My mind keeps going back to what I feel was a pivotal point where my different actions might have changed the terrible outcome. She had called the meeting with just us and without him there. I thought it was for the purpose for us to put this train wreck back on the right track, where she would apologize for her bad treatment and make amends. She did the opposite. I was shocked at how she spoke to me. No fiancé with good intentions to build a life with a man would ever go on the attack at his parents like she did.

My reaction to her shocking put-down she said to me, was to get up and leave. But my h insisted we don’t leave. Her venom got worse after I sat back down. She then bludgeoned us by telling us she has heard our son cry to her for years because we are terrible parents. We were in shock. We had nothing but love, and never one negative word exchanged with him.

I told her that what she is saying has shocked us speechless and can’t imagine where this stemmed from. I said I did not want to have this conversation about him without him here. But she continued, even causing my h to walk outside to take a break crying.

We let her talk as she laid some unsolicited advice on us, to be totally supportive of whatever they do regardless of them doing some things that cut us to the core and other things that were just offensive.

We responded as my h calls ‘fake nice’ without a fight, leaving it seeming fine. We drove home trying to make sense of what happened.

Instead, my mind keeps going back to I wish I had walked out when I wanted to, and gone over to his place to include him in this discussion. Could that have made a difference for the better? I so wish something had.