Hey Humble Readers...
Alright. I have hit critical mass for all the gross-ness that has become my family, and I need to let some of it out. If you're not at all interested in discovering how my family has become fodder for the Jerry Spr.inger show, I invite you to skip this post and come back tomorrow. For those of you who choose to stick around, this is a tad long.
Two and a half months ago, shortly after Pippin was born, I got the heartbreaking phone call from my Mom. She told me that she and Dad were splitting up. After 25 years of marriage, after 27 years together, after battling health scares (hello 5x cancer) and the struggles that go along with owning your own business and raising two daughters, they were calling it quits.
Why, you might ask.
Because my Dad was having an affair. Had been since at least February. And this wasn't the first time. Apparently there was a 'one night stand' last fall. Oh, and he'd been keeping his 'girlfriend' (any clue about how gross that is to write?) in a motel 20 minutes away from Mom and Dad's house. Since February.
Let that sink in a little.
Even while Mom and Dad were on their 25th anniversary cruise.
About the woman... we know that Dad met her on an online dating service. He actually placed an online ad for someone to have sex with outside his marriage. We know that she's an addict (by her own admission) and an alcoholic. Oh, and she's claiming to be pregnant with Dad's baby. And while it's really not my business, apparently she's fat and ugly too (not that it matters what she looks like, but it is slightly gratifying).
At this point, in early June, my Mom was willing to try to make things work, if Dad committed to counselling (both as a couple and as individuals) and to breaking things off permanently with his 'woman'.
He didn't know what he wanted to do. He couldn't make up his mind. One day he was begging Mom to take him back. The next day she catches him texting this person.
Have I mentioned that the 'woman' has threatened my Mom, and by extension my sister and I, with physical harm? Oh, and she knows where we live because when my Dad was out here shortly after Pip was born, he brought her with him. She was at his hotel waiting for him while he was here playing with eating my food, playing with Ginny, and holding my son.
When asked why, my Dad's only response was that he's been lonely. He travels a lot for work and since Mom 'didn't want to come with' him, he 'had to' seek out comfort elsewhere. (His words.)
Of course, Mom's choosing not to go with him has nothing to do with the fact that she looks after Grandma. No, never.
Just before we went on vacation, Dad spent three days begging Mom to take him back and making all kinds of promises. Mom took him at his word, and he was there (suffering from a kidney stone attack... oh if I believed in karma!). He hardly spoke to me, my Beloved, or my sister. And when he spoke to my BIL, it was mostly about the repairs they were doing on my parents' roof.
On the last day of our vacation, my sister and I took Dad out for dinner, because we felt that we both had things we needed to say, but they weren't being said in a house full of people. We went some place loud, so that we wouldn't be overheard, and laid it all out for him. We hate the choices he's made and how he's hurt Mom and all of us, but we still love him. We told him that we would support him anyway we could on the road to reconciliation with Mom.
During our conversation the only response he gave was 'I can't make promises'. Not once did he indicate that he was sorry, that he felt any remorse for hurting Mom or us. I came away from the encounter pissed off, but at least I had had my say.
I guess I should have taken the whole thing as an indicator of what was to come.
When we left their house, my sister and her kids were staying on for a couple of weeks, and then they were all going to come out to our hobbit-hole, to be present for Pippin's baptism.
On Saturday I got a text from my sister saying that Dad was sick and wasn't going to be able to come. I called bullshit on that right away. And I was right. I hate that I was right.
He has been in contact with the 'woman' all the way through all of the month of July. Apparently, he just moved her to a different motel. Most recently he's been in the process of finding an apartment for her, less than 10 minutes away from my Mom's house. And that's actually the best of the revelations I got this weekend.
While my sister was there with her kids, my Mom accompanied Dad on one of his work trips. To give them time together 'to really talk' without all the family around. While on this trip he told my Mom that what he really wanted was to have both my Mom and this woman in his life. He 'loves them both' and what would really make him happy was that they have regular threesomes. Oh, and his 'woman' agrees wholeheartedly to this idea.
And then he dropped the big one. He told Mom that while she was going through chemotherapy and radiation treatments during her last go round with cancer 6 years ago, he was hooking up with prostitutes. Because my Mom 'wouldn't give him what he needed'. So while my Mom was fighting for her life, battling lymphoma and lesions on her brain, all he could think about was that he wasn't getting laid enough. Not only was he only concerned about getting his rocks off, but he and Mom were intimate on occassion during this period of time, so who knows what the hell he exposed her to.
Needless to say, that is the ultimate last straw. I completely lost it on his voice mail and called him every name in the book. And I fully anticipate that will be the last communication I have with him.
I vacillate between angry and heartbroken most of the time. My Mom is a mess most of the time, and is now worried that Dad's 'woman' has a key to Mom's house. Mom doesn't have the money to have the locks changed, so my BIL will be going back out there in a week or so to do it for her. In the mean time, arrangements have been made for neighbours to help keep a watch for strange people or vehicles in the vicinity.
Ummm, other details... because of all this craziness, my Dad's parents decided to cancel their 50th anniversary celebration (the reason for our trip out there) and my Grandpa has basically disowned my Dad.
This is the man that I held up as a standard by which I measured the men I dated. The man who always seemed so rock solid, in his faith and in his commitment to his family. I knew he wasn't perfect, but I never EVER would have anticipated this.
If you've made it this far, you deserve a gold star. Thanks for reading. It's helped a little just to get it all out.
