My name is Ana, 25 years old, and I married Carlos right after graduating from university. We met at university; our love was pure and simple. Carlos is kind and hardworking, but his mother, Doña Teresa, is famous in the neighborhood for being strict and cruel.

The very day he took me to meet her, she uttered a phrase:

“A girl from a poor village, will she be able to support this family?”

I tried to smile, thinking that if I was obedient and hardworking, someday she would accept me. But I was wrong. From the first day as a daughter-in-law, she criticized everything I did and never praised me.

The reason Doña Teresa didn’t accept me was simple: she had planned for Carlos to marry a rich girl from the region, and I had ruined her “plans.”

When there were guests, she would often say between the lines:

“These days, when you get married, you have to choose someone with money; what can you do with someone who has nothing?”

Carlos listened, but he rarely dared to defend me; he would just remain silent or change the subject. I swallowed my tears and told myself I had to endure everything for him.

One day, Carlos had to go on a business trip for a week. I stayed home looking after the family store and doing housework. That day, I accidentally dropped a bottle of oil, and it spilled on the floor. When Doña Teresa saw it, she flew into a rage and yelled at me, calling me clumsy and saying I had ruined everything.

But she didn’t stop there. Suddenly, she dragged me into a room, closed the door, and with a pair of scissors, cut off all my long hair, which I had cared for since I was a child.

I was in shock, struggling:

“Mom! Please, no… my hair…”

She gritted her teeth:

“What’s the point of so much hair? To attract other men? I’m cutting it all off so you know what humiliation is!”

The sound of scissors cutting my hair echoed throughout the house. Tears choked me, but she didn’t stop.

After cutting it, she forced me to take a small bag with my belongings:

“From now on, you’re going to the convent. I don’t want a shameless woman in my house!”

I fell to my knees, pleading:

“Mama, please… I didn’t do anything wrong…”

But she turned and left, leaving me trembling in the yard. I grabbed my bag and left through the door of Carlos’s house, while the neighbors murmured and stared at me.

It began to rain lightly, and the cold seeped into my bones. I didn’t know where to go; I only remembered what she had said: “to the convent.” So I walked to a small convent at the edge of town.

The nun in charge looked at me with compassion and allowed me to stay in the kitchen. With my hair disheveled and my eyes swollen from crying, I became the talk of the town.

During my time at the convent, I helped the nun clean, cook, and grow vegetables. No one scolded or criticized me; only the sound of the bell and the scent of incense offered me comfort.

The nun advised me: