The missing piece

Since I've been writing a lot about covert incest, and this type of abuse revolves around parents' dysfunctional marriages, I feel I must describe my parents' marriage. Honestly, I don't think they really had one. They must have, in the beginning, fallen in love and wanted to be together for the rest of their lives--and that much information I'm not privy to. I only know what I witnessed, which was two people living separate lives in under the same roof.

When I was in elementary school, they separated for a few months. I remember feeling relieved, that life was a lot less stressful this way, and I actually enjoyed visiting my dad at his little beach apartment, my sister and I sleeping on the mattress on the floor with the sound of the waves crashing outside. It was fun. And then we would go home and there was no tension or other negative feeling. However, they decided to get back together in the end, and the really dark times began. I think I understand, being a new mother myself, that raising children is a two-person job, and doing it alone is scary and terribly difficult. I just wish they had been happy together.

As the years went by, as I progressed into middle and high school, they stopped hiding their problems from us kids so much and simply began to co-exist. My mother spent most of her home time alone in the bedroom, the bed covered with papers, surrounded by her work. My father spent his in his leather chair or sofa in front of the TV. No interaction, just silence, between them. And during the worst years, when the living room was on the path to my bedroom, I could expect some kind of drama as I tried to make my way quietly through the house--my dad was always waiting, always ready with an accusation of something I had done wrong. Or wanted to talk.  He never left the room on weekends and evenings, and that meant no peace for me.

This went on until I left for college, and still continued when I returned from Europe. They didn't spend any time together, and my dad constantly complained to me that they didn't have any friends because my mom didn't like to go out.  He talked to me a lot about how desperately he wanted to be social and how lonely he was. I didn't know what to do for him except to listen and give him a hug, ask what I could do...He seemed to be happy when he could talk to me, when I did something nice for him. I felt like I was the only person in the family who had any control over being able to make him feel better. Hence, it was my responsibility for making him happy when my mother couldn't. Or wouldn't.

As for my mother, she seemed to prefer my sister over me. She never said it; she stated that she loved both of us equally, but my sister got away with a lot. She was my mother's confidant, so it seemed to me. They seemed to be especially close, even to this day. Not "best friends" kind of close--there was often some sort of friction, but they were in RELATIONSHIP with each other, which was more than I felt I had with my mother. I think the same was the case with my sister and dad--she once told me she felt she never had a father because he was so consumed by me. It was true and it was sad.

My parents eventually divorced when I was in college (the second time); I was in my early twenties. He remarried soon after, and my mother is still single. My father's new marriage is when all of the covert incest symptoms began to rear their ugly heads, and I'll write about that next.