20. A Child’s Perspective When Their Parent Cheats
From FuzzBeebs, a child’s take on cheating. There is my parents’ tale, not mine. When my parents met, my mother had a boyfriend, but she broke up with him to be with my father. In 10 years or so, my parents have married and have two children: my older brother and me. Anyway, she travels for work regularly, and she began making excursions to Chicago to see her “buddy.” On these weekends, my father was highly irritable. I was approximately twelve years old when I first noticed what was going on, and I used to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to my parents dispute. My mother’s lying has always been a part of my existence. It is still the case. My father begged me not to say anything to her because he wanted the family to be together.
During the summer after I graduated from high school, I returned home from work to discover my mother putting her car in the garage. When I inquired why, she went silent for a minute before saying, “Well… I’m moving out.” I just walked in. She afterward texted my father to inform him that she had relocated to her brother’s home. That’s how he learned about it. She sent him an f-ing text message after they had been married for twenty years. I’m not sure if she would have told me anything if I hadn’t arrived home when I did, or if she would have vanished.
