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?

Alone in the New Apartment

Moving day came and Otto showed up with his truck to help me transport my stuff to the new apartment. Most of what Alex and I had collected together stayed with him because it was his family’s furniture or things his mother had bought for us, which meant I was moving in with just my clothes, my books, my laptop, and a few kitchen items I’d brought to the relationship.

The apartment looked empty and depressing with just my boxes stacked in the corners and no furniture except the cheap bed frame I’d ordered online. Otto helped me assemble a bookshelf from the discount store and a small table with two chairs.

And Talia showed up later with some throw pillows and a plant and a framed print for the wall to make it feel less like a prison cell. That first night I sat on the floor eating pizza straight from the box because I didn’t have a couch yet.

And I looked around at my sad little apartment and wondered if I’d made a huge mistake throwing away a relationship over family drama. Maybe I should have tried harder to make it work with Alex.

Maybe I should have been more patient while he figured out how to deal with his mother. Maybe I was being too harsh expecting him to choose between us.

The thoughts spiraled in my head until I felt sick and had to remind myself that his hesitation at the rehearsal dinner had told me everything I needed to know. That I deserved someone who would choose me without hesitating.

That being alone was better than being in a relationship where I’d always come second to his mother.

The Smear Campaign

Three weeks after the canceled wedding my mom forwarded me a social media post from someone named Carol Winters who was apparently one of Judith’s close friends. The post didn’t name me directly but it was obviously about me.

Talking about entitled young women these days who don’t appreciate generous families and make impulsive decisions that ruin good men’s lives. It said, “Some women only care about money and status, but when asked to sign a reasonable prenup they show their true colors and run away.”

The post had dozens of comments from other people in Judith’s social circle all agreeing and sharing similar stories about gold diggers and ungrateful women who didn’t know a good thing when they had it. I read through the comments feeling my face get hot with anger and shame seeing strangers discuss my failed relationship like they knew anything about what happened.

My mom called right after she sent it and said she was furious that these people were spreading lies about me. And I said I was more than furious, I was humiliated that Judith was running a whole reputation campaign to make me look bad.

Talia spent that evening finding more posts from Judith’s friends all saying basically the same thing without using my name. They painted me as a gold digger who walked away when asked to sign a reasonable prenup, completely ignoring the fact that I made more money than Alex and had paid for most of our wedding myself.

One post talked about women who manipulate men by pretending to be independent but really just want access to family money. Another post said, “Young women today don’t understand commitment and bail at the first sign of difficulty.”

The comments were even worse, full of people I’d never met agreeing that women like me were destroying good men and families. I showed Talia a post that had over a hundred comments and she said, “These people were trash and their opinions didn’t matter, but it was hard not to feel the sting of having strangers believe lies about me.”

The worst part was knowing the truth didn’t matter to these people because they’d already decided Judith was right and I was wrong and nothing I could say would change their minds about me.

My first therapy appointment happened on a Tuesday afternoon and I spent an hour telling this woman I’d never met about the rehearsal dinner disaster and the canceled wedding and now the social media campaign. She listened without interrupting and then asked how I was handling my anger about the posts.

I said I was furious and humiliated and wanted to respond publicly to set the record straight. She pointed out that I couldn’t control what Judith said or what her friends believed, but I could control whether I engaged with it or let it eat me alive.

She said responding publicly would just feed the drama and give these people more ammunition to use against me. I knew she was right, but it still made me angry that I had to take the high road while Judith got to trash my reputation with lies.

We talked about healthy ways to process anger and she suggested I write out everything I wanted to say to Judith and her friends but not send it. Just get it out of my system.

I left feeling slightly better but still burning with the knowledge that people believed lies about me and I was supposed to just accept that. Work got complicated when someone from accounting stopped by my desk and mentioned that Enrique’s company was one of our clients.

She asked if it was weird working on accounts connected to my ex’s family and I said I wasn’t working on that account. And she said, “Oh good.” Because she’d heard from someone that I used to be engaged to their son and she wondered if that would be awkward. I felt my stomach drop because I hadn’t realized people at work knew about the connection and I definitely hadn’t wanted it brought up in the office.

Later that afternoon my boss called me into her office and asked if there was going to be any awkwardness with the Redmond account. I assured her my personal life wouldn’t affect my professional work and I had no contact with that family anymore.

She seemed satisfied but said she needed to know if any issues came up because we couldn’t afford to lose a major client over personal drama. I walked back to my desk feeling exposed and vulnerable in a place where I used to feel competent and secure, knowing that my failed relationship was now part of my professional reputation.