A UK woman whose husband left her to be with her mother says she will NEVER fully forgive her mom for not only taking her husband from her, but also getting pregnant by him and having his baby just nine months after their honeymoon, and on top of that, marrying him the day after what would have been their 1-year wedding anniversary.
Lauren Wall, of Twickenham in southwest London, who is now 34 years old, got married to airport worker Paul White back in 2004 when she was 19 and had just given birth to their child, a baby girl.
Lauren’s mom, Julie, now 53 years old, footed the entire bill for the wedding (about $20K USD to be exact), so to express her gratitude for what seemed like an extremely generous gesture at the time, Lauren invited Mama Julie to tag along with her and her new husband for their two-week honeymoon.
To Lauren, it seemed like a good idea at the time, however, just eight weeks later, Paul moved out of the home he shared with Lauren. And nine months after that, Lauren’s mother gave birth to Paul’s child and announced that they were officially a couple.
“Paul always got on really well with mum,” Lauren told the UK’s Mirror Online in an exclusive interview. “I never thought it strange though, as she was his mum-in-law and he was just being friendly.”
Lauren went on: “They’d laugh a lot together. I didn’t think to be worried at all. Who would? I couldn’t wait to settle into marriage but the ink was barely dry on our certificate when Paul changed.”
Lauren said after their honeymoon, her new husband became oddly “protective” of his cell phone. And just four weeks after their wedding, when Lauren’s sister was using their mom’s phone, she came across some inappropriate texts between Mama Julie and Paul.
When Lauren finally mustered up the courage confronted Mama Julie about the texts, Mama Julie tried to downplay them, telling her daughter there wasn’t anything going on between her and her son-in-law.
“Mum denied everything, saying, ‘You’re crazy!'” Lauren recalled. “When I confronted Paul he went white as a sheet—and refused to let me see his phone.”
Days later, Paul took off his wedding ring and walked out on his new wife and their seven-month-old daughter so that he could be with his mother-in-law, who, unbeknownst to Lauren at the time, was pregnant with his child—a child who, once born, would also be his estranged wife’s sibling. (Ed. Note: Where is Jerry Springer when you need him the most?!)
“I felt like my world had ended,” Lauren said. “I was a 19-year-old with a kid.”
Lauren added: “I couldn’t believe the two people I loved and trusted most in the world could betray me like this. It was sick. It’s one of the worst things a mum can do to a daughter.
“Paul may have been a gutless groom but she’s my mum. She’s meant to love and protect me above all others. Instead, she stole my husband, shattering my family and my dreams. For that, I’ll never truly forgive her.”
Lauren’s relationship with Paul began on Valentine’s Day (She was 17 at the time and Paul was 18), when they went on their first date as a couple, just two years prior to the infidelity that not only destroyed their marriage, but also Lauren’s relationship with her mother.
“I met him at a local pub – I fancied him straight away,” she said. “He asked for my number and the next day he texted asking to go on a date to the cinema. We started going out straight after that.”
A few months later, Lauren became pregnant, and their daughter was born in March 2004. Not long after the birth of their daughter, Paul proposed to Lauren, she said yes, and they were married by August of that same year.
“Although we hadn’t planned a family so soon, when our daughter was born we were thrilled,” Lauren said. “Five months later we were getting married in a beautiful church ceremony with friends and family.
“Mum looked on proudly as we exchanged vows. She even splashed out £15,000 ($20,000 USD) on the occasion. And it was a fairytale wedding – I had my dream dress and Paul was showering me with compliments.”
Lauren added: “I must have been young and naive as I thought everything was going well. He told me that he wanted to be with me forever.”
Forever for Paul, apparently, was just two months, because it was within that time frame that his marriage with Laurene had already fallen to pieces and was damaged beyond repair. And Lauren had no idea what had been going on behind her back between her mother and husband.
A few weeks after Paul walked out on Lauren and their daughter, Lauren said she started hearing rumors that Paul was living with her mother, and one day, when she saw her mom walking down the street, she noticed that she looked pregnant.
“When I saw her in the street and noticed she had a bump, my mind raced. She clutched her stomach and told me, ‘It’s a cyst.’ I felt so sick, I went home and destroyed all the photos of our wedding,” Lauren recalled.
At that point, Lauren filed for divorce. And in July 2005, nine months after Paul walked out on his family, Lauren’s mom gave birth to his baby.
Upon hearing the news, Lauren said she couldn’t resist calling her mom out.
“I texted her to say ‘Removed the cyst then?'” Lauren said. “She tried to claim the father was another boyfriend but I knew the truth. Paul and Mum officially announced themselves as a couple that summer and my world crumbled.”
Adding insult to injury, five years after exchanging “I do’s” to Lauren, Paul ended up doing the same thing with Lauren’s mother. And Lauren was there to witness the whole thing, because, for the sake of her daughter, she attended the wedding.
“She rang me up and invited me. It was awkward. I got married on the 14th August 2004, they married on the 15th August 2009,” Lauren said. “It was almost too much to bear but I did it for my daughter.”
Lauren continued: “I went to watch mum marry the same man I’d wed five years earlier. As they exchanged vows it was hard not to think of the day Paul had said the same words to me, when mum had stood alongside me, the proud mother of the bride.”
Lauren said despite the ultimate betrayal, her mother has tried to mend fences over the years.
“She initiated it,” Lauren said of her mother’s attempt at rebuilding their severely strained relationship.
“I dropped my brother off at her house and she got in my car, started crying and just said: ‘I’m sorry.’ I told her: ‘Get out of my car.’ She wrote me a letter a couple of weeks later apologizing. And that was the start of us mending our relationship.”
Lauren said that was back in 2006, and years later, she still struggles with the idea of forgiving her mother for what she did.
“We’d get on all right, have a massive falling out, and then get on again,” Lauren said. “I still bring it up and make a comment and she doesn’t like it.
Lauren continued: “Just because we spoke after doesn’t mean I’m over it. Paul never said sorry or tried to apologize to me. I speak to him as he’s married to my mum. I’ve asked him before to explain to our daughter and he just says it’s forgotten about now.”
To this day, Lauren’s mother, who works in child services, is still married to her former son-in-law—a man who has a child with his ex-wife and his ex-wife’s mother, which makes for a very confusing family tree.
For what it’s worth, Lauren has since moved on and is now happily pregnant with her fourth child by her new partner, but she says what her ex-husband and mother did to her has created “trust issues” that she’ll have to deal with for the rest of her life. And on top of that, her relationship with her mother will never be the same.
“Time is a great healer, and mum and I have tried to have a normal relationship. But we will never be as close as we were—and I’ll never fully trust her again,” Lauren explained.
Meanwhile, Mama Julie is still happily married to her daughter’s ex-husband and remains unbothered. “We are married,” she said. “We didn’t have an affair. We are married and that’s it.”
Paul, now 35, refused to comment.
