HI Noor, I am very late to the party but I wanted to say that you don’t have to look at this relationship as a failure. Actually, you have learned so much about people and about being true to yourself and your own emotional needs. If you are being told the truth by the ex-boyfriend about his mother’s reaction, then you know this isn’t the extended family situation you want to marry into. This is so wise of you. I am a sceptic by nature and try to see all the sides of things. If you don’t know for sure that his mother said what she said, it could be that this man is living some kind of double life. He can’t let you meet his parents for many reasons, like already being married or engaged possibly. Some people are very indoctrinated by their parents that the parents rule the adult child’s life. This may not be the kind of man you want to marry and that is okay. So this relationship has given you many lessons and many tools for moving forward. You have affirmed that you must do right by yourself first and foremost. That is a beautiful thing. To have stayed with this man, and been in emotional turmoil over his mother’s unhappiness and anger, would have been awful, like being in chains. What a run-on sentence that was!