Finally Found You, Part 1

For most of my life, my mother’s happiness was my main concern. I have fretted over what she doesn’t have, what she has lost, and what I wished for her. So much so, that I ended up sacrificing my own happiness at times. In the mixed-up maze of my family background, I felt the only way I could come out safely on the other side was to see her happy.

It’s not her fault. She didn’t set out for that, it wasn’t her goal. At times, she has asked too much of me, but only because she has felt so little true love in her lifetime. She cried out for me from a place of great loneliness and disappointment.

I have always tried to answer. Only when the weight of everything threatened to drown me did I finally realize that the balance was truly off. I always thought making your mother happy couldn’t be wrong. It wasn’t wrong, it was just overwhelming. Too much. Too much from a person whose own sense of being was hanging from very delicate threads.

My mother married at 16. In the photos I remember of her wedding, the photographer is too close to the bride and groom, obviously cramped in a tight space--the tiny living room of a relative. Their faces are blurred, too indistinct to see their expressions. My mother wears a simple dress, my father in something like a suit. The flash is too bright, the images overexposed.  They are figures in a room of onlookers, taking part in a sweet ceremony somewhere in the hills of rural Kentucky—coal mining country—where marrying at 16 wasn’t unheard of, or even unusual. They had no money, no idea what was next.  My father was 20 years old and became my mother’s future in that moment. For better or worse.

My destiny was also carved in that tiny living room. Their paths created mine, setting in motion years of pain they couldn’t imagine, standing there taking vows, ready to escape their own histories and lives of poverty and longing.

None of the pain was planned. No one like this sets out to hurt everyone, to abandon their vows and promises. No one strives for alcoholism or regrets. Yet, choices are made and the line between destiny and choice grows blurry. What kind of fate has this kind of outcome? Whose destiny does this all benefit?

My mother is now heading into her seventies. Her hands look frail; her eyes look tired to me. She still carries a beauty with her that I would be grateful to see at her age. She still sees only what she wants to, deals only with the superficial, and somehow looks the other way when something too painful to handle occurs. I marvel at her denial, and at times rage against it, demanding that she admit to me that she remembers things that haunt me in dreams and waking hours. These things truly happened, but somewhere in the world she lives in, they are locked away permanently. It took me so many more years to heal because of her locked away secrets. But, it is also the only way she knows to survive.

In my first years out of college, I finally landed in Atlanta, Georgia with a real job and hopes of a career future. The distance from my family-about a five hour drive- had honestly been good for me. I was finding my own way, still uncertain, so much more to figure out, but I had a little space to clear my own path. My father’s job led him to Atlanta from time to time, and he called while he was in town, and occasionally, we would meet somewhere for dinner, usually under my mother’s encouragement, both of us only getting together because it made my mother happy, and quieted her demands for it to happen.

A new feature was being introduced in the market where I lived for residential phone service. It was called Caller ID. My apartment complex was taking part in being one area of a test market. The little cumbersome box sat next to my phone in the bedroom, the readout offering the end of the mystery of who was calling. The phone rang, and instantly, the caller’s name and number appeared.

My father had arrived in town one week, and my mother had let me know he would be calling me on a Friday morning. Around 8am that morning, I was still in bed, and the phone rang. I picked it up, and heard my father’s voice, but saw a woman’s name scroll across the caller ID screen. I was distracted, and my father’s words pulled me back to the conversation. I hadn’t heard a word he had said, and I interrupted. “Where are you?” I asked. There was a pause. “I am at the Holiday Inn in Buckhead”. My turn to pause. “Can you call me right back?” I asked.  He agreed.

Maybe this Caller ID thing was faulty. Maybe it was a glitch.

The phone rang. The same woman’s name appeared. I picked up the phone and acted as if nothing was wrong. He planned to come by my apartment that day. Mom had sent some things for him to deliver to me. We settled on a time, and hung up.

I laid in bed for a moment, and then went searching for my phone book. First, I scoured the hotel listings and called every hotel in Buckhead, GA after not finding him at the Holiday Inn. No one with my father’s name at any one of them.

Then, I grabbed the Caller ID box and scrolled through the names of recent callers. I settled on the woman’s name, and scribbled it down on a piece of paper along with her phone number.

I turned to the residential listings in the phone book and found her. Right there, staring back at me. Her name, her address.

When the time came for my father to visit, I was ready. Palms sweating, heart racing, but I was ready. It was no secret to me that my father wasn’t faithful to my mother, but I had never had any kind of proof. It was always just something I sensed, even when I was little. Even before I really understood what it all meant, something in me just knew it. It was never spoken about or discussed. But I knew.

Even though a large part of me still felt fearful of my father, I felt a need to do this—to confront him. To hear his answers. I was ready for a fight. I was ready to remind him that the betrayal went beyond his marriage. He was also betraying me—our family.

He arrived and I didn’t even let him set the bag down that my mother had sent. I asked him where he was staying. He responded with the same hotel. I told him I had called there, and everywhere else in Buckhead. He didn’t miss a beat. He almost looked amused. His response was that he traveled so much in this area that sometimes he forgot where he was. He said it was a Holiday Inn in a different location.

I said her name.

I asked who she was.

I expected an explosion. I expected him to be defiant and tell me what was and wasn’t my business. Instead, he fell into an abyss of a million excuses. She was the girlfriend of a friend, he was staying at her house with this friend to save money. He asked me to please not tell my mother, she didn’t like when he and his friend did things like this.

I bet not.

He had only stayed there last night and would get a hotel tonight, he promised.

This new side of my father was hard to take in. I had never seen him weak before me, but my ambush and information had caught him off guard.

He mumbled a few other excuses and promises and got out of my apartment as soon as he could.

I remember that I had a date that night. A second date with someone I liked.  I had contemplated cancelling, but had waited too long to decide. He showed up a few hours after all of this had taken place and I was in a fog. In a weird (for him) scenario, he showed up to take me on a second date, and I blurted out everything that has just happened, warning him I might not be myself for the evening. Great set up, I know. Predictably, the evening was short, and I was home, still in my fog, by 9:30pm.

I called a close friend and updated him on the events of the day. I told him I wanted to go and drive by the woman’s house. Just to see, I wasn’t sure why. He offered to go with me. I told him I wanted to go by very late, like 2 or 3am. He was in.

We took the phone book page with us in the car, and drove around, finally finding the neighborhood she lived in. My hopes were dashed when I realized she lived in a gated community. We sat in the car, staring at the gate, with an attendant inside. Somehow, my friend came up with a story to tell, and a few fibs later, we were through the gate.

Her house was on the back end of a cul-de-sac. It was massive-- a huge, gorgeous house in one of the most exclusive areas of Atlanta. And there, at 2:30am in the morning, in her driveway, sat my father’s car. The house lights were dark. No other cars but hers (with Georgia plates) were parked near the house. I knew the friend my father had spoken of, the one who supposedly was the real reason he had stayed at this house. I knew his car. It was nowhere in sight.

My friend reached over and took my hand. “I am sorry, Kim”.

Me too.

In the strangeness that is my mother’s mode of survival, in the weirdness that you can only understand if you come from a family where alcoholism, codependence, and denial are considered “normal”, I didn’t say a thing to my mother. Or to anyone else in my family. I knew my mother probably already knew. If she didn’t, it wouldn’t change anything. She wouldn’t leave. And to be honest, I didn’t know if she could handle knowing that I knew. It may sound bizarre reading those words. I can promise you that it is even more bizarre writing them.

Years passed and I moved a few dozen times—all across the country and back. Every time I unpacked, I came across an antique wooden box where I kept a few special papers and mementos. The page from the phone book was folded neatly and tucked inside. Every now and then, I would pull it out and look at her name. It wasn’t circled or marked, but I was drawn to her name every time. That phone book page was a symbol to me of all the things I had guessed but never been sure of, all of the things and people my father chose over my mother and our family. At least I wasn’t crazy; I hadn’t imagined these things were happening.

Fast forward seven years. Abruptly, out of nowhere, my mother and father announce they are moving to Florida. What might have seemed like a normal migration after retirement rang false with me and my mother’s sister and closest friends. It was normal for my mother to follow suit and do whatever my father said, but my father’s choice to move was odd. He was desperately close to his two grandsons, my nephews, really playing the role of doting father in their lives. My mother had a job and a close, protective circle of friends. It was hard for my mother to make friends due to her shyness and insecurity, so the few close friends she trusted were precious.

I spoke with my mom’s best friend, whom I was also close to, and we fretted together. We worried about the real reasons behind the move, about how my mother would fare in a place where she knew no one and had no real outlet to meet and befriend people. We worried about her moving to a place far away from everything and everyone she knew-and where my father was truly her only lifeline.

Something in my gut told me there was more to the story. And somehow, instinctively, I went to the antique wooden box and pulled out the yellowing, tattered phone book page. I went to my computer, navigated to Google search and typed in her name. Her name from all those years ago in Georgia. Her name and information magically popped up. Her new phone number and address, readily available on the screen.

It was too easy. It was too awful.

She now lived in Florida.

To view Part 2 in this series of posts, click here.

The artwork featured in this post if from the Family Chic blog. To see this piece in more detail, visit Camilla Fabbri's blog by clicking here.

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Words of a Broken Heart

Within the set up of my blog, I have code installed so I can monitor the activity when I need to. One of the features includes the ability to see what search terms lead people to my blog. For instance, someone might type the words “vintage wedding photos” into Google or another search engine, and somewhere in the choices this post  I wrote about collecting old wedding photos might come up. The person clicks the link to my blog and I can see that those words led them here.

Without fail, the two most common searches have been these phrases, or something close to them: “how to write a letter to my dad who cheated on my mom” which leads them here and “getting married- don’t want my father to walk me down the aisle at my wedding” which leads them here. I have such a heavy heart seeing those phrases pop up so often- from all over the world. So many people are experiencing similar pain; a pain I know all too well.

So for anyone tonight who has come to my blog based on these painful issues, let this be my letter to you:

To the child whose heart has been broken,

First, let me begin by saying that I am no expert on mending fences with a father that has somehow rejected, hurt, abused, or wounded you. I have only written, as honestly as I can, about my process of healing from what happened to me, and finding a way to make sense of my choices and my feelings based on what I have been through. I doubt my father and I will ever really reconcile or have anything I can call a relationship. In my case, that is the best outcome.

For those wondering how to write a letter to a cheating father…we each have our own stories. We each have our own set of circumstances. The letter I wrote here on my blog came long after writing several private letters years ago. These were letters that my therapist at the time asked me to write to my father and my mother. These letters were private, and weren’t intended to be mailed or emailed to my parents, unless I decided to, which I didn’t. But, they contained everything I wanted to say, everything I had ever wanted to say. They were brutal, painful letters. The act of writing those letters, which I then read to my therapist, was a healing process in itself. Just letting those things out, being so honest, leaving no detail or past act unturned was freeing. I didn’t feel I needed to mail them. They were written, and I honestly knew that neither of my parents would fully understand what they were reading, nor would they take any accountability for the content. Unfortunately, it is a mixture of illness, alcoholism, and denial that follows both in my family that makes that a reality. But I wrote those words, and said them out loud. I knew their meaning, and knew where the accountability belonged.

So, I recommend writing the letter(s) you need to write. Say what you need to say—all of it, everything. Don’t write it and send it immediately…that’s always a recipe for regret. Pore over it, study it-- make sure you are saying everything you want to say. Be as mad as you want to be, as hurt as you want to be. You can always edit later. Get it all out. Maybe have a trusted friend or therapist read it. And whatever your heart tells you, whatever the past dictates, do it. Mail it, save it, burn it, whatever helps you heal.

As I said in my blog post, men who are fathers who cheat always seem oblivious to the fact that you are not just cheating on your spouse (the mother of your children), but you are also cheating on your family- your children. It is not a singular crime. Whether you think they know or not—this act of deceit and betrayal will haunt them in some way, in some form one day. (This goes for women as mothers who cheat also—I just have a little more familiarity with the father’s acts on my end).

Now, for the women out there who are asking—Does my father have to walk me down the aisle? The answer is NO, absolutely not. Some women ask this question for different reasons—just preference, a break with traditional wedding ceremonies, etc. But the search terms I see suggest many women are asking that question for the same reason I did. I can only share my experience with this situation.

I struggled deeply with this decision. The only reason I struggled was because of my mother. She wanted my father to walk me down the aisle for the same reason she wants all of us home for Christmas, gathered around the tree, singing carols in matching sweaters while holding hands. She has a vision in her head of what we should be- what she wants so badly for us to be. It is something we are not- something we won’t ever be. I understand her denial is a coping mechanism, but for years and years of my life, I have done things for her that have hurt and deeply damaged me. I would go home for Christmas only to be kicked out by my father on Christmas Eve in a drunken rage. I would try to play the part of the youngest child in a perfect family for her, and I feel as though I lost years of my life in doing so.

I did those things because I hated to see her hurt. I hated that my mother didn’t have a life where she was married to a caring, doting husband, and where she wasn’t really loved or taken care of. I didn’t want to add to that pain. But here’s what’s real: those were her choices. No matter how the chips fell, she stayed with my father, and put me in painful places my whole life based on those choices.

The cycle has to be broken. I decided it would start with me and my wedding day. This was the first day of my new life- a healthy, whole life filled with a real love, an honest man, and my own choices. It had taken me too long to heal, to come out on the other side of all this. Having him escort me down the aisle felt like a huge step backward.

So that was the choice I made. My mother guilted, threatened, cried, and called constantly begging me to change my mind. She told me she knew my father wouldn’t come to the wedding because of my choice. She told me it would ruin the wedding for her. She told me she hated what people would be thinking. I stood strong. But I did cry many tears leading up to that day, remaining firm in my phone calls to her, but falling apart when I hung up the phone. I didn’t want to hurt her…I kept asking myself—was this one minute in my wedding that big of a deal? But you know what? It was.

It ended up being the best decision I could have made. My father did come to the wedding, my mother’s day wasn’t ruined, and although I know she was disappointed, she recovered. What did happen was a new understanding. I saw and felt something intrinsically change between me and my parents, especially my father. They both sensed something different—the old patterns and guilt weren’t working anymore. I was no longer acting the part, no longer caving to guilt and pressure. My father spoke to me in a quiet way that day. I can’t explain it, but I felt a power shift. It was a comforting power- the power of my own confidence, my own heart.

So, the most important thing I can say to those of you here for these reasons is…hang on, trust your heart, trust your gut, and believe in yourself and your choices. Therapy was a godsend for me—a life preserver thrown out to me in an ocean of damage and grief where I was drowning. Most of all, these search words prove to me that we aren’t alone out here—so many of us are dealing with this same pain, struggling with the same issues. 

And while that doesn’t ease the pain completely, there are thousands of survival stories out there to lean on and hold in your heart for hope. Find them, read them, love yourself…and always, always, have hope. 

The words of your broken heart will take you places--far away from where you started...

I promise.

The artwork featured here, also entitled "Words of a Broken Heart", was created by Deborah Belasco. View this and more of her work here.

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