My Father's Mistress

[Tracey Mallaby]

She entered my life like a selfish demon, destroying a future without a thought for those left behind. She revealed her hand by bedding my father in his marital bed - while my mother slept soundly on her side of it; their rhythmic coupling roused her....

My mother was left a shattered, defeated ghost of her former self; 20 years later she still wonders why she wasn't special enough and her inner light has never recovered it's lustre.

My father wanted me to love this wolf in sheep's clothing, this insatiable beast that enchanted my beloved Daddy and spirited him away, but how could I after the damage and destruction she caused; her very presence making my 14 year old self question every action I had ever made. He was not her first married conquest, but he was her last; she's still in my life, an old woman riddled with infirmity, insisting she's my loving stepmother - yet I will never view her as such and, probably, I should pity her for her terrible health but I don't, karma paid a long overdue visit. She is simply the bitch who destroyed my family.

[lifeisbeautiful03]

i find this post very touchy and sad. sometimes v really wish to have some sort of a time turner...to re correct our mistakes...yes i believe in karma too...all that you do it comes back to you
so never hurt ..never do wrong ...

[Tracey Mallaby]

Q.O., this is fact, not fiction. As for the 'old woman hanging around to make the best of a bad situation' she became ill and my father has since confessed he is still with her out of obligation and he feels trapped - the bed he made..... He is now her full-time carer. Thanks for your comment.

[Tracey Mallaby]

Hazar, I totally agree with you :) Had I married the first person I expected to, I would most certainly be a divorcee (and anti-marriage) by now. I have to say that knowing my father as an adult now, he should not have married or had children at all. Ana, just to recognise you here also, I don't just have hope burning, my husband I work very hard at our marriage, it is successful, so far. Some things don't last forever, some shouldn't, but then again, some do. I also didn't take offence at Hazar's comment, it simply opened a discussion with very valid viewpoints on all sides :).

Michael, thank you and Jeanette, as I mentioned previously, this is a part of my history.

Again everyone, thank you for your comments.

[Jeanette Cheezum]

I find this to be well written. It is possibly non fiction. My first novel helped me to heal. I was married to a monster the first time around and my parents and grandparents had issues. I 'm glad you found someone to love. I have found the most wonderful husband. They do exist.

[Michael Solender]

no one can tell you how or what you feel is fraudulent, feelings don't lie. acrimony however, i've found, is a very hollow and energy draining emotion. to be sure the scenario can leave one bitter, angry and regretful though for me, at any rate, points out that people are flawed and the daddy in this write is not without fault in instigating these consequences. born from reality or not, it is well penned and emotive to be sure.

[Tracey Mallaby]

Sadly, this is written from experience and I wrote this as a form of exorcism... it seems to have helped too. I tried all of my childhood to be 'Daddy's Little Girl', but failed, that I am over.

Hazar, I feel you have perhaps been stung by marriage, and is this why you perceive it as a fraud? I have been very happily married for 9 years and I'm certainly not dead from the neck up thank you, oh and I don't bother with the 'industries' you mention. I don't know if this state of happiness will last forever, but one has to have hope.

There can be positives gained from revisiting the past: catharsis being one of them. I am in the process of revisting past traumas and finding positives in them, and I am succeeding in my quest.

Thank you all for your comments, they are appreciated.

[Quartzite Occlusion]

Whew...poor beloved daddy?...seems to me he had destroyed his own family long before the "she wolf" was there. It even appears that the old woman has hung around to make the best of a bad situation. I wonder if that was hard for such a selfish demon? Me thinks daddy is maybe a little too beloved. I hope for all involved this is a fiction. Well written enough to sound all too real!