I will try to keep things to the point, however this will long post but timelines will be expedited for the purpose of staying relevant.
Sometimes I wonder if my childhood was really that wild or if there are plenty of other people living in a same reality. If anybody even reads this, I’m sorry for the long winded recollection.
When I (F29) was 2 my mom left my dad, due to finding evidence of MULTIPLE affairs, and moved herself, my sister (5 at the time), and I back in with her parents. My mom explains it that he really seemed like he wanted to get caught. She had found a box not well hidden in the closet, of printed out emails (1999 era) corresponding with several women, one being his cousin. She also had found phone records, credit card bills, etc. My mom called a number on the phone records she didn’t recognize and a woman answered who claimed to be my dad’s fiancée. When my mom informed her she was his wife, the woman insisted that my parents were already finalizing a divorce. My mom responded with “No we’re very much still married, living and sleeping together and our youngest child just turned 2 years old.” She met with the woman and brought her the evidence of the other affairs before packing up and leaving for my grandparents. I guess the woman stayed with him for another months or so before breaking it off?
A few months later my dad met my first step-mother “Tracy”. Tracy and her best friend were nurses and were on a “ride along” with the ambulance company my dad was a EMT for. My dad initially wanted Tracy’s friend but she saw his red flags and refused him so he settled for Tracy. I don’t remember the exact timeline, being 2 years old at the time but I believe they moved in together relatively fast. Tracy had a daughter from a previous marriage, “Mel” who was 6. Mel, being 6 and also a child from divorce was somewhat understandably not in favor of a new man and two other little girls coming into her and her mom’s lives. There were tantrums from Mel and therapy for all, but the brunt of the frustration from all of this came down onto my sister and I. Mainly myself, due to being the outspoken problem child who was the root of their relationship problems. My family describes my sister as quiet, reserved and like a “fly on the wall” during this period, while I was the; energetic, outspoken and more direct youngest of the three girls. I’ve been told that I would verbalize things as not being fair when we were treated differently. From what I remember there was a lot of catering to Mel because of her trouble adjusting to a new blended family, designer clothes, bags of candy, lavish birthday parties etc. I have old photos from the time where at my 3rd birthday party you can see recently turned 7 yo Mel opening my presents and blowing out my candles, small things that I didn’t register until later as an adult and they hit a little bigger.
3 years into my dad and Tracy’s constantly rocky relationship, my younger brother “Kyle” was born. I found out later that Tracy and my dad had/contemplated splitting up until she found out she was pregnant and they stayed together for the baby.
Kyle and I have a great relationship now as adults but growing up I really struggled with his “golden child on a pedestal” persona. My dad ALWAYS wanted a son, he wanted a boy who could play “ball” (football), who would be a tall, handsome, lady killer that was popular and worked out in the gym with him. At 24 my brother is the smartest kid and biggest teddy bear, he is graduating with his bachelor’s next month, hates sports and likes men. Almost everything opposite of what my dad reveres. But growing up the epitome of our dynamic comes down to one of my birthdays I had been asking for this RC hover disc for a few years, one of those toys you see at the mall kiosks that the seller tries to attract buyers with by utilizing in the middle of the mall. I finally got it, maybe my 10th or 11th birthday. But when I was getting ready to be dropped back off at the custody exchange point to my mom, my dad sat me down and told me I should just give my new present to my brother because he was just going to play with it while I was gone and likely break it anyway. I vaguely remember being at a loss and trying to verbalize that it was my new gift and that they should just restrict him from taking my things and that I could put it away in my room. My dad essentially just responded saying that I knew it wouldn’t work that way. There were many instances like this with both my dad and Tracy, some of my dads family members still talk about visiting their house and seeing “life sized” portraits of both Mel and Kyle around the house but not a sign of my sister and I ever being there. That we were just the “other kids”. Mel and Kyle would be taken to get new clothes at Abercrombie and Hollister while my sister and I were told “these clothes just really aren’t for you.” Or that the clothes in those stores won’t fit us. We had to get clothes from Walmart or get hand-me-downs. They went to private elementary and middle schools while my dad wouldn’t even contribute to a set of braces.
When my sister was set to enter into high school my dad started to pressure her into testing into an all girls private high school in the city he lived in. I think this was some weird attempt to get custody of one of us? My sister being non-confrontational, instead started to fail classes so that she would not be accepted admission. She tanked the admissions test when my dad signed her up, against her knowledge, and then stopped talking to my dad all together. She stopped court visitation and communication, per the custody agreement she only needed to be 12 years old to make that decision.
During this time my dad and Tracy had two different engagements, one that resulted in my dad cheating and them breaking up for a while. On the break my dad dated a much younger nurse named “Viola” for a while before I started to notice him discussing Tracy more frequently and asked him if he was cheating on Viola with Tracy. He said no but that he and Tracy were going to get back together. I didn’t believe the no cheating part for a second even at maybe 11 or so years old. When him and Tracy started back up, they got engaged and married. This happened quick and then on their one year anniversary they separated and started the process of divorce.
Around 13, a year or less later my dad showed up with a woman to one of my sister’s high school soccer games. Par for the course, he infrequently would watch our sports activities but this is how he introduced Viola to us and officially announced when he had gotten back together with Tracy. I nodded and said “Is this one coming to my game next week?” My dad mildly scolded me and said her name was “Jess” and if I wanted her to come she could. I shrugged and said up to her and went back to watching my sister’s game.
My dad had met Jess at his brother’s friend’s BBQ. He had been staying on and off with my aunt and uncle for years whenever he and Tracy had a rift and he was in between housing. Jess was in the social circle of my aunt, but more of a super tight bestie to the wife that was hosting the bbq. Jess worked for a nonprofit, owned her own home in the nearby city and was relatively successful. She was assertive and commanding of the aspects of her life. A wet dream for my dad. I was later told that a few months into my dad and Jess secretly dating, he confessed to my uncle that “Now I can officially sign the divorce papers to Tracy because I have Jess.” My dad likes to secure another relationship before doing away with the last, if you haven’t noticed.
Jess is 12 or so years younger than my dad and is my current step-mother. From 13-18 she was one of the people I went to for advice and guidance. We actually had a cool relationship, though I do remember having a conversation with her about my dad, saying that he came with a track record and baggage. She, being the poster child of a type A personality, declined to acknowledge that past and said that my dad wasn’t going to be doing anything like that. She very firmly stated that she would never get a divorce in her life.
After I graduated high school I went to live with my dad and Jess because they were located in the city of a Junior College I had decided to attend. Things were decent, I had weekly household expectations, a curfew and other responsibilities. It was the repeatedly said to me that my job was to go to school and get good grades. That because my dad didn’t house me or pay for college or the bulk of my upbringing that I could live with them for free while I got my education. Nothing outside the realm of normal, they allowed me to live there and gave me Jess’s old 2002 Honda as a graduation gift. Although, did set the expectation that I would go workout at the gym at least 3 times a week…. I had been paying for my own school clothes and making my own spending money through various jobs from the age of 12. I was proud to never have asked my parents for cash before, so I went out and submitted applications even though I was told I didn’t need to. I started working as a table busser at a Michelin Star recommended restaurant in the next town over, it was a great job with a wonderful environment and amazing food. I made good tips and managed to save a bit of money throughout the time I worked there.
Jess became pregnant within a year of me living there. I had been encouraging of Jess having her own child when they had gotten married, I felt that if she wanted, she should be able to have her own baby too. That the rest of my dad’s kids were 21, 18 and 13 and that we weren’t the same as raising your own child. But the moment that stick turned blue, Jess became a completely different person. She was like a beast, my dad, brother and I walking on egg shells around her. She started to message me when I had left the house for class/work/gym and say we were going to “have a talk”. These “talks” became sit down events where my dad and mainly Jess tell me all of the ways I am lacking and disappointing. And then follow up with my 16 credit semester, double-shift restaurant job and minimum 3x a week gym attendance (mandated by them) as not that hard compared to Jess taking care of her cancerous mother and taking 20 units in college and working two jobs. That I could do better and that I didn’t have it that bad. I was instructed that I had too much free time and needed to find something to participate in to occupy myself, so I went and tried out for the college’s soccer team. I made the team and essentially took on another full time job.
Weekly chores and obligations became meticulously picked apart. The lines in the carpet when I vacuumed didn’t look fresh enough so I must not have accomplished that chore before the 12 pm suspense timeline that day and lied about it. The dishwasher was still running when they got home from work, I surely slacked off and waited until last minute to do my chores. One time I texted and asked before heading to the gym if there was anything Jess wanted me to do around the house before I left. She said “No you’re good! 👍” but 45 min into my workout she texted me that she was “testing” me and I had failed. That she purposefully left towels in the dryer to see if i would show the “initiative” to search for chores to accomplish before leaving the house. Another sit down to “have a talk”, if I failed to text back right away, Jess would check my facebook status and see if I was online. Even if I was in class and just happened to have the app opened up on another tab but not utilizing, she would text me “So you can be on Facebook but you can’t answer my messages? We’re gonna have a talk”. These talks became such a source of anxiety that I started to have very physical and mental reactions to my phone going off. Later on in life I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and I do believe this environment was a catalyst for a lot of my problems mentally.
My grandpa (mom’s dad and the real man that raised me) passed away on my 19th birthday, he was my best friend in life and I considered him a non-romantic soulmate. I was devastated at losing the person I considered most important in my life. He provided a parallel to what a real dad was, something I’m very fortunate to have had as a role model and example for the future. Losing him was another notch in tally counts of things going wrong.
My youngest brother “Nick” was born a month after my birthday. I loved that little boy, I poured everything I had left into him. I dedicated any little free time I had to spending time with him and taking care of him. But I was still playing soccer for the school, currently in what was called “hell-month” where we had two practices a day 4 days a week and two additional days of single practices, taking 9 units of summer courses, working as many shifts as I could at the restaurant, and still grieving. I worked out, bought my own food, didn’t party or drink/do drugs, abided by my curfew and frequently fronted them money for bills or groceries. Jess and my dad sat me down and told me I would need to start seeing a therapist and that I had issues and needed to be fixed. That I was problematic and anxious, had no drive and needed to show more initiative. I hated the word initiative. It was thrown at me so much I might as well had tattooed it on my forehead.
I started with one therapist for several months but Jess felt that she wasn’t working out and fixing me well enough and made me change to a new one. I’m sure someone will point out that I was over 18 and did not necessarily have to abide by what they insisted, however there were constant events that I’m not including that really progressively took away my sense of self and independence. I really could not operate as an adult and had to consult Jess for everything. My brother Kyle went through similar events whenever it was my dad’s week for custody, then one day he just didn’t show up. He explained to my dad that he wasn’t happy and didn’t want to be there anymore. My dad decided to take Tracy back to court for custody of a 14 almost 15 year old. He spent 50k just to end up with the same 50/50 custody agreement. The court ordered reunification therapy by a therapist named “Jessica Morales”. My dad started raving to Jess and I about how amazing of a therapist she was and wanted all of us to make appointments with her. Jess saw her several times and I went once, it was unproductive for me as Jessica spent a lot of energy catering to the immense effort and stress my dad must be going through with his third historical custody battle. Years later I would find out that it came out in court that my dad had an affair with Jessica Morales during this time frame and she was removed from the case and lost her license to operate in the county.
My life consisted of practice 6 days a week, classes 4 days a week, gym 5 nights a week, double shifts Friday- Sunday. I had therapy on Mondays and routinely had to leave practice early or skip class to take care of Nick. I did this every day for about a year, eating when I could between classes and drinking my last protein shake in the shower at night before I crashed in bed. I provided rebuttals for Tracy and Mel’s statements in the custody case, recollecting as much as I could about how I was treated by Tracy. My sister even provided a few, reminding me of things I had forgotten or been too young to understand.
Too quickly after the court resolution my dad and Jess sat me down for a “talk”. They informed me that because my brother Kyle could not be forced to come and be with them that they would be packing up and moving 3 hours away to Jess’s hometown. Jess told me that “they” would like to see me stay and see out my commitment to my coach and my soccer team. That I would need to find a solution to housing while pointing out 2 separate family members that I should try asking. The state and city my school was in is notoriously expensive. Not something a full time student/ full time athlete would be able to afford. I don’t have friends let alone people who I was close enough to roommate with. I was nervous and embarrassed but I asked the two family members if I could live with them. These two are easily the closest family on my dad’s side that I had, but I knew there was a burden to suddenly picking up a college kid that wasn’t yours. The one I was closest with, she was like an older sister, called me after thinking on it for a week or so and explained that in an emergency she and her husband would take me in a heartbeat and that they loved me but that no they were not going to bail my dad out on his obligations so that he could run off with his wife. That my dad should have come to them himself instead of putting me in that situation when he had begging both my sister and I our whole lives to leave our mom and come to live with him. The other family member agreed and also said no under these conditions. I didn’t know that this rejection would end up being my saving grace.
I didn’t inform my dad and Jess right away that I had been told no, I was nervous and unsure of how I was going to make things work. I was in spring training for my team and came back from the gym one night and Jess was the only one home. She asked how the gym was and I said good but was packed, likely due to people getting ready for the summer. She agreed and I made an ambiguous comment about her mom’s pool being nice in the summer time. We had been going to visit her mom in Jess’s hometown during the summer for years. Jess’s face went flat and she said “Yeah but you’re not coming with us.” I was a little stunned because I didn’t mean the comment to indicate that I thought I would be living with them but had assumed summertime activities would be similar as the past. I responded with “I know… but also my dad has told me my whole life that he would always have a place for me.” She informed me that they were only looking into 2 bedroom homes and wouldn’t be in the market for a 3 bedroom. I just dissolved the conversation and walked away.
The following week I received a “career-ending” injury in soccer, a ball was kicked so hard into my face that it resulted in a severe concussion, retinal bleeding and muscle tearing behind my eye. I promise this information is significant. While I was stuck at the house for two weeks in recovery I had a conversation with my dad when I was just he and I at home. My two family members had been encouraging me to speak up and try to talk to my dad about how things were going. They became my support system, the one who’s like a sister told her husband what was going on and his response was “Are we really going to sit back and let his happen again?” I have always had so much respect for that man, but for him to say something like that just made me feel so seen. That life with Tracy was seen, and it was being observed again with Jess. I felt like I wasn’t being forgotten.
I told my dad that I didn’t want to play soccer any more, that it wasn’t enjoyable and was more of a job that I was losing passion for. That I didn’t know how I could survive living there by myself, paying for college and playing soccer on my income. That it wasn’t worth it. His response was that we needed to talk to Jess about it. I was frustrated because I didn’t understand how my biological parent could continuously divert anything that involved me to a step-parent. That my life wasn’t able to function without her permission.
The night the conversation came, Jess immediately went cold. She berated me for abandoning my team and disappointing my coach. For failing a commitment. For the first time in my life my dad defended me, he actually interrupted her and said “Why are you attacking her right now?” You could literally see Jess turn to stone. I was instructed to leave the room and when I closed the door to my bedroom, Jess started screaming, yelling and throwing things around the kitchen. She went into their bedroom and pulled all of my dad’s items out of the closet and threw them into my brother Kyle’s old room. This went on for hours before complete silence. The following day Jess found me in the living room doing homework. She sat next to me, bumped my shoulder with hers and apologized. She said that initially she was ready to divorce my dad but that they had settled things. That she was so angry because her and my dad had agreed never to fight in-front of the kids. That it would be okay if I moved with them and transferred schools. For me it was the final confirmation that she didn’t want any of my dad’s other kids living with them. That she had gotten rid of my brother and I was the last one in the way of her perfect family. I tried having multiple private conversations with my dad, I begged him not to turn around and tell Jess everything I said to him. He always responded with “I don’t know what you want me to do, she is my wife.”
A few weeks later I started to get sick. It seemed like a normal sinus infection but kept getting worse over the course of two weeks. I started to use Tylenol to sweat out my fever every few hours to stay lucid and go to class and work. I didn’t use Advil because I was still nursing a head injury. I would get chills so aggressive in the middle of the night that I wore two layers of sweats and placed a space heater on a chair next to my bed to try to warm up. One day after driving back from viewing a few houses in the new city, I ran out of the Tylenol I had packed, I kept asking my dad to turn up the heat in the car and Jess snapped at me to stop being dramatic. My face started to progressively get puffy over the next week and eventually my fever one morning was 105°. I called the doctor from the bathroom because the last time I went to get seen Jess got upset that I hadn’t asked permission to go first even though I was on my mom’s insurance. I told the doctor my symptoms and that my throat had stopped swelling in and seemed to be getting bigger on the outside of my neck. That I should not have a sore throat because I had a tonsillectomy when I was 17. They told me I needed to come in to see them immediately. They evaluated me and directly sent me to the ER where I got bloodwork and a lumbar puncture. I was diagnosed with mono and meningitis. It was explained to me that the combination of the mono and the injury to my face/head had caused a sinus infection that had spread into the cerebral spinal fluid around my brain. I was transported by ambulance to a hospital in the area that had space for me.
There were a few hours in the er where my dad visited me, he would pace and open cabinets, berate staff and inform them that he was a medic in the area. He sighed a lot like it was inconvenient to be there, scolded me for not advocating for my own care and telling the doctors what to do with me. Right before I got the lumbar puncture I called my mom and told her I was sick. She left work and drove the two hours to the er I was at and kicked my dad out. She stayed with me in the second hospital and alerted the staff the first night because something seemed off while I was asleep. The nurses ran in and realized my fever had climbed and that I wasn’t waking up. When I finally did, I was surrounded by nurses, soaked in sweat and there were bags of ice stuck into places around my body. They said they had administered a fever reduction into my IV and just needed me to wake up and assure I was cognizant. The swelling cause me some hearing impairment and I had to relearn/regain the energy and ability to walk. My mom was amazing. She brushed and braided my hair for me. Wiped my face down with cool cloths to help with the sweat and brushed my teeth for me. She held me up while I did my walking laps around the corridor.
My dad visited one time. The doctor overseeing my care had both of my parents sit down and he asked me about my lifestyle. What my workload was like. He looked at my parents while telling me that 18+ college units wasn’t very impressive from a hospital bed. That I would be going on bed rest for 1 month and limited movement for another 2 months after, I was to drop any class I couldn’t accomplish from a computer screen and that I would recover with zero medication if I just stopped overworking myself. After the conversation my mom had to drive back for the day to go to work and my dad stayed. He sat down and informed me that they were supposed to be moving on Monday. That I was getting out of the hospital Thursday and was responsible for watching Nick on Friday. He asked how I planned to accomplish that and pack up my bedroom. I started to cry and begged him to leave. A nurse came in and kicked him out. My mom decided I would come stay with her for the time I was to be recovering but I told her first I was supposed to go pack my room and watch Nick. She was furious but took me back to my dad’s house the day after I was released from the hospital. I had to stop and sit several times going upstairs and sat on the door to try and pack my things. My dad came in, saw me sweating, sighed at me and said fine that he would pack my room and figure out childcare. My mom came and picked me up the next day.
Fast forward to after recovery, I moved back with my dad and Jess in the new city and house after my dad called me every day asking when I was coming back. I would stay with them on the days the required me to take care of Nick and then drive the 3 hours back to my moms for however long I could stay away. I had a friend from high-school going to the university in the new city and would frequently stay days at a time at their apartment as well. The egg shell walking continued, texts demand and obligations now telling me that I didn’t know how to take care of myself. That I wasn’t responsible enough and put myself in that situation. I continued to try and have conversations with my dad, asking him to please just hear me and not go to Jess with everything I said. My mom sent a long message to him, essentially saying that she had me for 18 years without a scratch and my dad had managed to almost k\*ll me in 2. That he was going to lose his last of the children they shared together if he continued.
The final straw was after I pulled my dad in my room trying to try and get through to him. I sobbed and cried and asked him to please just listen to me and hear me and respect that I was his kid and not to go running to Jess. I told him I could hear her standing in the hallway listening to what we were saying. He said we will see. I left for my moms that afternoon and on the drive received a text that said “Hey girly, when you get back we’re going to go for coffee and have a talk.” I never went back.
My dad put all of my belonging on the street two weeks later. My mom and I rented a U-Haul and picked it all up, the next day I started presenting with jaundice. It’s “assumed” I was exposed to hep b while in the hospital, but it couldn’t be proven because my mom and I had also gone to get pedicures at one point and the specialist noted it in my chart. I had acute liver failure and was down another few months before fully recovering. My dad wanted me to go to another therapist with him, I conceded and went to one appointment. Following the appointment, in the parking lot he screamed in my face to go “F\*\*k myself, that I was crazy like my mom.” The last communication I ever had with my dad was him sending me an email with a petition to the American Psychology Association to designate parental alienation to be an officially recognized disorder or abuse tactic.
It has been 10 years. I haven’t seen Nick since he was a little over a year old. I often times feel guilty that he probably thinks all of his siblings abandoned him, but it’s likely his parents tell him we’re all terrible people anyways. I’m 29, I enlisted in the military at 24, met my husband and got married at 26. We had the most wonderful and happy baby boy at 27. He’s named after my grandpa. And both my husband and I are committed to never treating him like a second choice.