At 10:00 PM on Sunday, August 11, 2024, 44-year-old carpenter Ryan Borgwardt pushed his kayak into the pitch-black waters of Green Lake, one of Wisconsin's deepest lakes. That night marked the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.
At 10:36 PM, he texted his wife Emily: "Might have snuck out to the lake." Emily replied: "Would have been nice to know ahead of time. I was just wondering why you weren't home yet." After he apologized, Emily said: "Not surprised. I should be used to it by now. So many nights, it's late and I don't know where you are." He replied that he would improve their communication and mentioned seeing the pink aurora. Then he sent his final messages: "I love you... good night." "I'm about to come ashore."
He never came ashore.
The next morning at 5:12 AM, Emily woke up alone and desperately sent texts: "Where are you????" By this time, her husband had already executed a plan he had meticulously prepared for months: he capsized his kayak, threw his phone into the lake, paddled back to shore on a pre-positioned children's inflatable boat, retrieved a hidden electric bicycle, rode 66 miles overnight to Madison, boarded a bus to Detroit, crossed the Canadian border, flew to Paris, then transferred to Tbilisi, Georgia, to meet Katya, a Ukrainian woman he had been secretly dating online for eight months.
In the following days, this small town experienced one of the largest search and rescue operations in its history. Police conducted a 54-day search, deploying boats, sonar equipment, underwater drones, and cadaver dogs. Divers repeatedly descended into waters exceeding 200 feet deep. Volunteer Keith Cormican spent 28 days on the lake. The search operation cost over $35,000, but this figure cannot measure the true cost: hundreds of hours of volunteer time, and every day Emily and their three children spent in anguish and uncertainty.
Months later, when police contacted Ryan and eventually convinced him to return, he flew back to the United States on December 10, 2024, and was arrested at the airport. In the subsequent interrogation, sitting at the breakfast table with his eyes fixed on some middle distance, Ryan uttered a shocking statement:
"I believe a spouse should be like a well you can draw from. I wandered around and got thirsty."
He then attempted to shift responsibility onto Emily: "Honestly, the fact that I could pull this off to this extent shows just how uninterested she was in my daily work."
This statement is the key to understanding the entire story. What happens when a person views their spouse as "a well to draw from" rather than as a complete person? What kind of power relationship lies hidden behind this metaphor?
"Like a Well You Can Draw From"
Ryan Borgwardt's statement is not a casual metaphor but a condensed expression of a complete philosophy of relationships. He didn't say "a spouse should be like a spring" (springs flow forth actively), nor "a spouse should be like a river" (rivers flow and change). He said "like a well," and specifically emphasized "you can draw from."
A well is fixed. It is dug in one place and stays there forever. When a spouse is compared to a well, it means she should always be "there"—at home, in the marriage, in that designated position. Emily said: "Not surprised. I should be used to it by now. So many nights, it's late and I don't know where you are." She had been trained to be a well: no matter where he went, she remained in place, waiting.
A well is passive. A well doesn't actively provide water; you need to draw it. When Ryan says "I wandered around and got thirsty," the entire map of power relations has already been drawn in this simple expression. He is the active agent, the wanderer, the one who feels thirsty. The well is the discovered object, the resource to be used, the tool to satisfy others' needs.
Emily is not seen as someone who also "gets thirsty," who also needs nourishment. Ryan complains that Emily is "uninterested in his daily work," but he never mentions whether he's interested in Emily's inner world. This one-directedness is not personal negligence but the inherent logic of the "well" metaphor: wells don't need to be cared for; they only need to provide water.
A well provides resources but has no flow itself. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild proposed the concept of "emotional labor" to describe that invisible, unacknowledged, often unpaid labor. When Ryan says "a spouse should be like a well you can draw from," he is expressing precisely this functionalized understanding of emotional labor: when I'm thirsty, you should have water; when I need it, you should provide; after I draw, you should automatically replenish. I don't need to consider whether the well itself is "thirsty," don't need to pay a price for drawing water.
A well needs to be possessed. A well belongs to someone, to a family. Ryan's fake death plan was so elaborate partly because he couldn't simply "leave." Divorce would mean acknowledging she has the right to leave, acknowledging that this ownership relationship can be terminated. But fake death? Fake death allows him to "release" this ownership while not having to acknowledge she was always free. Fake death lets him maintain moral superiority: he didn't abandon her; fate took him away.
A well must be deep enough to contain secrets. Starting in December 2023, he met Katya online. By April 2024, Ryan began seriously researching how to fake his death. For eight whole months, he lived a double life. Every Sunday, he went to church with Emily and their three children. Every evening, he came home and had dinner with his family. Then he would go upstairs, open his computer, and enter another world.
He expected Emily to be like a well: deep enough to contain these secrets without overflowing, deep enough that he could live at the well's mouth while the well could never see the darkness at the bottom, deep enough that even if occasional traces emerged, she would choose to believe in the surface calm. Psychologist Judith Herman points out that secrecy in intimate relationships creates a fundamental asymmetry. Those in the know hold power; those kept ignorant are in passive and vulnerable positions. When one party keeps major secrets, they actually deprive the other party of the ability to make informed choices.
But Ryan expected more than just ignorance of current secrets. Emily said: "So many nights, it's late and I don't know where you are." This wasn't one night's secret but a long-term pattern. She was trained to be a well that doesn't question. Each time she wanted to ask "where did you go" but held back, the well became a little deeper. Each time she felt lonely and neglected but said "not surprised, I should be used to it," the well became a little deeper.
Sociologist Silvia Federici proposed a radical view in Caliban and the Witch: defining care work as women's "natural" role and removing it from economic exchange is key to maintaining the existing system. The "well" metaphor accomplishes similar work. When we say "a wife should be like a well," we're actually saying: her supply is natural, requires no return, and will never run dry. But wells do run dry. People do get depleted. This is the most dangerous aspect of this metaphor: it conceals the real cost of emotional labor.
River and Well—The Map of Inequality
Ryan's self-description is full of fluidity: "I wandered around and got thirsty." This reveals a core binary opposition in the traditional gender system: males are granted fluidity, females are assigned fixedness.
Sociologist R.W. Connell points out that masculinity is defined through contrast with femininity. Masculinity is associated with external spaces: streets, battlefields, markets, seas. Males are expected to be mobile, adventurous, boundary-breaking. Femininity is associated with internal spaces: homes, wells, gardens. Females are expected to be fixed, reliable, boundary-maintaining.
When Ryan says "I wandered around," he is claiming a privilege—the freedom to move, the right to explore, the possibility of not being bound to a fixed location. And when he expects Emily to be like a well, he is demanding precisely the opposite: she must stay in place, become the fixed point he can return to.
French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir proposed the concepts of "immanence" and "transcendence." Males are constructed as subjects pursuing transcendence—exploring outward, creating, changing the world. Females are constructed as objects remaining in immanence—repeating, maintaining, guarding, serving others. The well metaphor perfectly embodies this immanence—it extends inward (depth) but never flows outward (breadth).
Consider Ryan's escape route. On the night of August 11, he rode approximately 70 miles to Madison, boarded a bus to Detroit, crossed the Canadian border, flew to Paris, then transferred to Georgia. This route spanned three continents and passed through at least six countries. He could: change his mind, change his identity, change locations, change relationships, change national environments, change linguistic environments.
This mobility is not something everyone can possess. It requires: economic resources, physical capability, social default permission (a 44-year-old man riding alone at night, crossing borders, won't arouse much suspicion), emotional freedom (able to focus on his own needs without worrying about the impact on children).
And Emily? What limits her mobility? Three children need care, a life network built over 22 years of marriage, economic dependence, social expectations (good mothers don't abandon their children), emotional responsibility. This isn't to say Emily was "trapped," but rather that Emily's choice space and Ryan's choice space are fundamentally unequal.
Green Lake and the Buoyancy of Truth
Green Lake is not just the physical setting of this case; it is itself a powerful symbol. Ryan chose one of Wisconsin's deepest lakes, with depths exceeding 200 feet. He researched "how deep a body needs to be to not float up." In choosing Green Lake, he chose this depth—deep enough to hide the truth forever.
But he was wrong. From the first day of his disappearance, Emily showed unusual persistence. She knew Ryan best—22 years of marriage. She knew his habits, personality, planning abilities. Her questions were specific: why was the kayak capsized but the tackle box still neatly placed inside? Why wasn't the life jacket worn?
The police indeed didn't give up. They searched continuously for 54 days, but more importantly, they began to notice some unusual things. Police discovered he had searched for how to change driver's licenses, how to clean digital footprints, and how to emigrate abroad before his disappearance. He also searched for the cost of living in Georgia. Financial records revealed that $375,000 life insurance policy. Police contacted the Canadian Border Services Agency, tracked his purchase of tickets to Paris, and ultimately traced him to his whereabouts in Georgia.
Volunteer Keith Cormican spent 28 days on the lake. He said the more they searched, the stranger it felt. When the truth finally came to light, Cormican's reaction was anger and a sense of betrayal: "We were there risking our lives, diving in waters over 200 feet deep. And he was enjoying his new life on another continent."
Green Lake became a symbol—not just the place where Ryan tried to hide the truth, but the place where truth ultimately surfaced. If we view Green Lake as a metaphor, it tells us: depth does not equal permanent concealment. Truth has buoyancy. Ryan researched how deep a body needs to be to not float up, but he overlooked one thing: truth is different from bodies. Bodies are pulled downward by gravity, but truth has an upward force.
The Logic of Possession
In the police interrogation, Ryan said: "Honestly, the fact that I could pull this off to this extent shows just how uninterested she was in my daily work."
This statement deserves careful analysis. Ryan admitted to fake death, deception, and betrayal, but immediately, he attributed the cause to Emily. This is a classic pattern of responsibility shifting: I did X, but that's because you didn't do Y.
The deeper problem is that Ryan's statement presupposes a premise: Emily has a responsibility to be interested in his daily work. This is not a mutual expectation but a one-way expectation. So, was Ryan interested in Emily's daily life? These questions are completely absent from Ryan's narrative.
Psychologist Evan Stark points out in Coercive Control that domestic violence is not just physical violence; more commonly, it's a continuous, systematic control: monitoring the other's actions, isolating their connections, controlling economic resources, devaluing their abilities, setting arbitrary rules and expectations.
Ryan's behavioral pattern fits this "coercive control." He "wandered around," and Emily didn't know where he was—but what about the reverse? Ryan knew where Emily was because Emily was where she should be: at home, with the children, waiting for him to return. This asymmetry is not just informational but about the right to monitor. Emily was trained not to question, not to challenge, not to demand information.
The core assumption of the logic of possession is: the spouse belongs to me. Not as a person with independent will, but as a possession. This sounds extreme, but in many intimate relationships, the logic of "possession" still exists in more covert forms. It manifests in language, in expectations, in reactions during crisis moments.
Ryan did something else before faking his death: he accumulated massive debt. When Emily's mother helped her daughter organize bills during Ryan's "disappearance," she discovered Ryan owed about $80,000 in credit card debt, about which Emily knew nothing. Some of these debts were taken in Emily's name or in their joint names, meaning even if Ryan "died," Emily would still bear the responsibility for repayment. Debt is not just a financial issue; it's also a control tool. Debt creates long-term obligations and constraints, ensuring that even if he "disappeared," she couldn't easily "flow."
Ryan's fake death plan is an extreme expression of the logic of possession. He couldn't simply leave because that would mean acknowledging Emily has the right to know, the right to choose, the right to refuse. Divorce requires Emily's participation, requires acknowledging this is a decision between two people. But fake death? Fake death allows him to unilaterally end the relationship while maintaining moral superiority. He didn't abandon her; he was taken by fate.
Fake death is the ultimate act of possession: I decide when this relationship ends, I decide how it ends, I even decide what kind of emotional response you should have. You don't need to know the truth, don't need to participate in decisions; you only need to accept the script I've written for you.
When Ryan finally returned to the United States and was arrested, the legal system mainly focused on harms that could be proven and quantified: how much public resources were spent, how much police power was wasted. But what about emotional harm? Emily experienced 54 days of uncertainty, pain, and fear, then anger and a sense of betrayal after discovering the truth. Three children lost trust in their father. How do you quantify these? How do you compensate?
Emily filed for an annulment rather than divorce. Annulment means declaring the marriage invalid from the beginning. Emily is asserting: this marriage was built on fraud. Ryan never truly committed to this relationship, never truly treated her as an equal partner, but always treated her as a well to draw from, as property to possess.
Annulment is a thorough rejection. It says: I don't just want to end this relationship; I want to declare it never truly existed. I don't just want to leave you; I want to erase all the ownership you once had over me.
Two Complete People
Why, in the 21st century, does the seemingly outdated notion that "a spouse should be like a well you can draw from" still exist?
First, many people who hold this notion haven't thoughtfully chosen it. They're simply repeating what they've heard, accepting the default script from culture. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu proposed the concept of "habitus": patterns of thinking we internalize through long-term socialization. It's not a conscious choice but becomes something "natural," something "common sense."
But beyond cultural inertia, the "well" metaphor still has a market because it caters to some people's convenient expectations of marriage: "I'm chaotic, you need to be stable"; "I need, you need to have"; "I want freedom, you need to stay home"; "I change, you can't change"; "I'm fragile, you need to be strong."
These expectations are not necessarily malicious or conscious. But even if well-intentioned, even if unconscious, the structure of this metaphor itself is unequal.
In this metaphorical system, males and females are assigned complementary but unequal roles. On the surface, this complementarity might seem balanced: males provide fluidity and change, females provide stability and continuity. But the problem is that this division is not equal exchange but a zero-sum game. More importantly, these two roles are unequal in social value and power distribution. Fluidity, change, outward exploration—these are viewed as positive and valuable. Fixedness, stability, inward guarding—these are seen as taken for granted, not worthy of special recognition.
Gender studies scholar Judith Butler points out that gender is not an innate essence but something "performed" through repeated behaviors. The "well" and "river" metaphors are precisely such a performance script. Butler's important insight is: precisely because gender is performed, it can also be re-performed, can be subverted, can be changed. Emily's ultimate refusal to continue playing the "well" role is a subversion of this performance.
So what should a healthier intimate relationship look like? The answer is not simply reversing roles. The answer is also not completely eliminating elements of stability and flow. The real answer is: both parties should simultaneously be wells and rivers.
As wells: both can provide stability and support, both can be emotional resources for the other, both can be "there" when the other needs, both have depth—rich inner worlds.
As rivers: both can flow and grow, both can explore new possibilities, both can change and adapt, both can pursue their own directions and goals.
The key differences are: reciprocity (mutual nourishment rather than one-way extraction), fluidity (growing together rather than one fixed and one flowing), completeness (both can be complete people), autonomy (two independent individuals choosing to be together).
Sociologist Anthony Giddens points out that the characteristic of modern intimate relationships is the "pure relationship"—based on the emotional satisfaction both parties derive from the relationship itself. Pure relationships are equal, negotiable, and also terminable. Only when both parties have choice can choosing to be together truly mean something.
Psychologist John Gottman, through research on thousands of couples, found that successful long-term relationships require: bidirectionality of emotional responsiveness (both frequently "turn toward" rather than "turn away" from each other), continuous understanding and updating (constantly updating understanding of one's partner), shared meaning systems (co-creating meaning), constructive conflict handling (avoiding criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling).
Ryan's case teaches us this lesson: he expected Emily to be a stable well, always there to draw from. He expected he could be a free river, "wandering around," pursuing new possibilities. The reality is: Emily refused to continue being a well and filed for annulment, demanding sole custody of their three children; the community mobilized 54 days of rescue efforts; police tracked for months; three children lost trust in their father.
Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said: "You picked the wrong sheriff, the wrong department." But more fundamentally: Ryan chose the wrong metaphor. He thought marriage was a combination of a well and a river, thought he could unilaterally define the nature of the relationship, thought he could draw without reciprocating, thought he could escape without bearing consequences. But real intimate relationships require two complete people—capable of both stability and flow, both giving and receiving, both independence and connection, both commitment and growth.
The Dignity of the Well
On the night of August 11, 2024, Ryan Borgwardt sank into deep water of his own choosing—not just the physical depth of Green Lake, but the moral abyss of deception, betrayal, and evasion.
When we define women as wells, we deprive them of: the right to flow, the right to voice, the right to desire, the right to choose, the right to know.
Sociologist Sandra Lee Bartky wrote that the awakening of feminist consciousness is the realization that things presented as "normal" and "natural" are actually socially constructed and can be questioned and changed. Emily's awakening was the realization that "I should be used to it" is not a natural law, not her obligation as a wife, but a pattern that can be terminated.
When a man needs to fake his death to leave a marriage, the problem isn't that the well isn't deep enough, the water isn't clear enough, or the supply isn't abundant enough. The problem is that he never treated her as a complete person who flows, changes, and has her own desires and needs. What he wanted was Green Lake—deep, dark, able to swallow all traces, always there, always available for drawing, never questioning, never changing, never demanding reciprocity.
Emily woke up alone that morning. Her text "Where are you????" ultimately received an answer—not from him, but from her own choice. She chose to no longer wait, no longer accept, no longer be a well. She filed for annulment and demanded sole custody of their three children. She is no longer a waiting well but a river flowing forward.
A well can choose to dry up. More precisely, a well can choose to no longer be a well.
This choice is not just Emily's but the choice of all who are expected to be "wells." This choice is not easy. It means giving up the social recognition of being a "good wife," means facing economic uncertainty, means explaining complex and painful truths to children. But this choice is also liberation. Because people with dignity should all have the right to choose not to be wells.
Or better yet: we should establish a relationship model in which no one needs to be a well. In which both parties can be complete people—both stable and flowing, both giving and receiving, both independent and connected, both committed and growing. In which love is not one-way extraction but mutual nourishment; not possession and being possessed but choosing and being chosen; not a fixed point and a flowing river, but two rivers choosing to run parallel, converge, and flow together toward more expansive places in certain stretches.
Ryan Borgwardt's case left many losses that cannot be measured in days and dollars: a woman who slowly learned over 22 years to accept "not knowing where her husband is" as normal; three children who learned that a father can choose "death" rather than face responsibility; a community that learned to no longer easily trust surface calm.
But some things were also rediscovered: Emily discovered the power within herself to leave, the right to say "no," the ability to choose her own life. The community discovered the depth of caring for each other—54 days of rescue, 28 days of a volunteer on the lake, $35,000 in public investment—this is not weakness exploited by Ryan but proof of human brilliance.
All of us have the opportunity to rethink: what is a truly healthy intimate relationship? What is true love? What is true commitment?
The answer is not a deeper well, nor a freer river. The answer is two complete people, each seeing the other's completeness, choosing to flow together.
References
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press, 1983.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Second Shift. Penguin, 1989.
Federici, Silvia. Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. PM Press, 2012.
Connell, R.W. Masculinities. University of California Press, 1995.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Vintage, 1949/2011.
Giddens, Anthony. The Transformation of Intimacy. Stanford University Press, 1992.
Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence. Basic Books, 1992.
Stark, Evan. Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Gottman, John M. The Science of Trust. Norton, 2011.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990.
Bartky, Sandra Lee. "Toward a Phenomenology of Feminist Consciousness." Social Theory and Practice 3.4 (1975): 425-439.
Bartky, Sandra Lee. "Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power." Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance (1988): 61-86.
