awfully complicated but I really like it.

Sounds good.

And lol! If you think this is complicated, try my Doomsday challenges. Those will blow your mind

That's for sure! I almost died when reading your Countdown(don't take this as an offense, it's because I get things slow and it is just a wee bit complicated. But I love it!).

This is totally different than your other challenges, Misty! At first, while reading it, I wasn't a big fan of it, as it's not my kind of challenge. But once I finished it definitely grew on me. Bookmarked for when I finish all of your OTHER challenges.

Is this by any chance a prequel to your Escape to Nowhere challenge, Misty?
I'm definitely going to give this challenge a shot once I finish ALL your others!

Kinda...sorta..maybe
I did consider my other challenge while writing this, but I don't think it's officially a prequel (but it could be).

Fuck yeah, I am so gonna try this at some point. Just got some other shit I want to do before starting a new game.

Aging's off for this, but I assume we can age them up sorta like we did in the Escape challenge if we're somehow in danger of ending up with a pile of burritos?

I was just about to crash after a hard day, but starting this is a better idea.

Yes, as always you can age up your infants.
I hate having to deal with them too.
Technically though, if you wanted to prequel this into escape (for those who haven't played that challenge). You could hope that you only have one more child then age up the current child to teen, toddler to child, and infant to toddler and segway right into escape to nowhere.

Baby burrito

Oh my god i cannot wait to do this! I'm thinking of actually filming the challenge and putting it up on youtube because I don't see many people with it up. I will definitely put a link and take a picture of the family. I also can't wait to finish the challenge then continue on with her life. It should make for an interesting story!

this is awesome

Wait... You do know there are women out there that actually choose to live this way because they like it and had to show their husbands the benefits of it? Opps, my years roll playing in a Gor chatroom are coming to the surface. What if I don't want her to move to a new town? What if she moves and finds another guy just like him? This could go on endlessly. Wheels are turning again Mysti. See what you do to me. This is why I have to stay away from a couple of months at a time.

My image of reversing this would be a husband who just wants to support and love his family and a wife that would rather be lead around by the nose so much she punishes herself. LOL To bad they don't have a
people-pleaser trait.

So...If we've got Woohooer, can we use the "Register as Professional" and earn cash via prostitution? The possibilities for drama are endless.

This sounds really fun! Very well thought out.

I turned off aging but I really don't like playing it that way. I am thinking about cranking up the age on infants toddlers, children and teens along with the young adult so that it equals 30 days for all but young adult together and then give the young adult level 30 days.. If your Stepford Wife is created and it says she has 28 days till she ages up then you can set the slider to 32 days. It will go up to 42 days or 48...

Max for babies is 6 days
Toddler - 14
Child - 14
Teenager -28

That means you have plenty of time for your 30 days. Set your child to 14 days and then teen to 16 and you have your thirty days. When that child comes home from boarding school you will know if you won or lost. It also gives you the opportunity to send the younger children off to boarding school to give you a chance at actually making money. The rules say that all kids must go to boarding school. That means that all kids must age up.

If mom isn't out by the time the oldest graduates from Boarding School and she becomes an adult... Then you fail.

Sounds awesome. Will start right now!

Love this challenge Looks hard but it IS called a challenge. I HAVE to try this.

Hey nice idea

Wow now there is an interesting twist. Sure, why not!

I'm currently doing this, it's so fun =D
I'm on day two and I've racked up $2424!
Funny story, my male got abducted by an alien =P I didn't know that, so when he came back I made him and my female Try for a Baby. Well, my female got pregnant and I was all happy & stuff. THen, I saw my male sparkle. I clicked on to his icon and..yes. My male sim is pregnant!
Only in The Sims.