My wedding to Finn Hartwell, the most loving and caring man, was a dream come true. We’ve been together for a couple of years, and our wedding was about to be as mesmerizing as our love for one another has been.
Our relationship has always been an uncomplicated one. No drama, no games, just two people madly in love, so nothing spoke trouble on our most important day, until the photographer showed me a video that left me in complete shock.
The preparations took almost a year, and Finn and I agreed on everything, including the venue, the flowers, the guest list… The only source of tension was his mother, Vivian.
She and Finn have always been very close, and now that he was about to get married, she felt like she needed to have say in everything. And somehow, she felt like I was stealing her son from her.
Luckily, my father-in-law, Gerald, has been the complete opposite of his wife.
He has always been the one to balance everything out.
The wedding day started just as I had imagined it. Me walking down the aisle along with my father, all of the important people being present to witness our love, and the moment I said “I do” to the man of my dreams.
Our photographer, a friend of a friend, made sure to capture the most brilliant photos. However, he seemed to also capture something I wasn’t supposed to see.
In the middle of the wedding reception, he approached me and said there was something he needed to show to me.
And there he was, my father-in-law, the man that I adored and respected so much was caught on tape going through our wedding gifts – then at one moment, he took one gift and left.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Could Gerald be stealing from me and his own son?
We caught my father-in-law stealing our wedding gift
I knew I needed to tell Finn as soon as possible. However, as expected, he wouldn’t believe until he saw the video himself.
We decided to let it go for the night, but we confronted Gerald the following morning.
Of course, when we asked him why he took our wedding gift, he denied at first, but when we told him we had everything on tape, he started crying.
“I was saving your life,” he said.
We were confused and couldn’t understand what was going on.
When he finally collected himself and explained everything, my blood ran cold.
“You know, Vivian’s jealousy of you escalated… she… she tried to prevent you two from going on your honeymoon,” Gerald said.
We caught my father-in-law stealing our wedding gift
It turned out that he saw her rubbing orange peels on the wedding gift knowing I am severely allergic to oranges. She hoped an allergic reaction would prevent me from traveling.
In order to save me, Gerald took the gift, cleaned it, and then returned it back.
Finn and I were furious. We knew his mom was obsessed with him, but weren’t aware of the extent of her obsession until that point.
We did go to our honeymoon, and only confronted Vivian when we returned.
We tried to explain to her that our marriage didn’t mean I “stole” her son from her. She simply needed to understand that he now had his own family.
Vivian gradually started accepting the reality. However, I could never trust her completely after everything she had done.