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?

A Hesitant Reconnection

Two weeks after the canceled wedding my phone buzzed with a text from Alex asking if we could meet for coffee to talk. I stared at the message for 10 minutes trying to decide if I should ignore it or block his number or what.

And then I texted back that we could meet Thursday at 3:00 at the coffee shop near the library. Part of me knew this was stupid and I should just move on, but another part of me needed to see him one more time, needed to know if he’d figured anything out or if he was still the same guy who hesitated when I asked if he’d cut his mother out.

Thursday came and I got there 5 minutes early, ordered my usual latte, and sat at a table by the window where I could see him coming. He walked in looking terrible, like he hadn’t been sleeping much, with circles under his eyes and his hair longer than he usually kept it.

He ordered black coffee and sat down across from me and immediately started talking about how much he missed me. How the apartment felt empty without me, how he kept forgetting I wasn’t there and would turn to tell me something before remembering I was gone.

I listened without saying much and watched his hands shake a little when he picked up his coffee cup. Alex told me he’d been setting boundaries with his mother and she was starting to understand she went too far with the prenup thing.

I asked him what boundaries specifically, and he said he was not taking her calls every day anymore and he told her she needed to apologize to me. I asked how she responded to that and he got vague, saying she was processing everything and coming around slowly.

I asked if he’d told her he wouldn’t have a relationship with her unless she respected his choices, and he said he was working up to that conversation. I asked if he was still working at the family business and he said yes, but he was thinking about looking for other jobs.

I asked if he’d moved out of the apartment his parents helped him pay for and he said not yet, but he was considering it. Every answer he gave me was soft and conditional, full of words like “thinking” and “considering” and “working toward.”

And I realized he was still in the exact same place he’d been at the rehearsal dinner. When I pointed this out, he got defensive and said I wasn’t being fair about how hard this was for him, that I didn’t understand what it was like to have a mother like Judith, that he was doing the best he could.

I said I knew it was hard, but avoiding her calls wasn’t the same as setting real boundaries, and thinking about maybe looking for another job wasn’t the same as actually reducing his financial dependence on his family. I put my coffee down and looked at Alex and told him I needed him to understand something important.

I said I didn’t walk away because of one terrible prenup or one awful rehearsal dinner. I walked away because when I asked if he’d cut his mother out of our lives completely, he hesitated.

And that hesitation told me everything I needed to know about what our marriage would be like. I said he was still hesitating now, still trying to find some middle ground where he could keep both his mother and me happy.

And that middle ground didn’t exist because his mother would never accept me and would never stop trying to control his life. I said I loved him but I couldn’t marry someone who wouldn’t protect our relationship from his mother’s constant interference.

And until he was ready to make real changes and not just talk about maybe making changes someday, we didn’t have a future together. He looked like I’d hit him and said he was trying so hard and it wasn’t fair that I was giving up on him.

I said I wasn’t giving up on him, I was choosing myself, and those were two different things. We sat there in silence for a few minutes and then he asked if there was anything he could do to change my mind and I said no.

Not unless he was ready to cut his mother out completely starting today. And we both knew he wasn’t ready for that.

He walked out looking destroyed and I sat there alone finishing my coffee and feeling completely drained, like that conversation had taken every bit of energy I had left.