I Broke Off My Engagement Because My Fiancé Can't Help Being a Mama's Boy

Frequently, the dynamics within extended family members, particularly with in-laws, can escalate dramatically. Many individuals find themselves embroiled in significant conflicts with their partner’s parents, leading to a multitude of familial challenges. A woman decided to turn to the internet for advice after her future MIL tried to intervene in her relationship with her fiancé several times. She finally had enough, but wondered whether she did the right thing by ending her relationship.

A woman shared her story on Reddit.

I’ve been with my fiancé for 7 years, and we have been engaged for 3 years. We have gone ahead and tried to do a “save the date” 4 times now, and every single time, his mom convinces him to postpone. It’s always a “Well, don’t you think you have bigger things to worry about?”

Whether it be our living situation (we are renting and she thinks we should buy first because we “aren’t stable”), or our money situation (this was her excuse after we loaned HER $8k so she didn’t lose her house, but we have plenty of money, as my partner is an RN, and I’m a lawyer). It’s just always something.

We planned for a family gathering in my mom’s backyard. She has 3 acres and a beautiful pond, and it’s just perfect. And we are doing a pot luck. So, very low-cost wedding. Plus, everyone we know lives within an hour of the location, so only giving a month or two notice is perfectly acceptable in our case.

With all this said, his mom has zero reason to try and sway us against it. But her newest argument is that we “need” to wait until our daughter is “at least 3” so she can be our flower girl (she’s 7 months old).

Well, in December, my husband and I talked and we decided we wanted to get married in August. I told him, “Don’t let your mom dictate it” and he said he wouldn’t and that he was tired of listening to her. Fair enough. But last weekend, my mother and his mother both came for dinner, and I was talking to my mom about what dress I wanted her to wear as the Matron of Honor.

My husband’s mom asked when we planned to tell her we had decided on a date, and my husband said, “When we told everyone else”. She just said “oh” and got quiet and took leave maybe 20 minutes later. He had already made plans to go over to her house after dinner to help her with her cable box, so he left shortly after that to head over to her place while I spent some time with my mom.

When he got back he was super quiet but said he was just tired and went to bed. But last night he said, at random, “My mom kind of has a point...maybe we should wait until we buy a house, so our living situation is a bit more stable. She’s not wrong in saying that it should be something we are worried about.”

I just went silent and didn’t comment, because I was pissed off. But he kept making comments, like “It’ll only be a couple of years, 5 at most”. I just took my ring off and handed it to him and said I was no longer interested. He immediately started protesting and trying to put the ring back on my finger, and I wouldn’t let him.

I said I was no longer interested in marrying him, and maybe he should move back home with mommy because I know for a fact that that woman will make up another excuse the second we buy a house, and I’m really just so turned off at the thought of marrying him at this point because I have zero business being with a man who has no backbone and would put our lives on hold in favor of a woman who still wants to scrub his back in the shower (as I said, I was mean about it).

He’s crying at this point, and I’m stupid calm, maybe because I’m over it, and told him I wanted him to leave — or I could leave. But those were the only options. He ended up leaving, sobbing the entire time. I do feel bad. I feel gutted. He means everything to me.

But I can’t do this anymore. His mom has been blowing up my phone with texts, trying to plead her case and I just texted back and said “No, it’s fine, you won. Now you can have your baby boy back full-time.” And blocked her number. My friends think I’m wildly overreacting.

Netizens were on the poster’s side.

• “I don’t know who would honestly tell you you’ve overreacted because you FINALLY got fed up with his mom literally dictating how two adults with careers and a child will live their lives. I don’t know how you didn’t leave sooner.” Fire_or_water_kai / Reddit
• “In a lot of situations, the calmness can be attributed to the person having already long since grieved and felt the pain of a dying relationship. This is why contempt is such a big deal. It festers like what’s going on with OP, and people can only put up with that for so long before something just snaps.” b0w3n / Reddit
• “And my favorite is that his justification is ‘oh it won’t be that long, only a few years’. Years. After they’ve already been together for 7 years. It would be one thing if it was a really good reason to delay for a few months.
  Even if he had suggested, ‘What if we just do a courthouse wedding for now and then can do a proper wedding later?’, he might have had a point. But to have already delayed the wedding 4 times and to then suggest delaying it again for years?” TheSecondEikonOfFire / Reddit

• “Finances and stability aside, no grown man should let his mother postpone his wedding 4+ times!” GardenSpiritualist / Reddit
• “OP is a star — ending it was tough to do and took courage, but so necessary. Overly possessive MILs can make their DIL’s lives a misery — there are plenty of stories here to prove it.” Sassy-Peanut / Reddit
• “He’s repeatedly made it clear that his mother’s opinion is more important than yours, he’s going to have a very lonely life if he doesn’t learn to cut the cord and have some boundaries.” CrystalQueen3000 / Reddit
• “You had a moment of clarity — he would never put your wants or needs over his mommy’s opinion — and that was all you needed. Your friends are being ridiculous; I bet if you examine their personal lives more closely, you’ll find they’re all settling for less than they deserve and diminishing their expectations down to an acceptable level of daily misery. Mediocrity always gets threatened when someone goes for better.” Top_Put1541 / Reddit

Having an overbearing MIL is not for the faint of heart. Another woman shared how her husband’s mom gave away an important piece of jewelry that belonged to the DIL without asking. And here is how she dealt with the situation.