My Son Took the Microphone at the Wedding I Paid For and Thanked His “Real Mother.” I Stayed Silent. What I Did Next Would Change Everything.

I spent nineteen thousand dollars on my son’s wedding.

Every cent I had saved over a lifetime of working, sacrificing, and going without. I told myself it was a final gift. One last act of love before stepping quietly into the background of his grown life.

Instead, I watched him erase me in front of two hundred people.

My name is Stephanie. I am seventy years old. And for forty five years, I was Ethan’s mother in every way that mattered.