I dated a guy who was 5 years younger than me for two years, but when I met his parents, his mother looked at me and exclaimed, “Oh my God, you’re the daughter of that woman…”

With my partner, I was truly happy. He was five years younger than me, yet he had a sense of reliability and warmth that I had not seen in my peers. We were planning a wedding, and the day finally came to meet his family at their country house. He finally decided to introduce me to his parents. We had been together for two years, and all this time he had postponed this meeting with various excuses. He said his mother was strict and that we should wait for the right moment. I didn’t insist, but inwardly, I always felt anxious—why was it taking so long?

His mother came out of the kitchen with a tray. An elegant woman in her sixties, her gray hair elegantly pinned up, with a stern look. She placed the tray on the table, turned to me, and froze. Her face turned pale. A glass of wine slipped from her hands and shattered on the parquet floor. The red stain spread across the light floor, yet she paid no attention to it. She was looking at me as if she had seen a ghost.

“Oh my God, you’re the daughter of that woman,” she breathed out.

I didn’t understand at first. What woman? My boyfriend grabbed his mother’s arm, tried to lead her to the kitchen, but she pushed him away and kept looking at me. Her hands were trembling.

It turned out that twenty-five years ago, his father left the family. He abandoned his wife with a small son for another woman. That woman was my mother. I wasn’t even born at the time. My mother never told me the details of that affair—she only said that my father was married and that their relationship didn’t work out. He left her when I was very little, and we never saw him again.

His mother recognized me from the photos she had seen many years ago during legal proceedings with lawyers. My mother was demanding child support back then. The photos were attached to the case. She remembered the face of the woman who had ruined her family.

My boyfriend was silent. He didn’t know what to say. I realized why he had postponed introducing me to his parents for so long. He knew the story. He knew who my mother was. And he hoped somehow it would be okay, that his mother wouldn’t recognize or remember. But she did remember.

His mother said she would never allow her son to be with the daughter of that woman. That it was a betrayal of the memory of his father, who, although left once, returned later and lived with her until his death. That I was a reminder of the darkest period of her life. She cried and demanded that I leave. Immediately.

I stood in the middle of their living room and felt my whole world collapsing. I wasn’t responsible for what my mother did thirty years ago. But for this woman, I embodied her pain. My boyfriend remained silent. He didn’t stand up for me. He didn’t tell his mother that the past is the past, that we aren’t accountable for our parents’ mistakes. He simply stood there, silent.

I left that evening. We never saw each other again. He called several times, asking me to understand his mother, saying that he needed time. But I understood the most important thing—he chose her. He chose the past over the future.

Tell me, is it fair for children to pay for their parents’ sins? Do I have the right to happiness, or must I bear this cross my entire life?

***

For two years I had been dating a guy five years younger than me, and finally he decided to introduce me to his parents. I stood in the hallway holding a bouquet, trying to smile even though my heart was pounding. Suddenly his mother came out of the kitchen, looked at me — and her face suddenly went pale. She took a step back and cried out loudly:
– My God… you’re the daughter of that woman…
My vision darkened, and I suddenly realized that a truth I was not ready for was about to be revealed…
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