Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader whom we’ll call “Maryjane.” She describes a lifetime of abuse from her family members, and asks ‘what would you do?’
If your husband, whom you found out had affairs all during your marriage, had a child with his secretary, paid her hush money, came on to your mother, grandmother, and another sister, told you that he had an affair with your sister during the time frame that you were readying for divorce, would you believe him? Also, this man gambled away most all the money in the marriage on football and golf betting (at a country club that you were the member of, not him, as he ran up bills) and was an alcoholic.
And at the time, that piece of info about your sister, was just a part of the entire hurtful mess and too much to process while he was also telling you that he loves you and will never cheat again and of course, you don’t believe him. You were just trying to process the insanity of it all. Then you were both at your parents’ house and you walked into the laundry room to find this husband and that sister, whispering and snuggling.
And you got furious — even screamed — and went in a made a big to do about what you had seen to your parents — and this sister, the manipulator, liar of the century, said that you were crazy and that she didn’t know what you were talking about and pointed out that you were overly emotional as usual.
During the divorce, you were cleaning out your husband’s dresser drawers and found a nude photo of this sister in the bottom of his ‘junk’ drawer — taken during the time, (junk alright, huh?), this sister had lived with you in another state, for three months, eight years previously. And the nude photo was taken on her bed at her apartment that was a short distance from where you lived.
The divorce was awarded to you on extreme mentally cruelty in a no fault divorce state — and you kept the part about ‘your sister’ out of the court proceedings to ‘protect your family’ — as you were embarrassed to have such immoral, incestuous, crassness in your own family, on top of the obvious embarrassment and hurt of the rest of it.
After the divorce and during a time, you were ready to address it — you told your parents about it — and they couldn’t/wouldn’t believe it.
You see, this sister was the mother of their ‘grandchildren,’ and you were a divorced woman going through pain and not much fun to be around. And your parents were all about drinking and partying and you were dealing with issues and things that they didn’t want to ever think about, much less acknowledge happened in their family.
These parents were both alcoholics and lived in denial about most everything that occurred with their children and in their lives — as in one sister being on drugs and having manic episodes. When you told them that she was doing drugs, they didn’t believe you then either. Until — Gee! It was proven to be true — and after many episodes, she is diagnosed as being bipolar.
So, you were the truth teller, the one in pain — the one who saw and the one who was crushed under affairs, lying, alcoholism — and instead of comfort and caring — you got disbelief and alienation.
And you suffered it all while being sober, because you don’t drink or do drugs.
The sister who you were told had an affair with your husband began to excluded you from family ‘get togethers’ — as in her children’s birthday parties — and pretty soon, you weren’t invited to anything — because you represented something that no one wanted to look at. She needed to keep you away, because she knew that you knew the truth — so you were dangerous to the facade that she tried so hard to create and to keep intact.
You moved to another state and during this time, this sister had another affair with a married man — actually, she has had many with married men that you knew about. But this one almost caused her to lose her license, because it went against professional ethics — even as she took this husband of another woman to ‘church’ with her.
Your father finally told you that he knew you were telling the truth — but what could he do? That it was between you girls.
And you responded, “So you let her exclude me when she was the one who did this to me and all the while you knew the truth?” And he shrugged as he took another drink of wine.
You see he had affairs on your mother all throughout their marriage, and you even overheard one talking on the phone to your father while you were in high school, telling him that she missed and loved him and calling him by name.
He knew that you overheard and said that it was a wrong number.
Read more: 10 examples of the scapegoat’s isolation in the narcissistic family
But of course, it wasn’t. And he eventually told you that he was thinking about leaving your mother because he loved this woman and he had been unhappy in the marriage for years. And as hurt as you felt, you could kind of understand this, because your mother was given a prefrontal lobotomy when you were two years old and she was not much of a companion on many levels. And because of her lack of affect and diminished capacity, you and she did not get along well at all. Because you are artistic, emotional, strong and outgoing and she was weak, dependant and most times, not even present. You can’t even recall having a real conversation with her. But being true to your mother, you tell your dad, that if he leaves her you will never speak to him again.
After all, was she really insane, or was it post partum depression — or did your Dad drive her crazy by his criticizing and neglect?
You were angry at both your dad and your mother — and while needing their love, lost respect for them both as your heart broke into a million pieces. Nothing was as it seemed in your family. It was mostly all facade.
Your dad didn’t leave, but continued his womanizing, while giving the ‘image’ of the ‘good family man.’ Even your friends at high school knew about it and would make snide remarks. You withdrew into yourself, your room, your friends and ballet to survive. But your family made fun of you for dancing. They made fun of you for everything you liked and did, especially ‘that’ sister.
For about 30 years, you are excluded from most all ‘family things’ led by this sister — who now wore a mantel of a ‘church woman,’ letting her hair go gray and becoming fatter and uglier by the year, and claimed her ‘best friend’ was a shriveled-up old Bishop who hung around your family like some kind of a leech. Your father befriends this old Bishop and took him on extravagant trips.
And during this time, your father on several occasions told you that there is a part of him that wished he had left your mother when she had her breakdown and taken you with him, and that he wished you were his only child.
That he knew that sister had always treated you with hate and animosity, and had done everything she could to harm your life. He called her a big dumbass broad — which both made you chuckle and cringe at how cruel, duplicitous and sordid your father was.
After your mother died, your father had affair, after affair, after affair, with women young enough to be his daughters, while he claimed this Bishop was his ‘spiritual advisor.’ All of these women were golddiggers, whorish types, and you told him so. And he got angry at you for telling him the truth — said that you were always causing problems. You only saw your father on occasion, because you couldn’t stand being around these women, the drinking, and the squandering of money, but your sisters participated in it all. At ‘that’ sister’s son’s wedding you weren’t included, but the current golddigger in your Father’s life was. But then after he realized what the women were, he admonished, “Why didn’t you tell me?” and he dumped them.
Your Dad is dead now — and in his later years, because of ill health, he stopped so much with the drinking, but after a lifetime of it, was a dry drunk. He would tell you on occasion how much you meant to him, and that you were always right and always told the truth, and you heard back from others that he thought you his most beautiful, brightest, deserving and moral child.
Your sisters ignored you, were hateful to you, or many times, actually cruel, especially the one who had an affair with your first husband. They claimed that they don’t know what’s wrong with you when you got angry, and said you were emotional and always played the victim.
What would you do and what would you think?
Learn more: How abusive parents affect you and how you can recover
Lovefraud originally posted this story on June 1, 2012.
