'You're Already the Third One!' My MIL Said When I Called to Tell Her I Was Pregnant – Story of the Day

When Violet shared her joyful news, her mother-in-law's cutting response shattered everything she thought she knew about her marriage. As secrets unraveled, Violet was forced to confront betrayal, buried pasts, and the cost of silence. In the end, she had to decide whose story she was really living.

I sat on the bathroom floor, staring at the plastic stick as though it were an oracle.

Two pink lines.

My hands shook so badly I almost dropped it, and when I pressed my palm to my stomach, I swore I felt the faintest flutter of something that was not even possible yet. My heart leaped, my eyes stung, and for a moment, joy filled every corner of me.

A baby. Our baby.

I reached for my phone immediately. Matthew was the first person I wanted to tell, but when I called him, the line rang, then clicked to voicemail

"Come on, Matthew," I muttered, trying again. Still nothing. I figured he was in a work meeting, but the thrill inside me would not let me sit in silence.

But someone had to know. Someone in our family. I had to share my news. I scrolled and pressed Diana's number, my mother-in-law.

"Hello?" Her voice was as polished as pearls.

"Hi, Diana," I said, my breath catching. "It's Violet. I... well... I just found out I'm pregnant."

There was a pause, and for a second, I pictured her smile softening the way I had always hoped it would. Instead, she laughed lightly, as if I had told her a joke.

"Oh, honey," she said. "I think the novelty has worn out. You're the third one now. Did Matthew not tell you?"

The world tilted. My grip on the phone loosened until I nearly dropped it.

"I... what?" I gasped.

"You heard me," she said, crisp and casual, like she was remarking on the weather. "Matthew has always been extremely... fertile. You're hardly the first. But maybe you'll last longer than the others."

"Diana — "

"I've got to go, Violet," she said, cutting me off. "Congratulations, I suppose."

The line went dead.

The pregnancy test slid from my fingers onto the cold tiles. My stomach twisted. Joy bled into dread so quickly I thought I might be sick.

Third one? Who were the other two women? Where were the children? Was Diana pranking me?

Matthew came home that night humming under his breath, a light tune that clashed with the heaviness pressing down on my chest. He tossed his keys on the counter with the careless ease of a man who had never carried a secret in his life, then leaned down to kiss me as though everything was normal.

"Hey, baby," he said, the familiar warmth in his voice almost enough to trick me. He smelled faintly of cologne, clean and sharp, but underneath it lingered something metallic I could not place. He tried to hug me, but I could not hold him back.

Matthew pulled back and frowned.

"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost, Violet. I got takeout," he said.

I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the condensation sliding down my empty glass. My throat felt tight, as if my words had to claw their way out.

"I called your mother today," I said.

"Oh?" he said, his posture shifting. He straightened too quickly and tried to smooth it over with a smile. "What did good old Diana say this time?"

"I wanted to tell her the news... you know, because you didn't answer my calls." My fingers brushed against my stomach, a small reflex I could not stop. "I told her that I'm pregnant."

"You told her before me?" His smile froze, then faltered before returning thinner, practiced.

"Again, you didn't answer when I called." My voice shook despite how hard I tried to steady it. "She said something strange. She said I'm already the third one. Third what, Matthew?"

For the briefest flicker, his eyes hardened, the softness vanishing. Then, just as quickly, he slipped on the mask again. He walked around the table and pulled out the chair across from me, settling down as if the news had not rattled him at all.

He reached for my hand and clasped it firmly.

"Violet, you can't take anything she says seriously. You know my mom — she's always stirring trouble. You know she's never liked you, and she probably never will. That's what this is about."

The warmth of my husband's palm pressed into mine, but all I felt was the pressure, the way his grip tightened until it bordered on pain.

"But is it true?" I asked, my voice low, as though it might break if I pushed harder.

"No. Of course not," he said. He leaned closer now. "Don't let her poison your mind, my lovely. We're starting our family, and that's all that matters."

I wanted to believe him. I wanted his words to be enough to stitch the cracks Diana's voice had carved into me. But even as I nodded and forced myself to swallow the unease, the weight of her words lingered like a shadow at the edge of the room, whispering that something was terribly wrong.

In the days that followed, Diana's shadow seemed to stretch over every corner of my life. I told myself I would not let her get under my skin, but she had a way of finding the cracks.

At our weekly brunch the following Sunday, she leaned across the table, her pearls flashing against her throat, her smile practiced and sharp.

"You look tired, Violet," she said, her voice carrying the weight of false concern. "Pregnancy does take its toll, shame. Poor thing, not everyone's body can handle it. Matthew's used to the disappointment though."

I gripped my napkin so tightly it tore in half. The sound seemed to echo in the silence between us, but Matthew did not look at me. He kept his eyes lowered, staring at the omelet in front of him.

Later, when we were alone in the car, I asked him why he said nothing to defend me.

"She humiliated me, Matthew. And you just sat there and looked at a plate of cold eggs," I said.

"You're overreacting, Vi," he said, sighing as though I had asked him something stupid. "My mother will never like anyone I'm with. Ignore her."

"I'm not just someone you're with, Matthew. I'm your wife," I said.

But the truth was that the dismissal cut deeper than Diana's words. It wasn't just her cruelty — it was his silence that hollowed me out.

But soon, it was more than Diana. I began to notice small things, things that did not fit into the picture-perfect story he wanted me to believe. Receipts tucked into jacket pockets for toy stores in towns I had never even heard of.

There was a photograph folded in half, shoved into a drawer — Matthew, younger, smiling with a baby balanced in his arms. The child's eyes seemed to search mine through the faded paper. And then there was the hospital invoice with his name printed clearly across the top, but not mine.

Each discovery made my stomach clench tighter. I could not quiet the voice that told me there was more — that something had been hidden from me all along.

One night I asked him directly.

"Where were you the week of that conference? The one where your phone was suddenly dead every day?"

His face twisted, a flicker of something ugly surfacing before he smoothed it away.

"My goodness, Violet," he said. "You're obsessed. I told you. It was work. It was a week-long work trip, you know this."

But the longer I stared at him, the less his words felt like the truth, and the more they sounded like another mask he was forcing me to wear.

The truth came quietly at first, like whispers I could not ignore. One night, unable to sleep, I found myself at Matthew's desk, staring at the locked drawer he always kept shut.

My heart hammered as I tugged it open and began rifling through the layers of forgotten tax files and receipts. At the very bottom, wedged as if he had meant to bury it, I found a manila folder, thick and creased from years of being handled.

My breath caught when I opened it and saw the certificate inside.

"Father: Matthew C.

Mother: Sarah W.

Child: Jacob C."

The paper blurred as my hand shook, my finger tracing the names over and over until the letters almost carved themselves into my skin. There was an address listed in small, neat print — rural, a county I barely recognized.

I carried the laptop to the table, my palms slick with sweat, as I typed her name into the search bar. The page loaded slowly, and then she was there. Her smile was soft but tired; her eyes rimmed with shadows that no filter could hide.

On her hip was a boy no older than five, his small hand curled around her shoulder.

Behind them, an orchard stretched in neat rows, the apple trees heavy with fruit.

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my nausea at bay. I stared at the photograph until my eyes burned. Then I found the number for the orchard, and I pressed call before I could lose my nerve.

The line rang twice before a woman's voice answered.

"Sarah?" I asked. "I'm Violet... I'm married to Matthew..."

There was silence for half a beat and then she laughed — soft and bitter.

"Of course you are," she said. "I figured someone would call to ask about us sooner or later."

"He never told me about you, Sarah," I said softly. "Or about Jacob."

"Honey, he never tells anyone," she said. "It's like... we're ghosts in Matthew's life. Ghosts from an embarrassing youth and a mistake that resulted in my son."

In the background I heard a child's voice, bright and carefree, laughter carried on the wind. It twisted something else inside me.

"He promised he'd be there," she continued. "But his mother made it clear that I was nothing more than a mistake. She told me to leave before I ruined her precious son's future. So I packed what I could and came here to my parents. I help them about the orchard. My son deserves stability — not Matthew's lies and his horrible mother's spite."

Tears pricked hot in my eyes, spilling before I could blink them back.

"I don't even know what to say, Sarah," I muttered. "I'm so sorry for what they did to you."

"Don't be sorry for me," Sarah replied gently. "Just don't let him do to you what he did to me. That's all I ask, honey. Get out before you're in too deep."

Her words lingered long after the line went quiet. It felt like a plea wrapped in warning, and in that moment I knew — whatever I thought my marriage was, it was not built on truth.

The only problem was that I was in too deep. I was about two months too deep.

I barely slept after learning about Sarah and Jacob. My thoughts twisted themselves into knots, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw that little boy's hand resting on his mother's shoulder.

But even with that truth in my chest, a part of me still clung to denial. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe they had just been too young for the commitment of a child and that was how their relationship ended the way it had.

But the doubt would not leave me alone, and so one night, I found myself back in the guest bedroom, where Matthew kept old boxes stacked neatly in the closet.

I pulled them down one by one, rifling through paperwork, photographs, and even old receipts that smelled faintly of dust and cologne.

That was when I saw it: the edge of a black box pushed behind a stack of bedding. My pulse quickened as I dragged it out, the weight heavier than I expected.

It was a safe. I hadn't even known we owned one. My stomach fluttered.

I tried his birthday, the last four digits of his phone number, even his mother's birthday. On the fourth attempt, the lock clicked open with the date of our wedding.

Inside, beneath neat stacks of documents, I found another file. I pulled it out with trembling hands and unfolded the top sheet.

"Patient: Anna R.

Diagnosis: Miscarriage at twelve weeks.

Note: No complications during patient intake. Medication distributed. Patient required a pint of blood. Partner present throughout.

Partner: Matthew C."

The words blurred as my vision swam. My lips parted, but no air seemed to come.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head. "This can't be."

I traced the date with my finger. Eighteen months into our marriage. That was the week he told me he was at a conference, his phone conveniently dead for days. I remembered the way he looked when he returned, his eyes red-rimmed, guilt softening his smile as he pulled me close and told me he missed me.

"You weren't missing me," I murmured to the empty room. "You were holding her hand."

I pressed the papers against my chest as if I could squeeze the truth back into them, but it only pressed harder against me. It was not just the cheating. It was that he could sit beside her while she lost their child, whisper comfort into her ear, and then come home to me with her sorrow still clinging to him.

I imagined Anna in that hospital bed. I imagined my husband's hand wrapped around hers, his voice telling her that she was not alone. I imagined her grief, her body breaking, her heart breaking, while I sat at home believing my husband was out building a future for us.

The betrayal hollowed me out, but beneath it, something else began to take shape. A certainty. If Matthew could do that to her, he could do it to me. And if I did not stop it, he would.

The next evening, I laid everything out on the kitchen table.

The birth certificate. The photograph of Sarah and Jacob. The medical records with dates circled in red. Each page was a wound of its own, and together they formed something impossible to ignore.

I sat with my hands folded tightly in my lap, waiting.

When Matthew walked in, humming, his smile faltered. His eyes landed on the papers, and he froze.

"What's this?" His voice cracked.

"It's the truth, Matthew," I said simply. "Sarah, Jacob, and Anna. Your... family. I know that when you said you were at a conference, you were at a hospital holding her hand while she lost your second child."

"Where did you get — " he began, dragging a hand through his hair. "Violet, listen — "

"Is it true?" I snapped, my chair scraping against the floor as I leaned forward. "Matthew, is it true?!"

He sank into the seat across from me, deflating.

"Yes," he said. "But it was before you, or it wasn't serious... or..."

"Are you trying to list excuses? What is wrong with you, Matthew?" I screamed. "And not serious? A child, Matthew. And a miscarriage. That isn't serious to you?"

He slammed his fist on the table, the sound making me flinch.

"This is exactly why I didn't tell you. You blow everything out of proportion. You want a perfect story, but life just isn't perfect. Grow up, Violet, you're about to become a mother."

I stared at him, at the man I had once loved, and saw only a stranger who wore lies like a second skin. My hand drifted to my stomach.

"You've let me think that I was going to be the first woman to have your child... You let me walk into this blind."

"You have me now," he snapped. "That should be more than enough."

The next day, Diana appeared, as though summoned by the storm itself. She perched at my table, arranging her skirt.

"So," she said with a quiet satisfaction. "The secrets are out. Did you really think you were special? I think you're the least special of them all. Matthew has always needed more than one woman. You're just another chapter."

I looked at her, the hum of the refrigerator filling the silence, and then I slid my ring off my finger. It landed on the table with a sound that cracked through the room.

Diana's smile faltered.

"I may not be the first," I said. "But I'm the last who'll ever put up with either of you."

Matthew's face turned gray and Diana opened her mouth, but no words came.

I stood, one hand protectively over my stomach, and walked to the door. The air outside was cool and clean in my lungs, the kind of air that felt like freedom.

"You may send toys to Jacob, Matthew, but you'll never see my baby. Never."

I wasn't the first. I wasn't the second. But I was the one who ended it. For Sarah, for Anna... and for me. For the child inside me, who deserved a story built on truth. And nobody was going to make a fool out of me again.