What was supposed to be our perfect family vacation was actually a nightmare. When I tell people this story, some don't believe me. I have a hard time believing it myself most days. No one actually believes that a married man would have his mistress stay a couple doors down from his family on their family vacation, but mine did.
It was a couple days into the week before he finally came down to Florida. He had every excuse in the world for waiting to leave. The grass needed cut, someone needed to stay with our 18 year old son, it's going to rain...
He texted me on his way down and said, "get dressed up for me, i'm taking you out." So I did. He arrived that evening and we spent some alone time together and then went to dinner. I didn't think in a million years that he had planned what he did for the remainder of the week. I was just glad to finally get some time with the man I had stuck by through all the things.
The next day, we had all planned to get up and have a beach day. The parents, the kids, and us. I remember my daughter and her friend saying a few times that there was something really strange between her father and this woman beside us on the beach. I saw the woman and said "yall are crazy, there is no way." Oh, but there was a way.
They would point out that when he would go to the ocean to cool off, she would follow. When he would go back to the room for something, she would follow. He would again pick fights so he could leave. I would ask him to walk down the beach and he would say no. Which was so strange, because he would never have ever let me walk somewhere alone.
The last night after he picked a fight and left, he said he didn't know what he wanted anymore. He said his mind was so messed up. He left the condo and said he needed to ride.
He ended up walking to the little bar outside of the condos and meeting up with the woman. No clue how long he was there with her. At the same time the girls were out riding through our little neighborhood on a golf cart with friends, when one of them pointed to a couple and said, "Miley! Isn't that your dad?" It was.
Much of that night is now a blur. But I will never forget my daughter running through the door of our condo screaming and crying, yelling, "DADDY!!!! He cheated on you!!!!" Those words still haunt me to this day. I can still hear her broken voice. The look on her face. I could tell exactly how she was feeling. She was heartbroken. The man she knew as the perfect father and husband. Shattered in that split second. I broke down. I knew it all along, but refused to let myself think that. But seeing my perfect daughter that broken is something no parent ever wants to see.
She called my son who was there and he came rushing with his friend. They went looking for the woman. No clue what they were going to do, but I was too shattered to even think. The disrespect that comes from doing that on a family vacation is unfathomable.
He walked in the door and my son met him nose to nose. My son told him what he thought and even though he is probably only 120 pounds soaking wet and my then husband is about 3 times his size, I don't think anyone could have moved him.
Knowing we had spent all week next to this woman on the beach. I have pictures from the week and she is in the background of every one. She would lay on the beach beside us knowing what she was doing. She would lay in front of us for him to see everything she had. She had seen him with his kids. She had seen him with his wife. She had seen him with his in-laws, and she had no problem being "that" woman.
In that split second, our whole world and family changed. Every one of us are different people now. My children do not have a relationship. My son and I, don't have a relationship. My daughter and her father, don't have a relationship. All because he chose to make that decision instead of having a conversation and ending things like a man.
I could have respected him. We could have talked to our children and helped them. Divorce is never easy but there is something to doing it the right way.
That's not the end of my story. You might think what else could happen. Sadly, that's not even the hardest part.
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