‘God, Why Me?’ Dad Turns Pale after Seeing His Son’s Fiancee for the 1st Time – Story of the Day

When his son, Andrew, brought his fiancée home for the first time, Matthew immediately realized who she was, and the shame of his past returned in full force. After being confronted, he revealed the story of walking away from his first love due to horrible bias.

“How do I look?” Matthew’s wife, Rosalind, asked when she returned to the kitchen, where he was just finishing setting the table.

“You look great, honey,” he answered, smiling a little.

“Are you sure?” she fidgeted with her clothes and hair in front of a mirror on the wall.

“Honey, Andrew’s girlfriend is the one who should be nervous about this meeting, not you,” Matthew chuckled and went to wash his hands.

“His fiancée now, and I want to look nice,” his wife continued, fixing her makeup and doing final touch-ups. But her whole body straightened when the doorbell rang. “They’re here!”

“Let’s get the door, then,” he said, and they both went out to greet his son, Andrew, who was bringing his fiancée to meet them for the first time.

They were both broad, bright smiles as they opened the door to see both young adults grinning back on the porch. But as soon as Matthew got a good look at his son’s fiancée, his whole body froze, and his face turned pale.

“Come in! Come in! Welcome!” his wife said brightly, ushering them inside and closing the door. Matthew seemed to follow their movements robotically and stoically.

A blast from the past had invaded his conscious mind at the sight of the woman his son brought, and it wasn’t a pleasant memory.

Almost everyone had things they regretted about their youth. It’s part of growing up and finding yourself. However, you tend to listen too much to others, like your parents, when you’re in unexpected situations. That wouldn’t be so bad, except when you don’t realize how terribly biased your parents’ opinions and beliefs were.

When given a tough choice, Matthew picked a path for his life that would keep him close to them. He was afraid and confused about the future or what would happen to him without his family’s support. So, he made a choice and regretted it all these years later.

He wouldn’t change a few things about his life, but the “what if” in his mind wouldn’t go away. He mostly had come to peace with his choices, acknowledging how wrong they were, and had become low contact with his parents, but the vision of this woman brought all his feelings back.

“God, why me?” he said the words without meaning to and caught the attention of everyone. Rosalind was giving him a strange look because he hadn’t spoken since they opened the door.

“Dad, did you hear me?” Andrew frowned, tilting his head to the side. “This is my fiancée, Margot.”

“Hello, sir. It’s so nice to meet you,” Margot said, her smile reaching her eyes as she extended her hand to Matthew.

Finally, he snapped from his stupor just in time to give her a handshake, but he was still not himself. Fortunately, Rosalind knew precisely how to diffuse the awkward situation.

“Let me get you guys some drinks,” she said excitedly and used one hand to drag Matthew to the kitchen with one arm.

He was still reeling and went along without protest.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she whispered, maintaining her smile as if the kids could see her.

“Nothing,” Matthew said, gulping.

“Matthew,” Rosalind chided, still in a quiet tone.

“Let’s just get through dinner, and I’ll tell you later,” he relented.

“Fine,” she said, but Matthew knew it was far from fine. She was angry. Still, Rosalind was the perfect hostess, grabbing drinks, putting them on trays, and including some of her famous homemade cookies to give to the kids.

They both returned to the living room, where Andrew and Margot looked at the photographs on the walls. “Look at you! So young and handsome!” she joked about his high school graduation portrait.

“Wasn’t he?” Rosalind chimed in, pleased. “Of course, he’s still gorgeous.”

“Mom,” Andrew rolled his eyes.

“Yes, he is. That’s why I said yes,” Margot smiled at Rosalind.

“I want to know everything. How did he propose? Where were you? I hope it was romantic, or I’m going to give him hell,” Rosalind continued, sitting down after passing the drinks.

Everyone sat and sipped and ate cookies. But while the women were joking, laughing, and enjoying themselves, Matthew was a statue on one of his armchairs. And Andrew was quietly looking at his father, occasionally chiming in so the conversation would continue.

Finally, Rosalind rose, “I’m going to serve dinner.”

“No, I’ll do it,” Matthew countered, getting up. “You stay and gab some more with Margot.”

“OK,” Rosalind replied, but her tone was the same as the one in the kitchen.

Matthew just needed to escape the awkwardness for a second. He heard their conversation continue in the kitchen and listened carefully for anything Margot would say… especially about her family. But they began talking about wedding stuff.

“It’s ready,” he called them, and everyone went to the dining table.

“Let’s say grace. Would that be alright, Margot?” Rosalind asked kindly.

“Of course, my mom wouldn’t let us even touch a fork without saying grace first every night at dinner,” she explained, nodding while they all grabbed hands.

Matthew said a few words, but Andrew had to add them to his speech. “Amen,” they all repeated.

“Dig in. Dig in,” Rosalind encouraged, and the table was quiet except for the sounds of cutlery occasionally.

Fortunately, Rosalind and Margot began conversing about the wedding – what colors she wanted, where and when it would be, what her parents thought, etc.

“My mom is so excited. She wants to set up a dinner with you soon,” Margot revealed at some point, and Matthew choked on his piece of chicken.

Andrew passed him some water and patted his back, frowning the entire time. “What’s going on, Dad?” he asked.

“Nothing,” he responded, through sips of water as the food finally went down correctly.

“Did I do something wrong, sir?” Margot asked, losing some of her confidence and her smile.

“No,” Matthew shook his head immediately. “No, child. You haven’t.”

“Dad, what’s going on? You’re acting weird… almost like…” Andrew’s eyes widened. “Like Grandpa.”

Matthew’s eyes bulged, too, knowing what his son was implying. “NO! Absolutely not! That’s not it, Andrew. I swear. At all.”

“Then, what is it?” his son demanded. “Tell me right now what’s going on, and we’re leaving.”

“Andrew, calm down,” Margot grabbed his arm gently.

“I know her!” Matthew exclaimed. “Well, I know who she is. I once knew her mother, Nia.”

“You know my mother?” Margot asked, unsure but curious.

“I knew her well,” he breathed, nodding as he remembered the past. “You’re the spitting vision of her.”

“Everyone tells me that,” she agreed.

“I’ve seen her mother, Mom. They look exactly alike,” Andrew confirmed to Rosalind. “But I still don’t see why you’ve acted weird since we stepped in the door.”

Matthew sighed, not wanting to get into this, so he looked at Rosalind. “Nia is the one?” his wife wondered, and he nodded. “Wow, what a strange world we live in.”

“Can somebody tell me what’s going on?” Andrew demanded.

“Son, Nia was my first love,” Matthew revealed, his lips puckering as he thought about his words. “She was my first everything, and we were 19 and crazy, so we wanted to get married.”

“What?” Margot said, her mouth remaining open. “That’s insane.”

Andrew was frowning, knowing his father’s words’ implications. “Grandpa didn’t like that, right?” he wondered.

Matthew confirmed it. “Exactly.”

“Why not?” Margot wondered.

“Darling,” Andrew began. “Hmm, my grandparents… are not good people. They have very biased opinions.”

“Oh, I see,” she realized what her fiancé was saying. “So, what happened?”

“I,” Matthew hesitated. “When my father heard what we were going to do, he sat me down and told me the entire family would cut me off if I went ahead. I would be alone in the world. He could do that, you know? He was a scary man.”

They all listened riveted, although Rosalind knew the gist of this story.

“Well, I was crazy about Nia, but I was also 19. The prospect of losing my family was not so easy to digest,” he continued, looking down at times. “I needed his money for college. I thought I needed his guidance, too. He told me to break things off with Nia and never see her again.”

“Oh, gosh,” Margot breathed, sympathetic.

“You can guess the choice I made. Your mother was beautiful and smart and wonderful. I’m sure she still is, of course. But I know now why my family hated her,” Matthew shook his head. “The color of your skin shouldn’t matter to anyone. But it did to them, and I made a stupid choice back then.”

“I can understand that, sir,” Margot said. “Family pressure is real. A big deal. I’ve never gone against anything my parents told me to do.”

“But I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as this,” the older man continued. “Years later, I married Rosalind. Things with my parents were never great about that Nia debacle, but it was cordial. When Andrew was born, I knew I didn’t want my father’s opinions in his head, so we moved away.”

Rosalind nodded, grabbing her husband’s hand.

“Andrew misunderstood my attitude for a second because he knows the kind of man his grandfather is, but I want to restate that I’m not like that at all. I was just shocked to see a copy of Nia in my living room, reminding me how stupid I was in the past,” Matthew finished. “Can you forgive me for this less-than-stellar first impression?”

Margot chuckled. “Of course I can.”

They all smiled, and finally, dinner resumed.

“Oh, my god. We might not be sitting here if your father hadn’t listened to his father,” Margot realized a few minutes later.

“Yeah,” Andrew said, marveling. “Isn’t that insane?”

“That’s crazy!” Margot laughed. “I have to call my mom! She’s going to want a dinner even sooner now.”

Margot got up to grab her phone, and Andrew looked at his parents. “Aside from that blip, I think it’s going well,” he commented.

“She’s amazing, sweetie,” Rosalind said, carefully looking at her husband. “In a twisted way, I think this is how it was always meant to be. Some things happen for a reason, even if we regret them.”

“I agree,” Matthew added. “I did wrong. I shouldn’t have been so weak. But I’m glad that it led to your happiness, son.”

“Thank you, Dad,” Andrew said, looking down to hide his emotions. “Oh, Grandpa and Grandma aren’t invited to the wedding.”

“Oh, that goes without saying,” Matthew nodded, and they all laughed.

What can we learn from this story?

• Don’t listen to or remain close to people who have terrible biases. Matthew made a mistake and listened to his prejudiced father in his youth, which lost him his first love. But years later, he practically cut him out of his life.
• Some things are meant to be. Although Matthew lost his first love, Andrew met his future wife, as if the universe had always planned it that way.

Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.

If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a man who mocked and kicked out his daughter’s fiance and only saw him ten years later.

This piece is inspired by stories from the everyday lives of our readers and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only. Share your story with us; maybe it will change someone’s life. If you would like to share your story, please send it to info@amomama.com.