“Hello, darling. The bridal shower is going fine. It’s so much fun! I’ll be home soon, my love. Missing you already,” Viva said to her husband, Wayne, blowing a heavy kiss to him.
“I see, darling. Enjoy yourself. Can’t wait for you to get home,” Wayne ended the call with a raised smile on his handsome face.
What Viva did next after the call with her husband will truly shock you.
Viva and Wayne had been married for almost three years, and their marriage was a happy one. They seemed deeply in love with each other. The couple had a two-year-old son, Josh, whom they both doted on. Both Wayne and Viva worked high-paying jobs, allowing them to live a comfortable life. They were a small, happy family, and many people thought that Viva was Wayne’s high school sweetheart and that they had been in love with each other all through their lives. But Viva was not Wayne’s first love.
Before marrying Viva, Wayne had been in love with Christie, a stunningly beautiful and down-to-earth woman he met during his last year of college. It was love at first sight for both of them. Christie was drawn to Wayne’s gentleness, kindness, and excellent sense of humor. When they met and started dating, Christie was in her second year and three years younger than the 23-year-old Wayne. After their initial meeting, Wayne and Christie became inseparable.
Soon enough, Wayne graduated with an excellent degree in civil engineering. He secured a mouth-watering job at a big construction firm almost immediately upon graduation. With his new job, Wayne made sure that Christie never lacked anything. He started providing for Christie until she graduated two years later. Christie moved in with Wayne when she graduated, and their relationship kept blossoming like a beautiful rose flower. Six months later, Wayne proposed to Christie. She wholeheartedly accepted the proposal, and the duo started planning for their wedding in earnest.
It was time for introductions to their respective families, and that was when the lovebirds’ problems started. Christie first took Wayne home to meet her parents. Christie’s parents had no qualms whatsoever about Wayne being their potential son-in-law. The couple welcomed him with open arms. But all hell broke loose when Wayne took Christie home to meet his mom, Betty.
Wayne had been raised by Betty, who was a single mom. As expected, Wayne kept asking his mom questions about his biological father, and she eventually told him the truth when he came of age. Betty’s story was that his shameless biological father, Chris, abandoned them both when he was just two years old and eloped with a richer and younger lover. Even though it was all disappointing, Wayne had no reason to doubt Betty’s story. He cherished his mom for all the sacrifices she made for him. Wayne formed a strong bond with Betty, one that kept getting stronger even as he grew into a full-fledged man.
But that bond was about to be put to the test when Wayne brought Christie home to meet his mother for the first time. It was on a Sunday afternoon that Wayne, beaming with smiles, brought Christie to his mom’s place. But all the smiles soon left Wayne’s face with the cold treatment that Betty gave Christie. To start with, Betty didn’t reply to Christie’s greetings. Even when Christie extended her hand to her with a warm smile on her beautiful face, Betty left Christie’s hand hanging in the air without so much as glancing at her. To cap it all off, throughout the meeting that lasted for almost an hour, Betty never spoke a single word to Christie. Wayne tried everything he could to get his mom to speak to Christie, but all to no avail. Betty acted like Christie wasn’t even present in the room as she only spoke to her beloved son.
After the awkward visit, it was quite clear to both Wayne and Christie that Betty didn’t and wouldn’t ever accept her as a potential daughter-in-law. Christie started sobbing softly the moment the duo got home because of the shockingly cold treatment that Betty had meted out to her. She didn’t understand what she could have possibly done to warrant such treatment. Wayne had to hug Christie tightly, kiss her on the forehead, and assure her that he would marry her whether his mom liked it or not before she stopped sobbing.
For the next couple of weeks, Betty tried everything possible to dissuade Wayne from marrying Christie, but Wayne stood his ground. It was either the love of his life, Christie, or nobody. And what was Betty’s reasoning for rejecting Christie? Viva. Betty had been grooming her as Wayne’s future wife since childhood. Viva was the daughter of Betty’s best friend and business partner, Florence. She was three years younger than Wayne.
The duo had known each other since their tender age. Wayne and Viva would always play whenever Florence visited Betty. Wayne and Viva even attended the same elementary school and high school. Wayne played a big brother role to Viva in both elementary and high school. He would always protect her from bullies. They were best of childhood friends, but that was as far as it went for Wayne. He had no atom of romantic feelings for Viva whatsoever. To him, she was like the little sister he never had.
However, Viva, on her part, gradually developed romantic feelings for Wayne as they grew older. He didn’t feel like a brother to her, and she would know, having two brothers herself. She wanted the handsome Wayne as a lover. Wayne and Viva eventually attended different colleges, and it seemed like they had grown apart with age. Nevertheless, Betty never failed to tell Wayne about Viva whenever she called him while he was in college. Betty would also always urge Viva, who remained quite close and loyal to her, to always speak to Wayne on the phone. Betty even kept encouraging Viva to convince Wayne to allow her to visit him in college. Viva always did as Betty directed her, but Wayne never took the bait. He would always cleverly come up with excuses to politely decline Viva’s request for a visit.
Betty even went as far as lying to Viva one certain day when she visited her that Wayne had once confided in her about his romantic feelings and future marital plans for her. “But why does he seem to be avoiding me if he truly loves me?” Viva asked. The smart Betty smiled and told Viva that Wayne was just too shy to open up to her about his feelings for her. Betty assured Viva that he was just waiting for the perfect time after graduation, when he wanted her to get a good job, to open up and propose to her.
Viva believed Betty’s lies, hook, line, and sinker, and kept on waiting for Wayne to open up and propose to her at the right time. Meanwhile, she dated other guys while she was in college, but nothing concrete came out of all those relationships as she kept Wayne in her heart and mind.
Betty decided to play the last card up her sleeve when she sensed that all her efforts to dissuade Wayne from marrying Christie were futile. She threatened Wayne that she would harm herself if he went ahead to marry Christie. But Wayne called Betty’s bluff, and barely two weeks later, he wedded Christie in a simple wedding ceremony. Unsurprisingly, Betty didn’t attend the wedding, but the newly wedded couple couldn’t care less. Wayne and Christie were simply over the moon that they were finally legally married.
When Viva heard about Wayne’s marriage from the grapevine, she was devastated and heartbroken. Viva promptly came running to Betty, crying that Wayne had shattered her heart into a thousand pieces. Betty consoled Viva and assured her that she would do everything humanly possible to make sure that Wayne would still marry her. Viva believed Betty as always. As for Florence, she was disappointed that Wayne didn’t end up marrying her daughter like Viva had always dreamt of, but she just wasn’t as desperate as Betty to see Wayne marry Viva.
Wayne and Christie lived happily for the first few years of their marriage. By then, Wayne had risen to the position of manager in the construction firm he worked at. He was rich, to say the least. Christie also worked a high-paying job at a big bank, so the couple lived quite comfortably and happily.
But there was a problem. Two and a half years into the marriage, the couple was still unable to have children. Christie wanted a child of her own as she simply loved kids, so she was starting to get worried about the infertility issue. But Wayne would always point out to Christie that it was still too early to start getting hopeless. He was such a supportive and understanding husband to Christie, and their love remained as evergreen as ever.
Then one Christmas holiday, barely three years after the couple’s wedding, Betty, of all people, arrived unannounced at Wayne’s home. Wayne and Christie were surprised to see her. Betty bluntly told the duo that she had come to spend the vacation with her only beloved son that Christie had stolen away from her after all the sacrifices she made for him. Wayne and Christie were both shocked at Betty’s claims. However, Wayne just couldn’t push his mom out of his home, no matter what, so he allowed her to stay.
If only Wayne had known that his decision to allow Betty to stay in his home would be the beginning of the end between him and Christie. From the very first day that Betty arrived at Wayne’s home, she became a real thorn in Christie’s flesh. She would scream at Christie at the slightest provocation. Betty called Christie unprintable names at whim.
Betty never touched anything that Christie cooked, always claiming that Christie was the worst cook in the world. It was like Betty’s favorite hobby was tormenting Christie by any means possible. Christie tolerated Betty’s maltreatment with the belief that she would soon go back home after the Christmas holiday, but how wrong she was. The Christmas holidays came and passed, and Betty didn’t seem ready to go back home. When Wayne subtly reminded Betty
