Help! I Just Ran Into My Ex's Drunk Mom at a Party. I'm Still Reeling From What She Said.

"My parents have been friends/neighbors with the "Smiths" for 30+ years. I met their daughter "Trina" when I was 5 when they moved into the neighborhood; she was 5 also. We were playfully "boyfriend/girlfriend" when younger and officially during and after high school. Everybody, including us, thought we would get married. We didn't. She left for college and we dated for a year or so when she came home one holiday and said she didn't "feel" what she thought she needed to feel with me romantically and thought we should break up.I agreed, emotionally hurt but not devastated, as I had met a girl in one of my community college/trade school classes who made me feel "giddy" inside when talking to her, unlike anything I ever felt with Trina."

"Fast forward to this past New Year's Eve. My wife and I were at a party at the Smiths and found out Trina (and her kids) had moved back to the area and were living with her mom and dad. Her husband was involved with his family's property investment/management company and COVID (work from home) had wiped them out. The joint money she thought they had, he spent without her knowledge to try and keep the business going and then found out he was "cooking the books" and was being charged with tax fraud. Broke, unemployed stay-at-home-home and in the middle of a divorce, she had no choice except to move back home. As the night went on and the drinks flowed, Trina's mom started commenting how life would have been much better for her if she hadn't dumped me. I have a very successful trade business (HVAC) and she could have been part of that, but isn't, because of the poor choice she made of not staying with me. Other similar comments were made by her throughout the evening and I felt so bad for Trina, and my wife was getting somewhat uncomf"

The narrator and Trina grew up as neighbors, dated through high school, and were expected to marry, but Trina ended the relationship after college. The narrator later met someone else and married. Trina married, became financially entangled with her husband's family business, and moved back home with her children after his alleged tax fraud and financial collapse. At a New Year's Eve party at Trina's parents' home, Trina's mother repeatedly told Trina that life would have been better if she had not ended the earlier relationship, creating embarrassment for Trina, the narrator, and the narrator's wife and generating interpersonal tension.

Read at Slate Magazine