Years had passed since Oliver and I first began courting. Our love grew steadily, unhurried, yet unwavering. He was a tender soul, ever attentive, doing all he could to make me feel cherished. When he bent his knee and asked for my hand, my heart leapt with joy. We spun dreams of our future together, weaving plans like threads of gold—until the day the fabric began to fray.
His parents, bound for a holiday, offered us their home while they were away. Oliver was eager—it would be our first taste of married life, he said, a chance to nest under one roof. Though unease prickled at me—strange house, unfamiliar kin, the weight of responsibility—I agreed. Love, after all, ought to conquer doubt.
At first, all was as sweet as a Devon summer. I threw myself into homemaking: baking, laundering, scouring every corner. Oliver seldom lifted a hand, firm in his belief that a man’s duty was the wage, a woman’s the hearth. I did not argue. He earned well, and it felt fitting to tend the home while he kept the coffers full.
Then his parents returned.
I had scrubbed the house till it shone—floors gleaming, windows crystal, every cupboard sorted. I’d baked a Victoria sponge, roasted a joint of beef—all to welcome them warmly. Yet gratitude never came. Instead, Oliver relayed his mother’s cutting verdict: I’d left the loo untouched, the bath unclean, the kitchen in disarray. The cake, she sniffed, tasted of sawdust.
The words scalded me. I’d laboured without rest, hoping to prove myself worthy. In return? Cold scorn. Any proper matron would have praised such efforts—only a spiteful tongue would seek fault where none existed. It was plain she’d resolved to despise me from the start.
After that, Oliver grew distant. Wedding plans, once spoken with fervour, now fell from his lips like ash. Dread coiled in my chest. Could a mother’s malice unravel years of devotion?
What more must I do to earn their favour? Had I been too hasty in accepting him? If even earnest toil could not win his mother’s regard, what awaited me as a bride? Endless censure? A lifetime vying for my husband’s loyalty beneath her shadow?
Now I see my folly: I ought to have played the guest, not the housewife. Kept my hands folded, my efforts hidden. Perhaps then there’d have been no blade to wield against me.
Before this storm, Oliver had mused that we might dwell with his parents awhile, saving for a home of our own. But now? Never. Where respect is withered, I shall not take root.
Here I stand, at the crossroads: do I fight for this man and his unyielding kin, breaking myself upon their pride? Or do I step back and ask—is this the union I deserve? Love cannot flourish where contempt is sown.
Perhaps the fault lies not in me, but in the family that will never open its door.
