My husband always treated his mother like a queen and made sure I felt like the runner-up. The day he told her she deserved the front seat of our car more than I did, my heart broke. But I didn’t cry.
I devised a plan. When I finally struck, it was a lesson they’d never forget.
Before we got married, Harry was attentive, thoughtful, and independent. When he proposed, I thought I was marrying a man who’d built his life on his own terms.
There were small things, of course.
Little signs I told myself didn’t matter.
He called his mom, Stephanie, every single day. Sometimes twice. If she had an opinion about something, like what color shirt he should buy, which route he should take to work, or whether he should get a haircut, he listened like she was delivering divine wisdom.
But I brushed it off as sweet.
“He just loves his mom,” I told myself.
“She’s a widow. She raised him on her own. That’s not a bad thing.”
I was so wrong it hurts to think about now.
The moment we got married and moved into our new apartment together, everything shifted.
If Stephanie called during dinner, Harry answered, even if I was mid-sentence, mid-story, or mid-breath.
He’d hold up one finger like I was an interruption, not his wife sitting across from him.
If we had plans and his mom suddenly needed help with moving furniture or picking up groceries, our plans evaporated. No discussion. No apology.
Once, on our anniversary, we were at a restaurant I’d been excited about for weeks.
Halfway through the appetizers, Harry’s phone buzzed.
“Mom’s having a hard night,” he said, already standing. “She feels lonely. I need to go check on her.”
I sat there with two full plates of food and a candle burning between us, watching him leave.
When I tried to talk about it later, he waved me off.
“She raised me alone.
She sacrificed everything.”
“I know, but…”
So I swallowed it. Again and again.
Then, my grandmother died.
She’d raised me after my parents passed away when I was seven. She was my anchor, my safe place, the person who taught me that love didn’t have to be loud to be real.
Losing her felt like losing my foundation.
When I found out she’d left me some money (not a fortune, but enough to feel life-changing), it felt like one last act of love from beyond.
Harry had an idea almost immediately.
“Why don’t you use it to buy a car?” he suggested.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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