I learned something about my father this weekend that has floored me. My parents divorced when I was six, and I have never known the reason. 35 years later I finally got the nerve to ask my mom what happened. I had kind of assumed that the issue was money or the time my dad had t put in at his job or that he didn't want to have the third child that came along surprisingly. It turns out that he had been having an affair for years - at least 3 years. My mom kept giving him time to work things out, but one day he just left and never came back. After a year she filed for divorce.
This has made me so so upset. I wanted to know and I deserved to know because not only did he leave my mom, he left three children - under the age of 5. And I just keep thinking to myself "what kind of a person DOES SOMETHING LIKE THAT? What kind of a jerk has an affair when his wife is home with a toddler and a newborn? What kind of person continues this when his wife is pregnant, when they move to a different city? What kind of a person marries this horrible woman after his wife divorced him and makes his kids live part time with the two of them?? It is just sick and disturbing and I'm so pissednoff that this man ruined my childhood and set me up for a lifetime of dealing with the emotional trauma that all of this caused. I keep thinking that it wasn't about the kids that it was something between my parents only, but then I think NO. NO it WAS about my brothers and about me too. It's about someone who cares about their own selfish things and puts those things above anybody and anything else. When you decide to get married and decide to have children, you no longer can make decisions solely as an individual. What you do affects everyone in the family and thus affected my entire life. I feel betrayed, cheated out of a "normal" childhood, a "normal" family. My childhood was such a disaster and it was this selfish jerk that made it that way.
And it's thanksgiving and I'm supposed to be feeling thankful and happy and loving and I just don't want to.
