If your parent ended up having an affair child, and your other parent wanted nothing to do with said kid, could you exactly fault them for that?
This 24-year-old woman’s dad cheated on her mom, and her 20-year-old half-sister is the product of her dad’s affair. She’s the only child her parents had together, and she was too little to recall details from their consequent divorce following her dad’s infidelity.
She can remember not getting to spend as much time with her dad after her parents split, and then her dad was given a prison sentence, so that really impacted their quality time.
She went three years without seeing her dad or her half-sister, and then her dad was arrested for a second time. After each time her dad ended up in handcuffs, her mom was asked to care for her half-sister, since her bio mom had abandoned her, but her mom refused.
Her mom also didn’t make an effort to ensure that she and her half-sister had a bond, and she can’t fault her mom for wanting nothing to do with her half-sister.
Her dad did end up regaining custody of her half-sister after he got his act together, but he stopped wanting to see her.
“A few years ago, my half-sister went to mom and asked for help because dad wasn’t paying attention to her. She wouldn’t really have known my mom, but it turns out Dad had filled her head with the idea of my mom and her being close and my mom taking her on as her daughter, too,” she explained.
“My mom turned her away and didn’t let her into the house. She told her not to come back to the house, and she had no business there.”
“My half-sister was maybe 15 or 16 at the time. She tried again another time after that, but mom wouldn’t answer the door the second time.”
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
Recently, she attended her cousin’s birthday party, and her half-sister was there. Her half-sister confronted her about how her mom was mean to her, and urged her to cut her mom out of her life over it.
Her half-sister riled up some of their family members, who now feel furious with her mom for failing to be there to help her half-sister out.
She took her mom’s side and said nobody should have expected her mom to step up. Her half-sister called her mom evil and said they could have been raised like sisters if her mom weren’t so heartless.
She responded that she was happy they hadn’t grown up together, given her half-sister’s bad attitude. She then warned her half-sister not to insult her mom, or she would cut contact with her.
“I got a lot of [criticism] for defending mom and being so harsh with my half-sister. She has her own mom, who didn’t want to know and should focus there instead of on my mom,” she continued.
“And I’ll always defend my mom because she put me first instead of letting all dad’s bad decisions hurt me or turn my life upside down more than his bad decision to cheat and knock another woman up did.”
She’s left wondering if she’s wrong to agree with her mom about wanting nothing to do with her half-sister.
Her half-sister’s anger is displaced; she should be mad at her own mom. Also, her mom has every right to avoid her half-sister, as she’s a big reason she ended up divorced.
If her mom had agreed to support her half-sister and let her live with them, that would have just been one ugly, daily reminder to her mom of the infidelity.
What do you think?
You can read the original post below.
By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
