“I’m still paying for a car I don’t own,” shares 32-year-old M’sian man

The post “I’m still paying for a car I don’t own,” shares 32-year-old M’sian man appeared first on In Real Life.

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AMAL IRL CANVA 1 1

This is a story of a man who took out a loan to buy his fiancee a car to prove his love, only to watch her drive away in it with someone else.

I’m 32 years old and I’m about to tell you the most expensive mistake I have ever made. I’m sharing it because I wish someone had told me this before I signed on the dotted line.

Two years ago, I was engaged to a woman I genuinely believed was the one. She was 27, working in the beauty industry and everything about our relationship felt right. We were planning a wedding, looking at apartments in PJ, talking about the future with absolute certainty. I was earning enough to get by comfortably, nothing lavish, but enough to build a life with her.

Her family was a different story though. They wanted a big wedding, a house, the whole shenanigans. She stood her ground every time they brought it up, told them she was okay with a simple wedding, and told them the house could wait until we were stable. I loved her for that. She made me feel like she chose me over everything her family expected, and that meant more to me than I knew how to say.

Then one evening, on what was supposed to be a regular date, something was off about her. She was unusually quiet, like something was weighing on her mind and when I asked what was wrong, she said her parents were at it again, that they needed some kind of reassurance that I was serious about securing her future. I understood their concerns. I just didn’t have the means to answer it the way they wanted.

Then she suggested something. A car, she said. Nothing too big, just a family car registered under her name, something her parents could point to as proof that I was invested in the marriage. She said we would have needed one eventually when the kids came. I asked how I was supposed to afford it, and she said I could apply for a loan.

I told her I needed to think about it, and she held my hand and said she would support me whatever I decided. That sentence did more damage than she probably realized.

Three days I sat with it. Seven years of monthly payments stretched out in front of me, and on the other side of that was the woman I wanted to marry. I convinced myself that love was worth the weight of it, and I went ahead.

I took out a RM75,000 loan from the bank to buy the car and I had the car registered under her name because that was the whole point.

For a while everything seemed fine. Her parents warmed up to me and the wedding planning continued. I told myself I had made the right call.

Looking back, the signs were there. She became harder to reach after I bought the car, always busy, always with an excuse. She mentioned a coworker a few times in passing, nothing specific, just his name dropping casually into conversations. Her phone was always facing down on the table when we were together. I noticed all of it and talked myself out of every suspicion, telling myself I was just stressed from the loan and projecting it onto her.

Two weeks before the wedding I was driving past a restaurant in Bangsar when I saw them walking out together. Her hand was in his, easy and comfortable. They walked to the car I was still paying for, and he opened the door for her, and she got in.

I sat in my car for a long time after that, shocked and heartbroken by what I had seen.

I ended the engagement and called off the wedding. I will spare you the details of what it took to cancel everything and tell a hundred guests it was over, but I will say it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. She did not fight it as I expected. The conversation was short and when it was over she kept the car because it was registered in her name and there was nothing I could do about that. The loan is in my name. Every month for the next seven years I will be making payments on a vehicle I cannot sell nor will never drive.

I am not writing this to make her a villain, though I have had my moments. I am writing this because I should have known better and I still walked straight into it because I confused proving my love with making a financial decision I could not afford.

I hope you learn from my mistakes; it is a cheaper lesson this way.