This is not my story. This was told to me by a woman I knew from work several years ago; she’s a very sweet nurse.
Nurse graduated from nursing school and decided with her friend to
move to one of the cities that was listed as having “the most eligible
bachelors” from some publication. She moves and starts dating her future
husband.Future Husband’s mother is a viper and decides Nurse is not good
enough for her family. The happy couple eventually get engaged and
future mother-in-law is having none of it. Tries for several months to
break them up; tries to convince Nurse to go back where she came from
and simultaneously tries to gently convince her precious son that Nurse
may not be good for him.To add some more context to this situation, this MIL is pretty nasty
to Nurse but hides it well to other people, always making sure she’s
super (fake) sweet to everyone when others are around.Finally wedding plans are set so MIL gets desperate. She gets Nurse
alone with a “generous” offer: leave fiance and never come back in
exchange for $10,000 (note: this was almost 30 years ago so I guess it
was kind of a shitload of money for most).Nurse is so sick of this woman’s shit and is incredibly insulted.
However, she’s intelligent and maintains her composure. Nurse accepts
the offer.Nurse takes the money, does not leave, and gets married anyway. Nobody else knows about this.
MIL cannot say or do anything about it without exposing herself to her family as a horrible person.
Nurse and husband are still happily married; their kids are grown; husband still has no idea this went down.
MIL has suffered silently for almost 30 years.