"He Chose His Mother Over Me"

I never imagined that the happiest day of my life would turn into the most painful memory I carry.

We were together for four years. Four beautiful, complicated, honest years. Aarav was everything I had ever hoped for—gentle, ambitious, funny in a quiet way. We met at university, shared late-night study sessions, endless cups of coffee, and dreams that intertwined more deeply with every passing year.

I knew early on that his mother, Mrs. Malhotra, was… difficult. Not cruel, not unkind, but always distant. Sharp in her silences. She didn’t speak much to me at family gatherings, but when she did, her words were carefully measured. “You’ll learn,” she once said, when I offered to help with dinner and mistakenly added too much salt to the dal. “Wives must learn quickly in this family.”

I thought it was just a matter of time—that she’d come around once she saw how happy Aarav and I were. But I underestimated the weight of her influence.

When Aarav proposed, I said yes with tears in my eyes and joy in my heart. We began making plans—nothing grand, just simple, beautiful, and ours. I picked out a pastel lehenga. We booked a small venue near the lake. My family was thrilled. His seemed… quiet. Especially her.

I noticed it in the way she sighed when we talked about wedding decorations. In the way she questioned every decision subtly, almost as if she were planting doubt in his mind.

“Are you sure she’s the right one, Aarav?” I overheard her say on a phone call when I visited their house one evening. “Marriage isn’t love. It’s duty. Sacrifice. She’s not from our culture. She won’t understand how things work.”

Aarav assured me she just needed time. “She’s traditional,” he said. “But she’ll come around. Trust me.”

So I did.

Two weeks before the wedding, things started to unravel. The invitations had gone out, the deposits paid, the rituals scheduled—but Aarav grew distant. Late replies. Missed calls. Hesitation in his voice.

I asked him directly one night, “Is something wrong?”

He sighed. “It’s just stress, Diya. Ma’s been saying things. She thinks we’re rushing. That maybe we should postpone—”

“Postpone?” I repeated, my heart pounding. “Aarav, we’ve planned everything.”

“I know. I just… need time to think. She’s been saying that this marriage won’t work. That she won’t bless it.”

His words crushed me, not because they were hers, but because I realized he was listening to her.

Still, I held on to hope. He loved me. I knew it.

The final blow came three days before the wedding.

He showed up at my house with red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands. My father invited him in, sensing something was wrong. Aarav sat on the edge of the couch, silent.

Then, quietly, he said it: “I can’t go through with the wedding.”

I stared at him, waiting for a punchline. A reason. A fight. Something.

“My mother… she said she won’t come if I marry you. She says I’ll lose her forever. I’ve tried to reason with her, but she’s made up her mind.”

"And you?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“I can’t lose her, Diya. She raised me alone. She gave up everything for me. If I go against her… I don’t know if I can live with that.”

The silence that followed was the longest of my life.

No yelling. No pleading. Just the cold realization that love, sometimes, isn’t enough.

He left that night. So did my dreams.

The wedding was canceled. Calls were made. Deposits lost. Gifts returned. The silence in our home was unbearable. My parents tried to be strong, but I could see the pain in their eyes.

People talked, of course. “Did you hear? Her fiancé left her just days before the wedding.” “Must have been something serious.” “Poor girl.”

I locked myself in my room for days, trying to understand how love could be overpowered so easily. How someone who promised me forever could break it so easily—not for another lover, but for a mother who refused to share her son.

Weeks passed. Then months.

I saw photos of him on social media, smiling beside his mother at a family function. He looked… different. Not unhappy. Just resigned.

And me? I rebuilt. Slowly. Painfully. I returned to work. Traveled alone for the first time. Took up painting again. I learned to stop waiting for closure. To stop asking "why me?"

Because the truth is, I loved a man who couldn’t choose between the woman who gave him life and the woman who wanted to build a life with him.

And in the end, he chose her.