Live & Learn
Long story short, he beat her on a daily basis for almost 2 yrs until she left him. And she only left because he put his hands on my older half-sister.
There are three sides to every story: His side, Her side & the TRUTH.
It's funny to hear my parents talk about each other. Everything is the other person's fault. ALWAYS. According to her, he was a lazy piece of shit who laid around all day & tried to kill her. According to him, she was a lazy piece of shit who laid around all day & accused him of trying to kill her. He claims he never touched her. I had my own experiences with my father that lead me to make my own assumptions.
My dad remarried less than a year after he & my mom split up. She had a little boy (my age) from a previous relationship... but didn't have custody. Why? Oh, she stole some checks & got caught & went to prison- pregnant. She gave birth in jail. He went to foster care.
My mom moved onto a series of men... one after another. My mother needs to be loved. She eventually got knocked up again. 3 kids by 3 different men in 10 years. I grew up with my mother having one last name, my older sister had her last name, I had mine, my little brother had his, a step brother with his, and my mom's guy of the week with his. Confused? You have no idea.
I love my mom. She did the best she could considering the hand she was dealt- different story, different day. But she could have made better choices....
My dad.... was an addict. Alcohol. Drugs. Attention. Whatever he could get his hands on. I stood by and watched him beat my step mother on a nightly basis, then wake up and make breakfast for her like nothing had happened. The cops visited my house 2-4 times a week and made nightly decisions as to whether or not the disagreement and intoxication mixture was too much for my brother & I or not. Sometimes they would both go to jail, sometimes one or the other, sometimes they called my grandparents to pick us up... sometimes they would just leave us there to deal with the damage they had caused by simply answering the disturbance call. Many nights if they were not arrested the 1st time, they would be called back to arrest them within an hour. I was between 3-11 yrs old.
One of the few memories I have of the apartment my father and stepmother lived in during those years is the small crack in top of my brother & I's bedroom door. When they would argue, whoever was sleeping on the top bunk would sneak up and peak out that crack. We would wait until they got physical then grab baseball bats, hockey sticks, whatever we could and run to split them up. Many times we were elbowed or hit in the process... and now I couldn't tell you why we didn't just let them kill each other. We should have.
I lived with my mom most of the time so I only had to deal with this on weekends, holidays and the short periods of time I was forced to live with them. But my brother had to put up with this all the time. I don't know how he did it. I was forced to live with them in Elementary school around the time my mother got pregnant with my little brother. They quickly realized something was off at school and forced me into therapy 2-3 times a week, which I refused to speak at. My father had threatened me numerous times about 'what happens in this house staying in this house'. I knew better than to talk.
I was a clever kid. I learned to lie pretty quick.
"Oh, I fell playing outside."
"I ran into a door!"
"Fell down the stairs again."
"My brother hit me."
My brother & I blamed most of it on each other & it was pushed off as sibling rivalry. But the therapist began to ask more questions than usual. January 26, after a night of nonstop fighting I went to school smelling like beer hardly able to keep my eyes open. My therapist pulled me into the office and demanded I tell her what was going on. I lost it.
She just sat there, not sure what to say. Finally she stood up and excused herself. An hour later my mother walked in the office, fuming in anger. She didn't say a word to me but I knew it was time to go. In the car she explained there was not enough evidence to remove my step brother from the home. My mom begged them to let her take him too, but they said it wasn't legal. My mother was my LEGAL guardian- she had custody of me. My step mother had custody of her son. They sent him home with a letter explaining I was released into the custody of my mother. My step brother had a very long weekend.
I didn't see my father again for almost a year. He threw me leaving in his face every few months for the next 12 years. I don't think he understood how much it hurt me. Or he just didn't care. There was very little he actually cared about. I always knew I was at the bottom of his list.
One of the few memories I have of the apartment my father and stepmother lived in during those years is the small crack in top of my brother & I's bedroom door. When they would argue, whoever was sleeping on the top bunk would sneak up and peak out that crack. We would wait until they got physical then grab baseball bats, hockey sticks, whatever we could and run to split them up. Many times we were elbowed or hit in the process... and now I couldn't tell you why we didn't just let them kill each other. We should have.
I lived with my mom most of the time so I only had to deal with this on weekends, holidays and the short periods of time I was forced to live with them. But my brother had to put up with this all the time. I don't know how he did it. I was forced to live with them in Elementary school around the time my mother got pregnant with my little brother. They quickly realized something was off at school and forced me into therapy 2-3 times a week, which I refused to speak at. My father had threatened me numerous times about 'what happens in this house staying in this house'. I knew better than to talk.
I was a clever kid. I learned to lie pretty quick.
"Oh, I fell playing outside."
"I ran into a door!"
"Fell down the stairs again."
"My brother hit me."
My brother & I blamed most of it on each other & it was pushed off as sibling rivalry. But the therapist began to ask more questions than usual. January 26, after a night of nonstop fighting I went to school smelling like beer hardly able to keep my eyes open. My therapist pulled me into the office and demanded I tell her what was going on. I lost it.
She just sat there, not sure what to say. Finally she stood up and excused herself. An hour later my mother walked in the office, fuming in anger. She didn't say a word to me but I knew it was time to go. In the car she explained there was not enough evidence to remove my step brother from the home. My mom begged them to let her take him too, but they said it wasn't legal. My mother was my LEGAL guardian- she had custody of me. My step mother had custody of her son. They sent him home with a letter explaining I was released into the custody of my mother. My step brother had a very long weekend.
I didn't see my father again for almost a year. He threw me leaving in his face every few months for the next 12 years. I don't think he understood how much it hurt me. Or he just didn't care. There was very little he actually cared about. I always knew I was at the bottom of his list.
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