We didn’t take money from his rich folks for our wedding; instead, we planned it ourselves. My mother-in-law made fun of me when I said I would bake my own wedding cake. On the big day, though, she bragged about it in front of everyone. She stole my moment, but karma was coming back to get me.

Christine is my wife’s mother. She has never worked a day in her life, and it shows in ways that make my teeth grind. When I met her for the first time three years ago, she looked at me like I might not be a good buy. She looked at my dress from the department store and then at my old shoes for a while.

“So you work in… customer service?” She asked in a way that made it sound like my job was to clean toilets.

I kindly corrected her, “I’m a marketing coordinator.”

“That’s nice. I guess those jobs need to be done by someone.

Dave had squeezed my hand as a way of saying sorry for how his mother had behaved. He held me close that night and said, “I love that you work hard and care about important things.”

That’s when I knew I would marry him one day.