I didn’t think much of it when my future mother-in-law kept pestering me about the wedding dress, until I got home and discovered that the $3,000 dress was missing! The truth? I had tried it on, I had ruined it and she refused to pay. Furious and desperate, I confronted her, armed with a secret weapon that changed everything.
I should have known something was wrong when Janet, my future mother-in-law, kept asking about my wedding dress.
For weeks, she sent me text messages almost daily: “Have you found the dress yet?” or “Make sure you choose something nice, dear. You don’t want to look like a doily.”
But despite her constant insistence, there was always some excuse when I invited her to come with me to buy the dress.
“I’m sorry, I have a migraine,” she would say. Or, ”I’m just really busy this weekend.”
My mother noticed it too.
“It’s strange that she’s so interested in someone she doesn’t even come to see,” she said one afternoon as we walked through the third bridal shop of the day.
I shrugged, trying to concentrate on the thrill of finding my perfect dress.
“I don’t understand it either. But well, at least I don’t have to put up with her criticizing my choices, do I?”
I turned to look at another window display near the back of the shop. That’s when I saw it: an ivory A-line dress with delicate lace details and a sweetheart neckline.
As soon as I tried it on, I knew. The way it hugged my curves before opening gracefully, the subtle sparkle of the beading as it caught the light… It was everything I had dreamed of.
“Darling,” my mother whispered with tears in her eyes. ‘This is the one.’
The price was $3,000. It was more than I had planned to spend, but sometimes perfection comes at a price.
As I stood in the fitting room, my mother taking photos from every angle, I felt like a real bride. Everything was falling into place.
I sent a message to Janet as soon as I got home to tell her I had found the perfect dress. She replied a few minutes later, demanding that I bring the dress to her so she could see it.
I replied, “I’m sorry, Janet, but I’m going to keep it here until the big day. I’ll send you the photos my mother took.”
“No. I don’t want to see photos!” she replied immediately. ”Bring the dress!”
I firmly refused again and again. She insisted a lot, but in the end she seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to risk ruining my precious and very expensive dress by carrying it around the city just for her to see.
Two weeks later, I spent the day at my mother’s house, going over the details of the wedding and working on DIY centerpieces. When I got home that night, something didn’t add up.
The apartment was too quiet, and Mark’s shoes weren’t by the door, where he usually left them.
“Mark?” I shouted, dropping my keys on the kitchen worktop. There was no reply.
I went to our bedroom to change my clothes, and that was when panic hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water.
The hanger holding my wedding dress was not hanging on the back of the wardrobe door, where I had left it. I immediately guessed what had happened.
My hands were shaking with rage as I dialed Mark’s number.
“Hi, babe,” he replied in a strangely hesitant voice.
“You took my dress to your mother’s house, didn’t you?” The words came out sharp and scared.
“She wanted to see it, and you weren’t home, so…”
I didn’t let him finish. ”Bring it back. Right now.”
When Mark walked in the door thirty minutes later, I knew something was wrong.
He was smiling as if everything was normal, but the guilt in his eyes was obvious. My heart was in my mouth as I grabbed the garment bag and unzipped it, fearing the worst.
The dress inside was stretched out of shape, the delicate lace torn to shreds. The zipper hung crooked, its broken teeth gleaming mockingly in the overhead light.
“What have you done?” My voice came out like a whisper.
“What do you mean?“ Mark looked at me with a frown, as if he had no idea what I was talking about.
“This!” I pointed to the broken zipper, the damaged lace, the stretched fabric. My eyes filled with tears as I saw the full extent of the damage. “My wedding dress is ruined!”
“It’s not… that bad. The truth is, I don’t know how it happened, honey. Maybe… it was poorly made and it broke when Mom opened the garment bag?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” I exclaimed. ”The only way this could have happened is if… my God! My wedding dress was tried on, wasn’t it?”
“Uh…”
“How could you, Mark?” I took out my phone and dialed Janet’s number. ”It’s not my size and even if it was, this is MY WEDDING DRESS! Not some dress from Target.”
Janet answered the phone and I put her on speaker.
“You’ve ruined my wedding dress! The lace is torn, the zipper is broken, the fabric is stretched… You and Mark owe me $3,000 to replace it.”
Mark was speechless. “You can’t be serious.”
And Janet’s response? She laughed, she really laughed!
“Don’t be so dramatic! I’ll change the zipper; I know exactly how to do it and it will be as good as new.”
“No, it won’t be like that,” I replied, my voice breaking. ”Fixing the zipper won’t fix the rest of the damage. I have to change the dress, Janet. You know you shouldn’t have tried it on, and now you have to step up and fix this.”
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Janet said sharply.
I looked at Mark, hoping he would defend me. Instead, he stared at the floor.
My heart broke. At that moment I couldn’t bear to deal with him or his horrible mother any more. I hung up the phone, went to the bedroom and cried my eyes out while holding my damaged dress.
Two days later, Rachel, Mark’s sister, appeared at my door. She had a gloomy expression.
“I was there,” she said without preamble. ”When Mom tried on your dress. I tried to stop her, but you know how she is. I’m so sorry.”
I invited her in and she took out her phone. “When I realized I couldn’t stop her, I realized there was something else I could do to help you. Here, this will make my mom pay for everything.”
She handed me the phone. What I saw on the screen made me sick.
There was Janet, tucked into my dress, laughing as she posed in front of the mirror. The fabric was tight on her body and the zipper was struggling to close.
“She has to pay for what she did,” Rachel said. ”And these photos are the key.”
I listened carefully as Rachel explained exactly how I could use the photos to teach Janet a lesson.
Armed with Rachel’s photos, I confronted Janet again and told her I would share the photos if she didn’t pay the $3,000 she owed me for ruining my dress.
“You wouldn’t dare share them,” she said, examining her manicure. ‘Think what it would do to the family.”
I looked at her perfect makeup, her expensive clothes, her carefully cultivated image of a loving mother-in-law. ’Try me.”
That night, I created the Facebook post with trembling hands.
I uploaded Rachel’s photos along with those of my ruined dress. I wrote about how my future mother-in-law had tried on my wedding dress without permission and destroyed it. How she had refused to take responsibility or replace it.
“A wedding dress represents much more than just a piece of clothing,” I wrote. ”It represents dreams, hopes and trust. All of which have been destroyed along with my dress.”
The next morning, Janet burst into our apartment without knocking, her face red with fury.
“Take it off!” she shouted, waving the phone in my face. ”Do you have any idea what people are saying about me? They’re humiliating me! My friends, my church group, everyone has seen it!”
“You humiliated yourself when you decided to try on my dress without permission.”
“Mark!” she turned to her son. ‘Tell him to take it off!”
Mark looked at us, his face pale. ’Mom, maybe if you offered to replace the dress . . .”
“Change it? After what he’s done?” Janet’s voice reached a pitch that probably only the dogs could hear. ”Never!”
I looked at Mark, really looked at him. At how he had disengaged from the conflict, at how he had let his mother walk all over both of us, at how he had betrayed my trust without a second thought.
“You’re right, Janet,” I said softly. ‘There’s no need to change the dress.”
I took off my engagement ring and left it on the table. ’Because there won’t be a wedding. I deserve better than a man who doesn’t stand up for me, and better than a mother-in-law who doesn’t respect boundaries.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Janet’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Mark started to speak, but I went over to the door and held it open.
“Please leave. Both of you.”
As I watched them leave, I felt lighter than I had felt in months.