My Future Mil Handed Me A 60-page Prenup At Our Rehearsal Dinner. It Forbade Me From Gaining 20 Lbs Or I’d Lose My Future Kids. I Walked Out, But Should I Have Fought For Him?

The Fallout

The next morning, which should have been our wedding day, I sent messages to all the guests explaining that the wedding was canceled due to irreconcilable differences with Alex’s family. I didn’t give details, but enough people had witnessed the rehearsal dinner that word spread quickly about what Judith had done.

The vendors were furious when they found out Judith had called them preemptively about cancellation because it showed she’d planned this ambush. Several refused to refund her deposit since she’d acted in bad faith.

The wedding venue sued her for the full amount since she’d technically breached contract by sabotaging the event. Within a week, Judith’s reputation in their social circle was destroyed because everyone was talking about how she’d humiliated her son’s fiancé with a surprise prenup at the rehearsal dinner.

I woke up in my childhood bedroom and stared at the ceiling with the glow-in-the-dark stars I’d stuck up there when I was 12. My phone sat on the nightstand buzzing every few minutes with new messages and calls.

I picked it up and saw 63 notifications, most of them from Alex begging me to call him back or just talk for 5 minutes. I couldn’t make myself open any of the texts because seeing his words would make everything hurt worse than it already did.

My mom knocked softly and came in with coffee in my favorite mug from high school, the one with the chipped handle that said “World’s okay daughter,” that Otto had given me as a joke. She sat on the edge of my bed and didn’t say anything, just handed me the coffee and waited while I tried to figure out how to explain what I was feeling.

The wedding was supposed to happen today, and instead, I was back in my childhood room surrounded by old posters and stuffed animals, drinking coffee and trying not to cry. My mom finally asked if I wanted to talk about it, and I shook my head because talking would make it real in a way I wasn’t ready to handle yet.

She squeezed my hand and said she’d be downstairs when I was ready, then left me alone with my coffee and my phone that wouldn’t stop buzzing with messages I couldn’t read.

Talia showed up around noon with bags of Chinese takeout and two bottles of wine, kicking my bedroom door open with her foot because her hands were full. She dumped everything on my bed and announced we were going to deal with the practical stuff today because putting it off would just make everything worse.

We sat cross-legged on my bed with containers of lo mein and fried rice spread between us while she pulled out a notebook and started making a list of everything that needed handling. The apartment lease I shared with Alex was in both our names and had 8 months left on it.

All my stuff was still there mixed in with his stuff and our stuff—3 years of living together packed into 900 sq ft. The honeymoon tickets to Costa Rica were non-refundable and left in two weeks.

The wedding gifts people had already sent needed to be returned with notes explaining why. My name was on half the utilities, the internet bill, and the joint checking account we’d opened to pay for wedding expenses.

Talia wrote everything down in her neat handwriting while I just sat there feeling sick about how complicated breaking up actually was when you’d been planning to get married. She took my phone and started answering calls from vendors asking about final payments and delivery schedules, telling them in her professional voice that the wedding was canceled and they should direct all questions to the groom’s family.

I picked up my food and listened to her handle everything because I couldn’t make my brain work well enough to deal with any of it myself. The wedding planner called Talia’s phone since I wasn’t answering mine and put the call on speaker so we could both hear.

She had an update that actually made me feel slightly better about the whole disaster. Three of the major vendors were refusing to refund Judith’s deposits because her preemptive cancellation calls counted as breaking the contract on her end.

The florist had already ordered $2,000 worth of flowers based on our confirmed order, and Judith calling to put them on standby meant she’d interfered with their business relationship with us. The caterer had purchased all the food for our reception and now had to scramble to either use it or lose it, so they were keeping their $8,000 deposit as damages.

The venue was actually moving forward with a lawsuit against Judith for the full contract amount of $35,000 because she’d basically sabotaged an event she’d legally committed to hosting by calling them before I’d even made my decision. The wedding planner explained that vendors take these contracts seriously, and Judith trying to control the situation before it was actually cancelled gave them grounds to refuse refunds.

She said she’d never seen anything like it in 15 years of planning weddings—someone actually calling vendors to threaten cancellation while the bride and groom were still at the rehearsal dinner. I felt a mean little spark of satisfaction knowing that Judith’s need to control everything was finally costing her real money instead of just costing other people their peace of mind.