“Won’t you take me in with you?” my mother asked bitterly. But I already knew the answer…
My name is Victoria. I’m thirty-eight, married for fifteen years. My husband, Robert, and I have a son, a nice flat, and what might seem like everything one could wish for. Yet one subject still aches—my mother. Or rather, the decade-long feud she’s waged against Robert.
Rob came to our city from a tiny village. Back then, he dreamed of getting into university but didn’t pass the first time, so he took a job as a plumber just to scrape by. He lived in student digs, worked hard, never complained. Eventually, he got into uni but kept working—becoming a skilled tradesman in high demand. That’s where we met. I was a year older, a course ahead, but we hit it off instantly.
When I graduated, we decided to marry. My mother was dead against it.
“A *plumber*? Have you lost your mind? Some country boy with no flat, no prospects!” she fumed.
I persuaded her to let us stay in her flat—just until Rob finished his degree. She agreed reluctantly, sour-faced from the start. No matter how hard he tried, she never accepted him. In the first few weeks, he fixed everything in the flat—the tap, the oven, even the balcony door, which hadn’t shut properly for years. All he got in return was cold disdain.
“I’m not putting you on the lease, lad!” she snapped one day. Rob just replied calmly, “I’m not asking you to.”
He endured it. Every single day. But I saw how it wore him down. Then I got pregnant… and our worst fear came true.
“You’re mad! Having a baby with this bumpkin? I can barely stand having him in *my* flat!” she shrieked.
Rob heard. Without a word, he packed his things. He turned to me and said, “Either you come with me, or I go alone. But I won’t live under the same roof as your mother another day.”
I left. We moved into his tiny room in the student digs. Our son was born. It was hard. But I never regretted it. Rob worked, studied, took extra jobs. Two years later, we bought our first one-bed flat. Then a two-bed. Now we’ve a spacious three-bed. Rob’s an engineer at a major firm, earning well—and still doing side jobs because he’s brilliant with his hands and never short of clients.
Yet since the day we left, Rob has never set foot in my mother’s home. Not for holidays, not even by chance. He was firm: “I won’t see her. I’ll help with money if she needs it, but that’s all. Don’t expect me to visit or pretend otherwise.”
For years, Mum didn’t understand. Even now, she still sulks: “So you’re just his puppet? What if I fall ill? If I can’t care for myself? Will you abandon me too?”
I took the question home and quietly asked Rob, “What if… she really can’t manage alone?”
He didn’t hesitate. “We’ll hire a carer. You can visit. She’ll be looked after—but not in our lives. My boundary is your doorstep.”
I thought about it. And I realised—he’s right. He doesn’t owe forgiveness to someone who belittled him. He doesn’t owe her repairs after mocking him for being a plumber. He grew. He changed. She didn’t.
Recently, she called again, shouting that her pipes were leaking and why hadn’t I “sent Rob round to fix it?”
“Mum,” I said evenly, “Rob transferred you the money. Call a tradesman.”
She hung up. Offended. But I don’t regret it.
Sometimes I think that night—when I left with Rob for that tiny room—was the most important choice of my life. I chose family. I chose a man who never betrayed us, who lifted us up from nothing, who refused to be broken. And I won’t let anyone break him now.
Let Mum sulk. She had time—and chances. She just didn’t take them.
