I never expected my relationship to end because of someone else’s mother.

When Colin first warned me about Diane, I honestly thought he was exaggerating. Every boyfriend says their parents can be difficult sometimes, right? I figured it was the usual family drama. Maybe she was protective. Maybe she asked too many questions. Nothing I couldn’t handle.

At the time, Colin and I had been together for two years. I worked as a physical therapist at a rehabilitation center downtown. I had my own apartment, my own career, and a family I was proud of. My parents owned a small neighborhood bakery that had been around for more than twenty years.

Colin was finishing his medical residency, and we were already talking about moving in together. Things felt serious. Stable. Like we were building a future.

Then I met Diane.

.

.

.

The dinner was supposed to be simple. Colin chose a restaurant he knew she liked, hoping everything would go smoothly. Instead, she arrived twenty minutes late, took one look at me, and immediately started asking questions that made the entire table uncomfortable.

She wanted to know why Colin hadn’t told her I was Italian.

Then she asked what my “real job” was.

When I explained that I was a physical therapist, she smiled politely and said she meant my actual career, as if helping people recover from injuries somehow wasn’t respectable enough.

The questions only got worse from there.

She asked whether my parents were legal citizens.

They were born in Philadelphia.

She asked if I was dating Colin for his money.

The irony was that Colin, still being a resident, earned less than I did.

Every time Colin tried to change the subject, Diane talked right over him. Every answer I gave seemed to become another reason for her to dislike me.

That dinner should have been a warning.

Because after that night, things only got worse.

Diane started calling Colin whenever we were together. She would casually mention some woman she had met at her country club and suggest he should take her out instead. Whenever Colin reminded her that he already had a girlfriend, she would laugh and say, “For now.”

She treated me like I was temporary.

Like I was some phase he would eventually outgrow.

Sometimes she would show up unexpectedly at Colin’s apartment and act genuinely surprised to find me there. Other times she would bring up his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, telling him how successful she was, how connected her family was, and how much she could help his career.

It wasn’t subtle.

Diane had already chosen the woman she wanted her son to be with.

And it wasn’t me.

Still, I stayed.

Mostly because Colin always defended me.

Every single time.

When she deliberately gave me the wrong address for his birthday party and then publicly criticized me for arriving late, Colin corrected her in front of everyone.

When she repeatedly called me by the wrong name, he corrected her.

When she compared me to Rebecca, he shut it down.

The problem was that defending me wasn’t enough.

Because no matter how many times Colin pushed back, Diane never stopped.

And eventually, everything came crashing down on a rainy afternoon when she showed up at my apartment while Colin was working at the hospital.

She said she wanted a woman-to-woman conversation.

What she really wanted was to get rid of me.