Dating
You had genuine chemistry. Same sense of humor, easy conversation, she seemed actually interested in who you were. A few months in it quietly fell apart, and she was vague about why. A year later she's with someone who makes three times what you do and talks openly about wanting a family.
The chemistry was real. It just wasn't the only criteria.
The game
She's looking for a long-term partner, which means she's evaluating on two dimensions simultaneously: attraction and compatibility on one side, financial stability and future-building potential on the other. She may not have these written down. She may not consciously think of it as a screening process. But the filter is running.
The screening is invisible to you because the signals she sends are genuine. The interest is real. But attraction is necessary, not sufficient. The questions about your work, your ambitions, where you see yourself in five years: those aren't small talk. They're the interview.
You're answering honestly, not knowing you're being evaluated on criteria you can't see.
The equilibrium
This is rational behavior on her side. Long-term partnership has real financial stakes. The fact that the criteria are unstated isn't necessarily deceptive. She may not have articulated them clearly even to herself.
The equilibrium holds because disclosure is costly. Saying "I'm evaluating your financial prospects" on a third date destroys the dynamic. So the screening runs underneath the stated criteria, which are attraction and compatibility, and both things are simultaneously true.
Dominated strategies
Performing financial success you don't have is the dominated strategy. It passes the early filter and fails the later one, at greater cost to both of you.
The better move is to surface the criteria early. Not accusatorially, just directly. What does she want in a long-term partner? What does her life look like in ten years? Most people will answer honestly if you ask, and the answer tells you whether you're being evaluated on terms you can actually meet.