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?

Moving Out and Moving On

Otto showed up that evening with his pickup truck and a bunch of empty boxes in the back. He walked into my room and said we were getting my stuff out of the apartment today before things got messier or more complicated.

I started to say maybe we should wait or I should talk to Alex first, but Otto cut me off and said waiting would just make it harder and I needed my things out of there so I could start moving forward. I was grateful he wasn’t asking if I was sure about the breakup or suggesting maybe I should reconsider or telling me that all couples have problems.

He just helped me get dressed in real clothes instead of the pajamas I’d been wearing all day, then drove us to the apartment I’d shared with Alex for the past 2 years. Walking through the door felt wrong because this had been my home and now it was just a place I needed to get my stuff from as fast as possible.

Otto started in the bedroom, pulling my clothes out of the closet we’d shared and folding them into boxes. I packed up the bathroom, sorting through drawers full of mixed-together toiletries and trying not to cry over stupid things like the electric toothbrush we’d bought together or the fancy shampoo Alex always said made my hair smell good.

Every shared item reminded me of some moment or conversation or lazy Sunday morning. All these little pieces of a life we’d been building that was just over now.

Otto found me standing in the bathroom holding a bottle of body wash and crying, and he took it from my hands and packed it himself while I pulled myself together enough to keep going. Alex came home while we were still packing up the living room, and the look on his face when he saw the boxes almost broke me completely.

He stood in the doorway with his keys still in his hand and asked if we could please just talk alone for a minute. Otto looked at me to see what I wanted and I nodded, so he stepped outside but I could see him through the window staying close to the door in case I needed him.

Alex sat down on the couch and said his mother had agreed to apologize to me and promised to stay completely out of our lives if I’d reconsider calling off the wedding. I sat in the chair across from him instead of next to him and asked if he really believed Judith would keep that promise.

He said she’d given him her word and she understood she’d gone too far this time. I asked him if she’d ever kept her word before when she promised not to interfere in his life or his decisions.

He got quiet and I could see him trying to think of an example that would prove me wrong. I asked if he honestly thought his mother would just accept our marriage and leave us alone or if he thought she’d find new ways to control and manipulate us once we were legally tied together.

He said we could set boundaries and make it work if we both tried hard enough. I knew right then that I’d made the right choice even though it hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt before.

Alex couldn’t answer my question about whether he believed his mother would really stay out of our lives because deep down he knew she wouldn’t. He admitted that Judith had always been controlling and invasive and impossible to stand up to for more than a few weeks before she wore him down.

She’d sabotaged his college relationship by convincing his girlfriend’s parents he was irresponsible with money. She’d gotten him fired from his first job out of college because she didn’t think it was prestigious enough and called his boss pretending to be concerned about his drinking problem even though he barely drank.

She’d made his last girlfriend so miserable with constant criticism and boundary violations that the poor woman had a breakdown and moved to another state. Alex told me all this like he was just explaining facts about his life, not recognizing that these were huge red flags about what our marriage would be like.

I said I loved him but I couldn’t marry someone who wouldn’t protect our marriage from his mother’s interference. I told him he needed to figure out who he wanted to be: a husband who put his wife first or a son who would always choose his mother’s approval over his partner’s well-being.

He started crying and said that wasn’t fair; I was asking him to choose between the two most important people in his life. I said no, his mother was asking him to choose by making it impossible for him to have both a relationship with her and a healthy marriage to anyone.

Otto and I finished loading my stuff into his truck while Alex sat on the couch looking destroyed. I found my apartment key on my key ring and held it in my hand for a minute feeling like I was closing a door on the entire future I’d imagined for myself.

I’d pictured us growing old in this apartment or maybe buying a house nearby, having kids who would play in that park down the street, building a whole life together in this neighborhood. Now I was handing back the key and walking away from all of it because his mother had shown me exactly what that life would actually be like.

I gave Alex the key and he took it without saying anything, just looked at me like he was memorizing my face. Otto carried the last box down to the truck and I followed him, closing the apartment door behind me for the last time.