My mom is fifty-three, and a few months ago she casually told me she was dating someone named Ethan. The moment she said his name, my stomach dropped.
Not because it was a common name. Because I knew exactly who Ethan was.
He wasn’t a stranger or some random guy she’d met online. Ethan used to live down the street when I was a kid. Back then, he was the kind of boy every younger kid looked up to—funny, kind, always helping people carry groceries or fix bikes. When I was seven, he felt impossibly grown-up and perfect. I followed him around like a puppy and once told my mom, completely serious, that I was going to marry him someday.
She’d laughed then. I remembered that clearly.
So when she said, “I’ve been seeing someone… you remember Ethan, right?” I actually laughed, thinking she was joking. There was no way she would do that. Not after knowing what he meant to me as a child. Not after hearing me confess my little kid feelings so earnestly.
But she wasn’t joking.
She smiled and said, “Isn’t it funny? You used to have such a crush on him.”
Funny. That was the word she chose.
From that moment on, everything felt wrong. She kept inviting me over, insisting we should “bond as a family.” Even when I met her alone, she couldn’t stop talking about him—how “mature” he was, how he “understood her better than men her age,” how refreshing it was to be with someone young and energetic.
Every sentence felt like salt in an old wound I hadn’t even known was still there.
What hurt most wasn’t jealousy. It was the feeling that something private and innocent from my childhood had been taken and turned into a joke I was now forced to sit through.
Eventually, I gave in and agreed to have dinner with them. I told myself I was being dramatic. I told myself I was an adult and could handle it.
I couldn’t.
The moment Ethan saw me, he laughed and said, “Your mom told me you used to have a crush on me. Cute, right?” Then he winked.
My mom laughed too. “She was obsessed with you when she was little!”
I felt my face burn. I wanted to disappear into the floor. They weren’t just laughing—they were bonding over me. Over something I’d never given permission to share.
Watching him touch her arm after that made my skin crawl.
After dinner, I pulled my mom aside and finally said it out loud. “You knew I had a crush on him. That wasn’t funny. It was disturbing.”
She rolled her eyes and told me I was “too sensitive” and “jealous.” That’s when I realized she wasn’t listening—she didn’t want to.
So I stopped trying. I kept my distance. I let her live in her glowing romance while I quietly stepped back.
A few weeks ago, she called me in tears. Ethan had left. She’d found out he’d been messaging women his own age the entire time.
I do feel sorry for her. Breakups hurt at any age.
But if I’m honest? There’s also relief. And maybe even a small, guilty sense that this was inevitable.
Is it terrible that part of me thinks she crossed a line—and finally had to face the consequences?
