Mga Maiikling Kwento tungkol sa Melodramatic at mga Nobela ng Bias na may Marriage

My husband and I have been legally married for five years. This is the tenth time he's canceled our wedding ceremony. This time? His student, Laura, is competing in her first international violin competition—and he 'needs' to be there. I still remember the last cancellation: an awards ceremony he had to attend with her. The time before that? She fell ill, and he stayed at her hospital bedside. The other times? I've lost count of the excuses, but it doesn't matter. The reason is always Laura. Her needs always outweighed my wedding. My marriage. My life. Fine. If he wanted to stand by Laura so badly, he could stay there forever. This hollow, five-year farce of a marriage? It's over.

I'm an Omega, and I turned out to be the fated mate of the Silvermoon Pack's Alpha. For three years, I walked on eggshells as Luna. I threw myself into studying, night and day. Asked permission for everything. And still, it wasn't enough. "You always lean on me for everything," he said. "How can you ever be a real Luna? Try to be more like Sonya." Sonya Smith. His childhood friend. The gold standard I was supposed to measure up to. So I stopped leaning. When I got hurt protecting the pack, even when the wound ran deep, I bandaged it myself and let it heal on its own. Didn't go crying to him. When the pain hit, I curled up alone and rode it out. Didn't go looking for comfort. And when rogues jumped me and I lost the pup—I went to the pack healer myself and handled it. But my mate regretted it. He used to dream of the day I wouldn't need him anymore. When that day finally came, he realized— it was destroying him.

Five years ago, Cyrus Parker cried as he begged me to let his childhood sweetheart, Paige Gallagher, give birth to his child. I agreed, but soon I named my conditions. Paige and her child were to be sent abroad, never to return to this country. At the same time, Cyrus needed to compensate me with half of the Parker family's assets. Everyone called me a materialistic wrench who had her eye on the Parkers' wealth this whole time. As for Cyrus, he'd rather make an enemy out of the entire Parker family just so he could protect that child. Five years later, when I go to a neighboring city on a business trip, I stumble upon a lost boy. So, I take him to the police station and have him contact his family there. The police officer dials the phone number that the boy is able to recite for him. Soon, I hear a familiar voice coming from the phone. "Don't be scared now. I'll come over and pick you up right away." In less than half an hour, Cyrus, who's supposed to be in a business meeting that's taking place thousands of miles away, rushes into the police station. I meet his gaze from my seat on the bench, leaving him stunned. A smile appears on my face as I get up from the bench. "I didn't even know you'd sired another son with another woman behind my back, Cyrus. It seems that you won't be able to keep the other half of your wealth now."

On the day of our fifth wedding ceremony, the bride, Natalie Knight, was late yet again. A notification suddenly popped up on my phone: a trending post on the local city forum. [What's the most thrilling thing you've done after finally winning over the person you'd secretly loved for years?] The original poster answered his own question: [Becoming her husband, obviously. Then stealing her away from my childhood best friend at his weddings five times and going at it with her backstage at the ceremony until we couldn't see straight.] Amid a flood of angry comments, the poster went ahead and shared a photo taken afterward, both of them drenched in sweat. No faces were visible, but it was easy to tell the poster was wearing a groomsman's suit. The woman, shown only in profile, was wearing a wedding dress. A strange sense of familiarity turned me cold from head to toe. The next moment, the doors to the wedding venue finally swung open, and two figures appeared before me. They matched the people in the photo exactly. It felt like I'd plunged into ice water. One was my childhood best friend, who'd been inseparable from me for thirteen years. The other was Natalie, the wife I'd married at the courthouse five years ago.

My wife, Sienna Fairchild, has one ironclad rule. Every Monday, she has dinner with her brother-in-law. During that time, she turns off her phone and blocks every message. Nothing, no matter how urgent, takes priority over their little family gathering. Then one day, our daughter falls down the stairs at preschool and breaks her arm. I call Sienna over a dozen times, but not a single one goes through. With no other option, I call her brother-in-law instead. "Abby got hurt at school. Can you have Sienna come to the hospital?" The other end goes quiet. Just when I think the call has been dropped, Sienna's voice comes through. "My whole day belongs to them. Don't bother me unless it's actually important." The line goes dead. I stand frozen, staring at my daughter crying on the hospital bed. She looks up at me with red, tear-filled eyes. "Daddy, does Mommy not want me anymore?" I choke back the lump in my throat as exhaustion washes over me. Maybe it's time to find my daughter a new mother.

On our third Valentine's Day since marrying the Don Arthur, he set the three places at the dining table. With the same hands he used to wield a gun, he carefully peeled shrimp. Shrimp was Lora's favorite, the first love he'd never gotten over. I was allergic to shellfish. He dismissed every hurt he'd caused me and sided with Lora every time. He was certain I loved him so deeply that I would swallow every insult and step aside forever. Everything changed when I discovered Lora's role in my father's murder and learned how completely Arthur's blind trust in her had buried the truth. That was when I finally saw him clearly. I was done with Arthur and the love he claimed to have for me.

As the college entrance exams approached, I paid the top student in our class to tutor me. But the day she came over, she brought along her childhood sweetheart and insisted that he join our study sessions. I declined her request politely, and she did not press the matter further. The boy left my house in defeat and was struck by a car, suffering injuries so severe that they left him crippled. He could no longer continue his education and was forced to drop out, taking on grueling manual labor to survive. The girl continued tutoring me nonetheless. We both gained admission to the same university, grew close over time, fell in love, got married, and started a family. But on the night of our wedding anniversary, Sharon slipped poison into my soup and watched impassively as I began to convulse and vomit blood, the crimson stain spreading slowly across the floor. "This is what you owe Harry," she said with cold venom. "Taste what it's like to lose all hope." It turned out that she had harbored resentment toward me for all those years. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day she first came to my house with her friend.

When Naomi Sullivan married me, she was already ten million dollars in debt. I spent the last five years working three jobs to help her pay off her "debts" while providing for her as well as our son, Shane Lewis. Not once did I ever complain about anything. All along, I firmly believed that my efforts would pay off, and we would eventually lead a good life together. Last week, our company finally secured a massive investment. Naomi and I hugged as we celebrated the occasion. I thought that the hard times were finally over. Today, I ended up seeing Naomi featured in the financial news. Dressed in a formal gown, she was hailed as the sole heiress to a multi-billion-dollar empire. She was shown engaged in an animated conversation with her "investor", Jared Lewis. The news headline read, "Naomi Sullivan Completes Five-Year Adversity Trial, Proves Her Ability to Build from Scratch to the Board of Directors". I trudge home in a daze. When I get there, the five-year-old Shane is playing with the latest limited-edition toy robot. He looks at me with a frosty, distant expression that bears an uncanny resemblance to his mother's. "Mommy told me everything. You failed the trial, Daddy. You care too much about money."

It was my son's engagement party. However, my husband stopped me from giving my soon-to-be daughter-in-law her gift. "His mother will do the honors. This is not your place." I thought he was joking until he put his arm around his childhood sweetheart and sat down together around the main table. "I know Bianca mishandled your baby, but she had postpartum depression, and it was an accident. "She gave you Jason to make up for her mistake. It's time for them to be a family again. She has atoned for her sins." My nails dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood. Just when I was on the brink of losing it, my son raised a toast to her. "Someone has stolen your place for 30 years, Mom, but you'll never have to suffer again." Right now, my husband and son were like strangers I'd never met instead of my family. A bitter smile curled my lips. We'd spent more than three decades together. Time had left its mark on my graying hair, yet I was treated as nothing more than an outsider in a place I was supposed to call home. Perhaps this home was too small to fit all of us. Since that was the case, someone had to bow out and that someone… was me.

A week before we're supposed to get married, my fiancé, Caleb Payne, asks me to book eight tickets for a trip to the coast. He says it's one last trip before the wedding and that everyone we're close to is going. After three days of trying, I finally manage to get eight seats together. But right after I pay, I accidentally see a poll in a separate group chat they created called "Trip Without Anna." The poll asks whether I should go with them. Seven people vote no. One person doesn't choose either option. No one votes yes. The people who voted include Caleb, my own sister, Caleb's childhood best friend, and the cousin I've practically helped raise. I ask Caleb if he's the one who didn't vote. He rubs his forehead. "Yeah. I didn't vote against you. Isn't that enough? Everyone's worried that if you come, you'll be telling people what to do and ruining the fun. Just give me some space before we get married, okay?" "Then why did you ask me to book eight tickets?" Caleb answers like it's obvious, "Because you're good at snagging tickets. We can use the extra seat for luggage. I'll pay you back later." My own sister, Irene Hudson, tries to talk me down. "You two are about to get married. Don't let a few tickets ruin your wedding." I stare at the eight seats together. Turns out, I spent three days getting those seats just so everyone else could take a trip without me. A notification pops up on the booking app, telling me I have ten minutes left to cancel the tickets for a refund. But by then, the tickets are the last thing on my mind. All I can think about is the man I'm about to marry. When everyone else votes against me, he can't even bring himself to vote for me.

I booked a consultation with a renowned traditional medicine practitioner six months in advance to treat my surgeon wife's arousal disorder over the holidays. However, on the appointment date, Wendy did not show up. Just as I was about to call to question her, I noticed a photo her male friend had posted on social media. In the photo, my usually aloof wife was hugging the guy with a radiant smile. The caption read: [Only I can cure your problem.] But what caught my attention was my wife's flushed face in the photo, clearly displaying signs of arousal. With a cold smirk, I immediately liked and commented: [You must have magic fingers that work wonders!] The comment section exploded, with everyone speculating whether I would tear my wife's lover apart. What awaited my wife was our official divorce after the cooling-off period ended.

For eight years, my husband, Atticus Pearson, has kept one unwavering habit. Every night, at exactly 11:00 pm, he makes a phone call. It always lasts exactly three minutes. "Elena suffers from insomnia. The doctor said someone should talk to her before bed." "Why does it have to be you?" "Because she got injured saving me in that accident. She saved my life." This has been going on for eight years. That makes more than 2,900 three-minute phone calls. I keep telling myself to get over it. Then, in the third year of our marriage, Atticus finally finds the time to make up for the honeymoon we never had. On the last night of the trip, Atticus is showering while I lie on the hotel bed, picking out photos from our couple's shoot. Suddenly, a message pops up on his phone. It is a video from Elena Stitfall. On the screen, Elena is lying in our bed, wearing my pajamas, resting her head on my pillow, and smiling at the camera. "Atti, can we talk for one extra minute tonight? I miss you so much. It's only three minutes to our call time."

While shopping at the mall, a child suddenly slams into my five-month pregnant belly. Blood immediately pools on the floor. With trembling hands, I call my boyfriend, Garrett Holloway, and beg him to come get me as quickly as possible. But even after I am rushed into surgery and finally pulled back from the brink, he never shows up. But through the glass, I see him helping another woman into the hospital for a prenatal checkup. "She only stumbled a little, and her husband got so worried. He brought her to the hospital right away. Some people are just luckier than others. Not everyone gets a man who cares for them so attentively." Listening to the nurses whisper among themselves, I tighten my grip on the miscarriage report in my hand. Then, I send a message to my family. I write, "Mom, I'll go with your arrangement. I'm not marrying Garrett anymore."

Mabel Wright, an unrivaled superstar, draws the curtains of the presidential suite and kneels on the carpet, meticulously filing my nails. Basking in this rare moment of tenderness, I can't help but think that my 19 years of devotion have finally warmed her heart. That is, until she slides a surrogacy agreement across the table to me. The agreement states in black and white that she plans to use my 50 million dollars to buy her first love, Mateo Thorne's, sperm in Gilead. Not only does she intend to strip me of my legal status as the father, but she also expects me to pay a million dollars a month in child support. Mabel blows the powder off her fingertips and says matter-of-factly, "I'm a staunch believer in platonic love. Physical fidelity is nothing compared to spiritual compatibility. Don't even dream of buying my 3.5-microgram egg with your boatload of cash. Mat's dying. This is his one and only dying wish!" Her tone remains calm. "I'll bring the baby back and have him take your last name. He'll call you Dad." When I don't respond, her brows draw together, as if I'm the one being unreasonable. "I've already agreed to have the child registered under your name. What exactly are you still hung up on? You're already my husband. What more do you expect?" Mabel sighs and continues unapologetically, "If you insist on reducing love to something so vulgar, I don't know what else to tell you."

When the Irwins were on the brink of bankruptcy, I proposed a marriage of convenience to Ryan and saved them from collapse. Ever the playboy, Ryan was so grateful that he swore eternal loyalty to me, even getting a vasectomy immediately to prove his devotion. He took me across mountains and rivers, saying he wanted to etch our love into every corner of the world. Three years later, he got me drunk, stole my phone, and used it to infiltrate the Knights’ estate. That night, he orchestrated the complete downfall of my family’s legacy. My parents overdosed on sleeping pills. My sister was dragged into an alley by his men, violated, filmed, and the footage was auctioned off to amuse wealthy heirs. I begged him to let my family go. However, he gripped my face and forced me to watch as my parents were cremated. “You think marrying me back then was some noble sacrifice? Sure, the whole city praised your family for helping mine in our darkest hour. But what did they say about me? “They call me your lapdog, Lily!” Ryan destroyed the Knights to prove he was better than us and not anyone’s dog. He tore up the divorce papers and shoved the shreds into my mouth. Ryan wanted me to watch as he rose to power and made the world kneel before him. To humiliate me, he brought home a different woman every night, turning our house into a hotel while I served them. “What’s the Knights’ worth now? With your status, cooking for them and massaging their feet like this is only fitting.” It didn’t matter. When I saved him from that avalanche, a shard of stone slashed my heart. Now, I only have three days left to live.

My wife, Karen Quinn, pretended to be trapped in a fire and called me for help. Without a thought for my own life, I charged into the flames to save her and came out so blackened by smoke that I looked like a lump of charcoal. Just as I was grieving, convinced something terrible had happened to her, I found her standing in the safe zone with her male best friend, Cade Morrow, neither of them with a scratch on them. She held up her phone and burst out laughing. "Todd, are you out of your mind? You've been fooled ninety-nine times, and you still fall for it like an idiot." Some of the others couldn't stand it anymore and warned her, "Aren't you afraid he'll divorce you if you keep going this far?" My wife shot me a sideways glance and said with contempt, "My first love died because of him. A little suffering like this is letting him off easy. "Besides, he's a pathetic nobody that no one wants. I'm the only one who'd ever feed him. Where else could he go without me?" What she didn't know was that I was dying. This time, I was really going to leave her for good.

My son, Andy, had a sudden liver failure and needed a liver transplant. The only compatible match was my wife, Vivian Grant. I had begged her for 20 days to give Andy a liver transplant. Finally, she caved in. I waited the entire day in front of the operating theater, but she didn’t appear. On the same day, her first love, Jason Sanderson posted on his social media. [20th day of traveling around the world. Dr. Grant had given up her career to help fulfil my son's dream of traveling the world.] Only then did I find out that Vivian had been travelling the world with Jason and his son, Luke, since day one. That night, I received a call from Vivian. "Charlie, Luke had gotten full marks on his exam. His wish was to have his Daddy and Mommy travel around the world with him. As you know, he doesn't have a Mommy. I couldn't bear to watch him not get his wish. "We'll return in three days. We can have the surgery for Andy then." She had no idea that what awaited her at the hospital was Andy's lifeless body.

On the third anniversary of our marking, my husband, Elias Voss, gave me quite a gift. He slept with Morwen Thorne, the former Alpha's daughter, in the room I'd decorated myself. "Layla, the former Alpha promised to give me the moonstone that amplifies a wolf's power if I agreed to take Morwen as my mate. "Don't worry. You're still the one I love most." Watching him hold Morwen so close, I realized none of this surprised me. He craved power. I had once believed loving him meant helping him rise, even when doing so left me wounded again and again. When he wanted rare gems to offer the Moon Goddess, I entered the forbidden lands to find them for him and spent the next three months bedridden. When he went after the rogues to win support and was nearly torn apart, I was the one who saved him. It cost me my baby. And now, for even more power, he was seducing the former Alpha's daughter. He always thought that because I loved him and was an Omega, I couldn't survive without his protection. But there was something he didn't know. My name was Layla Vaughn, and I wasn't some low-ranking Omega. Quite the opposite. I was a rare female Alpha, the daughter of Grant Vaughn, Alpha of the Iron Howl Pack. Our pack stood one full rank above the Blood Pact Pack. The only reason I'd hidden my identity was a bet I'd made with my father: I could find true love without relying on my title. For three years, I believed Elias was proof I'd won. But this time, I had to admit I'd lost. I sent a message to my father through the mind-link: "Dad, I'll come home and accept the arranged marriage."

For Founders' Day, Julian Whitmore said he was finally taking me home to meet his family. I spent three months preparing. Then I waited an hour outside his front door. By the time I made it inside, his mother was already holding the hand of a girl in a fitted red dress. "This is Camille," she announced to the room, beaming. "Julian's fiancée. The wedding's set for Thanksgiving." I looked at Julian. He kept his head down. He didn't deny it. All through dinner, he and Camille Sinclair accepted toast after toast of congratulations, while the butler led me in through the side door and sat me at a table in the corner — without so much as a place setting. Three rounds of drinks in, he texted me: [Wait for me. I'll fix this.] I sent back three words: [Congratulations to you.]

On the day of my wedding to Julian, his childhood friend, Wendy, crashed the ceremony. Wendy declared she didn’t have much time left to live and that her only regret was never being able to experience what it was like to get married. Julian immediately dropped my hand, insisting on having the wedding with her instead. “Chloe, she’s sick,” he said. “Please sit aside for ten minutes while I go through the ceremony with her.” The three hundred guests in the audience fell into absolute silence, and my parents trembled with rage. Amidst everyone’s gaze—everyone waiting to see a joke unfold—I calmly removed my veil and put it on Wendy myself. “The two of you are so deeply devoted to one another. You have my blessing. I wish you happiness forever.” What Julian didn’t know was that I had been waiting for this to unfold for a very long time.