Mom Is AWALT.

I grew up loving my mother dearly as most sons do. She was protective, kind, beautiful, successful and smart and was someone I strove to be like when I was young. However, I wasn’t seeing the side of her that is at her core and within the past 3 years, I have come to despise her. She is selfish, manipulative, two-faced and an overall bad human, which is a tough pill to swallow when I adored her for 25 years. It’s weird how you don’t really know your parents until you become an adult. This will be long and if just one person gets through it then it was worth writing, I just need to get this off my chest.

My parents are in their late 50’s. My dad is very successful (owner of his own business) and is an all-around good guy, great father to my sisters and I, and is a way better husband than my mom deserves. They’ve been together since they were in high school when in their sophomore year, my mom literally pulled a girl out of his Jeep and got in because she wanted to be with him (red flag). He is more passive, and my mom is aggressive (obviously). Any honey-do list he got, he did it. Anything my mother wanted, she got. His brother and even I always gave him shit for being so whipped. They went into over $90,000 in debt when I was 13 because my mom wanted a big house, Mercedes, and other crap they couldn’t afford at the time. We went on expensive vacations that she planned, we ate a nice restaurants we couldn’t afford, and the only thing my dad ever stood his ground on was that he gets to deer hunt with the guys 3 weekends a year, which my mom still bitched about being left out of. She has always had to be the center of whatever he does in life, no exceptions. But that isn’t what made me see her for who she was. Four years ago, my now wife and I were soon to be married. My mom suggested we all take a motorcycle trip one weekend (My dad and I ride together often) with her old coworker, we’ll call him James. She explained he was going through a tough time with his ex wife and needed to get away. We go and have a good time for a weekend, but it just felt weird. It was my mom, dad, my now wife, and James. The dynamic and overall vibe of being around my mom’s old friend was strange. He was a nice enough guy, he was tall, handsome, rich and brawny. He had an ex-wife and two kids around my age, and he loved taking pictures of my mom and dad, which creeped me out.

Anyways, nothing of importance happened on this trip, but my mom starts acting strange afterwards and my dad and older sister are the ones who noticed it. At this time, I lived with my fiancé on the other side of the city, but my older sister was living with my parents because she was in grad school and was recently divorced after 1 year of marriage (found out he was an addict and spent all their money). One night, a few weeks after our motorcycle trip, my fiancé, sister, mom and I went to an incubus concert. My mom was acting weird, wanting to smoke pot, downing beers (this isn’t like her at all) and just being weird in general. It was like she was a whole different person all of a sudden. After being there for 10 minutes, she said, “I’m going to grab a beer”, and gets up and is disappears for an hour. I went looking for her after she had been gone for 45min as I was concerned for her safety and when I came back with no luck, I ask my sister if she’s been able to get ahold of her. She rolls her eyes and goes, “I didn’t bother calling, she’s probably calling James.” ….WTF? She then drops a bomb and tells me she and dad suspect she is having an affair with him. She goes on to explain how sketchy she has been acting, doing things like changing her phone and iPad password, stepping out for phone calls and whispering, even putting a fucking jar of rocks on her phone while she slept so she would be woken up if anyone touched it I’m assuming…idk, fucking weird. My dad managed to look in her phone before she changed her password and quickly skimmed through her texts with James and saw some suspicious cryptic dialogue. My mom finally gets back to us at the concert and at this point I am pissed and devastated all at once. I ask her what took so long (she didn’t even have the beer she left to get), and she says, “oh I ran into some old friends from my old job at ____”. Immediately sensing bullshit (what are the chances her 50+ year old friends ALSO went to see Incubus). So, I ask who. She didn’t expect this follow up question but slyly responds with, “you don’t know them”. I then ask, “well what are their names?” She’s feeling the pressure and stutters before managing to make-up some bullshit names. My wife and sister are listening to my interrogation very intently while Brandon Boyd is killing it in the background singing "pardon me". I get sick of her BS and drop it. I am livid and crushed and thinking of my dad. My sister had already gotten to the point of disgust I was at, so she didn’t say anything and we all kind of ignored it until the next day.

After this concert incident, my sister tells my dad what happened, and he finally approaches my mom about everything. He demanded to see her call history and see’s a 45min call to James at the time of the concert, along with many others. He demands to know WTF is going on and she says he is just going through a hard time with his ex, who is apparently debilitated from alcoholism, and she was just helping him get through it as a friend. Anyways, to keep any readers interested, I am going to skip past the shit that could make this the longest read ever. Basically, the sketchiness goes on for months, and at the time of my wedding, my dad has a tracker in her goddamn car, has requested call logs from the phone company and is looking at hiring a private investigator. I still remember dancing with her at my wedding, she looked at me adoringly and I couldn't look back at her. Little did my dad or I know; me and my love for my kayaking would soon give him everything he needed.

A month or so after my wedding, I go to stay with my old college roommate for a weekend of kayaking and fishing. He lived by my grandparent’s lake house (my mom’s parents) and I was going to pick up my kayak from their house that day. My dad randomly calls me just to say hi and probably tell me about whatever sketchy BS my mom had been up to (though probably not healthy, he is my best friend, and this had been our convos lately). I tell him that I’m headed to the lake house and he responds “I doubt she would be this bold, but your mom said she was at the lake house with her girlfriends this weekend and I want you to be prepared if that isn’t the case. If it isn’t, let me know.” I knew what he meant. I didn’t give my mom a heads up that I was coming on purpose and as I drive up, I’m relieved to see just her car and another girly looking car in the driveway. I call my dad before going in and tell him my initial assessment is that nothing sketchy is going on from what I see, just looks like her and her friends are here. He’s as relieved I am. I walk up, knock on the door and it’s silent. The back-patio door is unlocked so I walk in. The first thing I see is a leather motorcycle jacket hanging on one of the barstools and immediately recognize it as James’. My heart starts pounding and my adrenaline is pumping as my vision gets all weird and my ears start burning. A million questions went through my head in a second, like “are they here?” – “do they know I’m here?” – “should I announce myself?” – “god dammit mom you fucking cheating asshole!”. I act fast, assuming they aren’t there but could be pulling up any minute. I take a picture of the jacket, I go to the garage and sure enough, James’ motorcycle is there. I take a picture of that and then run back in and see cell phones stacked where they are charging in the kitchen. I grab a phone I don’t recognize. It didn’t have a lock on it so immediately go to the pictures…. first one is of two people I don’t recognize, as well as my mom and James… and they’re kissing each other on the lips. I scroll a little and more of the same shit. My heart is pumping out of my chest at this point and I take a few quick pictures of the photos in the phone and run out of the house, not even remembering or caring what I had originally been there for.

Something I should add here, when I was 7, my mom left my dad for a doctor, who just wanted to use her and drop her like a bad habit, and my dad reluctantly took her back after she begged and pleaded. She blamed the doctor at the time, saying he drugged/raped her or some bullshit. My dad later told me that at the time, he told himself he was doing it for the kids and had planned on leaving her after we graduated HS, but they did so well in between then and our graduations that he eventually forgave her and was happy in their relationship. I remember them being separated, but I didn’t know the details until I recently.

Okay so anyways, I peel out of the driveway at the lake house, and drive to a secluded street in the neighborhood as I try and figure out wtf to do. I let my heart-rate slow a bit, so I could think more clearly and then called my little sister, trying to decide if I tell my dad and if so, how. Up to this point, everyone just had their suspicions with no solid proof. My little sister, who is the sweetheart of the family, agrees that I needed to call dad and tell him immediately because he deserves to know, despite how bad it will hurt him. I then called my wife and she agreed but we were both worried what he would do. I hesitate for a bit but eventually I call my dad to tell him his wife of 25 years is cheating on him. When he answers I just blurt it out “James is here, I have proof and mom is cheating on you.” I didn’t know how to put it delicately, so I just gave him the facts. He was in shock like me, he kept saying the same phrase over and over “No fucking way...god dammit (insert my mom’s name), god dammit…wow…son of a bitch, God dammit.” After the initial shock wares off, he apologizes that I had to be the one to see it and then says he’s on his way (it’s a 3hr drive) and that he will meet up with me at my roommates. I immediately call my uncle (my dad’s identical twin and my other best friend) and tell him what’s going on. I tell him I’m afraid my dad is going to do something stupid. He said he’ll make sure he doesn't. They end up coming down together and meet me at my roommate’s house. We talk for a couple hours and come up with a plan. They switch trucks with my roommate to go incognito because he must see it for himself. My dad promises he wont do anything stupid despite what he may see. He sneaks up there after dark, parks far away and walks a mile through the woods with his brother and a pair of binoculars. He hides behind some trees when he got in place and sees them on the patio with another couple drinking wine. They’re cuddling and kissing like they’re an old married couple and like what they are doing is not beyond fucked up. It took every ounce of self-control for my dad not to run over there and go insane on them. Instead he did the smart thing thankfully and just took pictures of them and left. The next morning, he cleared out their bank account, sent her the pictures he and I took along with a text that said, “I know everything, I’m leaving you.” I can only imagine what their reaction was like. I rest assured that the rest of their little getaway was quite stressful.

The next year was a nightmare for everyone and my mom’s reaction to this solidified my disdain for her. She dragged everyone into her bullshit and made our lives a living hell. My dad and I caught her red handed. He just wanted her to go to James and let him live in peace, but instead, she dropped James and begged my dad to take her back. My dad agreed to pay her alimony if she granted him a divorce without lawyers that would’ve drain them both financially. She reluctantly agreed. After the divorce, my mom cried every day for a year. She moved in with my little sister in an apartment she couldn’t afford. She got on anti-depressants and went into a downward spiral that, because we loved her no matter what, took us all with her. All the lies she had told for a year began to surface more and more. Thinking back on that motorcycle trip where I spent a weekend with this prick made my stomach turn. I even bought that rich asshole a whiskey and coke. Though I despised who she was and what she had done, I was still very concerned for my mom and would listen to her sob on the phone and in front of me. She cried to my wife a lot which I hated. This was my wife's first year in the family and my mom was calling her bawling about how cruel my dad was being to her. My mom blamed my dad’s twin brother for almost everything, saying he had stolen him away from her on all our “guy hunting trips,” and he was the reason their marriage fell apart. She was truly manic. My mom’s parents and brother were disgusted with her because they loved my dad so much and they refused to talk to her about it, so my wife, sisters, dad and I were the ones who got the brunt of it. She tried manipulating everyone to make us think she was the victim here. It made me sick. She tried to make it seem like she was the battered wife and my dad had treated her badly. We all knew the truth and I found myself despising her more and more as person. My dad on the other hand, went full blown frat boy with his newly found freedom. He’s a handsome guy with money, and though my mom’s reaction was taking a toll on him in every way, he distracted himself by getting on bumble and banging a bunch of 30-40 something year-old women, hunted every weekend, and went on Harley rides during the week to escape it all. My mom still doesn’t know about the women and honestly, after being with the same woman for 30 years, being cheated on twice, and having every aspect of his life controlled, he deserved it and needed to get it out of his system.

Anyways, getting us more towards the present, my wife and I became pregnant with our first child and the joy of it was completely overshadowed by my mom’s constant meltdowns. I couldn't even get them in the same room to tell all my family that they were going to have a new niece/granddaughter. For 10 months, she relentlessly berated my dad for not being able to forgive her and used my unborn child (their first grandchild) as a pawn to get him back. She told him that it would be his fault if their grandchild grew up with divorced grandparents. It made my blood boil. After a while, and against me and my sister’s encouragement for my dad to stay strong, my dad caved and slowly started to get back with her. They sold their house and now live together in a town home. My daughter is 17 months old now and my parents have fallen back into their relationship of my mom dominating his life, despite him trying to set strong ground rules this time. It’s been like when a villain get’s their power back after losing them. She went from weak and broken, to manipulating everyone to her will like she has always done. My wife is shy, caring and always worried to offend my family in any way, and my mom uses this to try and boss her around when it comes to our daughter until I step in. She'll constantly play the guilt card about how my wife's parents see our daughter more when they live 4 hours away. Uhhh yeah you fucking psycho, they're good people. When I talk to my mom now, there is never love in my voice. I don’t want to hate her, but her flaws are so apparent. She’s a sociopath who has to be in control everyone. We all love her despite this, but I am the only one who calls her out on her bullshit. My older sister barely speaks to her. My daughter is obsessed with her and it makes me happy and furious at the same time. She doesn’t deserve my dad, and she doesn’t deserve our forgiveness, especially since this is twice now (that we know about) that she cheated on my dad. Not sure how to end this. Just wish my mom wasn’t such shit bag. I guess I’m thankful these events and my realization didn’t happen sooner, other wise I wouldn’t know that there are good women out there and instead I’d probably have a a hard time trusting them. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

Edit: Just want to thank you guys. I read through most the comments and messages that ranged from “this is fake” to “your mom is a ****” to something sincere and relatable. I tried to write it in a way that wouldn’t bore people to death. I know everyone says this but I wrote this expecting no more than a handful of people to read it at most (sorry it was so long), I did not expect it to be on the front page. Thanks for letting me vent and for responding with your own stories and thoughts on it. Felt good to get it off my chest. Y’all are awesome.