My mother, Emily, decided to marry someone my own age. I hid her documents — and I don’t regret it.
Emily is forty-two, and she had me when she was just seventeen, right after finishing school. Her first love didn’t lead to marriage, but instead to diapers, sleepless nights, and a fight for survival. My father left before I could even walk, and it was my grandparents who helped Mum get back on her feet. Thanks to them, she became a teacher, and I was able to have something resembling a childhood.
Mum never remarried, though she had admirers. She’d laugh and say, “Once you’re grown, maybe I’ll think about myself.” We lived cheerfully, like friends — swapping jumpers, picking outfits, even copying each other’s lipstick shades. She shrugged off my teenage rebellion: purple hair, nose studs, chunky boots. We were in sync. Or so I thought.
I’m twenty now — studying, working, going out with mates. I assumed Mum would miss being my world. Instead, to my horror, she fell in love. Worse — with a bloke nearly half her age!
It started innocently. Mum teaches history at a secondary school. The staffroom’s all women, naturally. Then she began mentioning “Oliver” constantly. At first, I didn’t clock it. But soon it was obvious — she was smitten. This “Oliver,” a new IT teacher, turned out to be twenty-one! A year older than me. My sensible mother started acting like a lovesick teen — baking him scones, marking his pupils’ essays, packing lunchboxes because “the lad’s on a diet and hates cafeteria food.”
I was gutted. Mum never once made me a packed lunch! Her colleagues worried too — said Emily was dressing younger, dyeing her hair copper-red, swapping tweed skirts for minidresses. All because Oliver remarked she looked like “that French singer from the old films.”
Then came the bombshell: Mum suggested moving in with him. “I deserve happiness,” she insisted. I pleaded, “He’s practically a student! No proper job, shares a flat in Peckham—”
“He *understands* me,” she snapped. “We’re considering marriage.”
My stomach dropped. “You’d marry some lad who still uses his student Oyster card?!”
“Don’t you dare! He’s a grown man!”
“He’s after your house, Mum! Can’t you see?!”
We rowed properly for the first time — slammed doors, shouted accusations. She called me selfish; I called her deluded.
I nearly rang the headteacher but feared the gossip. So I hid her passport, National Insurance documents — everything. No paperwork, no registry office booking.
Call me unhinged? Fine. Better than picking up the pieces when this “fiancé” ghosts her after getting a foothold. I’m watching. If he stays patient, maybe it’s real. But if he starts nagging about “sorting the paperwork urgently” — well. We’ll see his true colours.
Sometimes love needs a reality check. Especially when it’s your own mother’s heart on the line.