My Ina Used My Identity to Start a Fake Romance — I Exposed the Truth and Restricted Her Control

My phone vibrated in my palm as Liza read a voice note "from me" aloud in the quiet corner of a café in Poblacion, Makati, and my ina's laugh sat in the background like proof. The message promised marriage "before Holy Week", mentioned my childhood scar, and called Liza "my answered prayer". I had never recorded it.

Liza's eyes shone with humiliation and anger. "So you have been playing with me," she said, the words careful like someone holding back tears in public.

I shook my head so hard my neck hurt. "Liza, I did not send any of this."

She slid her screen across the table. Weeks of chats. Pet names. Plans for a visit to Cebu City to "meet the parents and titos/titas". Even a photo of my work ID, blurred just enough to look accidental.

My stomach turned.

Outside, a jeepney konduktor shouted for passengers, and the city continued as if nothing was breaking apart. Inside, my whole life started collapsing into one question: how did someone write as me so perfectly?

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Liza lowered her voice. "Your ina told me you were shy. She said you asked her to talk for you until you were ready."

I felt heat crawl up my ears. Marites. My ina.

I tried to breathe, but my lungs refused to cooperate.

My phone buzzed again. A family group message popped up: "Our son Carlo has finally found a good woman. Salamat sa Diyos."

People reacted with clapping emojis. Someone wrote, "We'll do the pamamanhikan soon."

Liza stared at me like I was a stranger.

And I realised the fake romance was no longer private. It had become an announcement.

I am Carlo Santos, and I am in my early thirties. I built the kind of life people assume should come with a spouse. I work in Manila, a stable job with predictable pay, and I live alone in Quezon City. I grew up in Cebu City, where everyone knows who your ina is before they learn your name.

My ina, Marites Santos, never stopped worrying about my unmarried status. She did it loudly, publicly, and with the confidence of a woman who believed she carried my future in her handbag.

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At funerals, she sat among the titas and sighed dramatically. At church, she prayed into the microphone about "children who delay marriage". In family groups, she forwarded photos of weddings with captions like, "May it be your turn."

I did not mock her. I understood her fears. In our world, a man in his thirties attracts theories. Everyone assumes you are hiding a secret, acting carelessly, or defying tradition. My ina wanted to protect me from gossip, even when her protection felt like a cage.

Still, I refused her matchmaking attempts. Firmly. Repeatedly.

"Ama, I will choose for myself," I told her whenever she brought a lady's name. "Or I will not choose at all."

She replied with the same line each time. "Carlo, you talk like marriage is pandesal. You cannot eat it whenever you feel hungry."

Despite our arguments, I trusted her with practical things. When she visited Manila, I let her use my phone to call relatives.

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I asked her to reply with greetings in family chats because her Tagalog sounded warmer than mine. Sometimes I even gave her my password because it felt easier than explaining why I ignored some messages.

I thought I was sharing convenience.

I did not know I was handing her a key.

It started with jokes.

One Tuesday afternoon, as I ate tapsilog near my office at Makati CBD, a colleague nudged me and said, "Naku Carlo, so you have been keeping Liza to yourself. You're serious now, 'no??"

I laughed because it sounded ridiculous. "Which Liza?"

He lifted his phone. "Liza Santos. She posted your name in the women's group. They said you are settling down."

My spoon paused mid-air. I told myself it was a misunderstanding, the way rumours run ahead of facts. By evening, people sent congratulatory messages rather than inquisitive ones.

"Finally."

"God has answered your ina."

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"We are waiting for your list."

I replied to a few people, confused. "I am not in any relationship."

They responded with laughing emojis, as if I were being humble.

Then Liza herself called.

I did not save her number, but I recognised her voice from years ago, back when we attended a cousin's binyag in Cebu City, and she teased me for eating too fast.

"Carlo," she said softly, "if you have changed your mind, just say it."

"Changed my mind about what?"

There was silence, heavy and wounded. "About us."

My heart started racing. "Liza, I do not understand."

She inhaled shakily. "You have been messaging me for weeks. You said you wanted to do things quietly. You said your ina would help because you were overwhelmed with work."

I stood up from my chair, suddenly unable to stay still. "I have not messaged you."

She sent screenshots. The words looked like mine. The jokes sounded like mine. The details cut too close.

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"You told me you got that scar on your elbow when you fell from the mango tree behind your tito's house," she said. "Who else knows that?"

Cold spread across my skin.

Only the family knew that story. Only my ina retold it with drama, adding sound effects and laughter.

Liza continued, voice shaking between anger and embarrassment. "You sent voice notes. You called me 'Liza baby'. You said you were ready to meet my tita in Cubao."

I swallowed. "I never said that."

"You even apologised when you did not call," she pushed on. "You said, 'My ina worries too much. I will handle her soon."

My mind went back to every moment Marites held my phone, smiling as she typed "greetings" to relatives. Every time she said, "Give it to me, I will answer them properly."

I drove to her guesthouse in Pasay, where she stayed during visits. I found her folding clothes like nothing in the world could disturb her peace.

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"Ama," I said, trying to keep my voice steady, "have you been talking to Liza using my social media accounts?"

She did not even flinch. "Ah, Carlo. So she finally told you."

That calmness frightened me more than denial.

"Finally told me what?" I asked.

She waved a hand. "That you people are doing something small. It is good."

"No," I said firmly. "I am not doing anything. Are you the one messaging her?"

She clicked her tongue. "Why are you shouting? I was helping you."

"Helping me by pretending to be me?"

Ama sat down and rubbed her knees as if she were the tired victim in the story. "Carlo, you have wasted time. Every introduction you reject, people blame me. They say I did not train you. They say I did not pray well."

I stared at her. "So you chose to lie."

"It was not lying," she insisted. "It was guidance."

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"Guidance does not wear my name like borrowed cloth," I said.

She leaned forward. "She was already invested. I have been encouraging her. If you stop now, you will break her heart. Do you want to be wicked?"

I felt my hands tremble. "You broke her heart the day you started this."

Ama frowned. "You will thank me later."

That was the moment I understood the real fight. It was not about Liza only. It was about control.

I assumed Liza would be part of a scheme, a setup designed by my ina and a willing partner. It would have been easier to swallow if Liza had been chasing marriage like a prize.

Instead, Liza came to meet me with a face that looked tired from crying.

We sat again, this time at a quieter spot near Manila Bay, where the sea breeze made it harder to hear our own shame. I showed her my phone history, my sent messages, and call logs. I opened my accounts in front of her and showed her that the conversations did not come from me.

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Liza pressed her lips together, eyes fixed on the table. "Your ina told me you were overwhelmed," she whispered. "She said you liked me, but you panic when people push you. She said you asked her to smooth things over until you were ready."

I blinked. "She told you I asked her?"

Liza nodded. "She said you wanted privacy. She said I should not pressure you with calls. So when 'you' did not respond quickly, I waited. I thought I was respecting your boundaries."

My chest tightened.

Ama had weaponised the language of boundaries to build a trap.

Then Liza revealed what cut deepest. "She also told me she had spoken to elders," she said. "She said your tito in Cebu City already knows. She said your titas are happy. She said this is settled."

My head spun. That explained the family group message, the clapping emojis, and the sudden certainty in people's congratulations. Marites had not been casually chatting. She had been preparing for a public stage.

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If I said no, I would not only "reject" Liza. I would embarrass her. I would embarrass her family. I would embarrass my own elders who believed the story. Marites would stand aside and let everyone blame me for being childish, for wasting a good woman, for disrespecting plans.

I realised the damage was not just fake messages.

The real damage was the narrative Marites had already sold.

In that moment, I understood why my ina looked calm when I confronted her. She believed she had made the truth inconvenient.

I could already hear the lectures.

"Why did you allow it to reach this point?"

"How can you disgrace your ina?"

"Are you not a man?"

Ama had created a situation where my autonomy came with a price tag.

And I had to decide if I would finally pay it.

I met Liza in person again, properly this time, with no screenshots between us and no borrowed voice notes.

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"I am sorry," I told her. "Not because I did something romantic and changed my mind, but because my home dragged you into something you did not consent to."

Liza's eyes flashed. "Your ina played with my dignity."

"I know," I said. "I will not defend it."

She exhaled slowly, like someone releasing weeks of tension. "Thank you for saying it plainly," she replied. "I did not want to be the woman begging a man to love her."

"You are not," I said. "You were treated unfairly."

We agreed on one plan: we would correct the story everywhere it had spread, calmly and consistently: not with insults, not with drama, but with clear truth.

Liza sent a message to her titas and close friends. I sent one to my family group with simple words.

"There is no relationship. Someone misused my identity. Liza is not at fault. Please stop congratulating me."

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The reactions came fast.

Questions. Shock. Accusations.

One tito called immediately. "Carlo, why are you bringing disgrace into the family chat?"

I kept my voice steady. "Uncle, I did not bring it. I am cleaning it."

Then I went to Marites.

I did not shout. I did not plead.

I sat with her in the same guesthouse room, and I spoke like a man finally owning his own name.

"Ama, you crossed a line," I said. "You used my identity to build a relationship I did not choose."

She began her usual defence. "I was helping you."

I raised my palm. "No. You were controlling me."

Ama scoffed. "So you will embarrass me for nothing."

"You embarrassed yourself," I replied. "And you embarrassed Liza."

I opened my phone, changed my passwords, and enabled extra verification. I logged out of every device that was not mine. I removed Marites's access to my accounts and my email. I also stopped sharing my phone with her, even for small things. Marites watched me with narrowed eyes. "So you do not trust your own ina."

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"I trust you to be my ina," I said. "I do not trust you to steer my life."

She tried to argue. I stayed calm.

"If you interfere again," I told her, "I will create distance. Not because I hate you, but because I love myself too."

For weeks after, the gossip ran wild. Some relatives acted coldly. Some women in church whispered. Marites sulked and told people I had become proud in Manila.

I accepted it. Peace always appears like arrogance to someone who benefited from your silence.

In many communities, love often comes with witnesses. Family watches. Elders advise. Friends push. Community comments. Sometimes that care feels like a warm blanket. But at other times it feels like a rope.

For a long time, I thought obedience was the price of being a good son. I thought my ina's anxiety deserved my compliance. I believed refusing her plans made me ungrateful.

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But consent does not disappear because the person controlling you calls it love.

Ama's actions taught me a painful lesson: control can disguise itself as concern. It can pray loudly, smile politely, and still violate you in private. It can use your name, your stories, and your voice, then blame you when the lie takes legs.

I also learned something humbling from Liza. She did not fight me. She demanded clarity. She wanted the truth more than attention. She reminded me that the most respectful apology is the one that does not come with excuses.

Now I move differently. I guard my accounts. I guard my boundaries. I say no early, clearly, and without explaining myself into exhaustion. I choose distance when someone refuses to respect my autonomy.

I still love my ina. I still honour her. But I no longer confuse honour with surrender.

Because love without consent is not love, it is control with better marketing.

So I ask you, gently and honestly: if someone keeps "helping" you in ways you did not request, at what point does help become harm, and what boundary are you willing to set to reclaim your own life?

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This story is inspired by the real experiences of our readers. We believe that every story carries a lesson that can bring light to others. To protect everyone's privacy, our editors may change names, locations, and certain details while keeping the heart of the story true. Images are for illustration only. If you'd like to share your own experience, please contact us via email.

Source: YEN.com.gh