Infidelity

Betrayal at Age Seven One incident in my life was so traumatic and disturbing that it haunts me to this day. I have not censored anything that I recall about this episode so reader discretion is advised. I have lived a very soap opera-like life. I have survived nearly every experience that is capable of destroying families. The main obstacle that I had to overcome, though, occurred when I was seven years old. I had come back from church with my aunt and uncle at about 11:00 p.m. Being tired, I brushed my teeth and went straight to bed. I woke up about two hours later and had to go to the bathroom. As I opened the door and started down the hall, I looked into the kitchen. To my surprise, I found my mother with her shirt unbuttoned and her breasts in a man?s mouth. It was even more traumatic to realize that the man who she was straddling was not my father. He was my uncle Jason, my father?s brother and best friend. This whole incident is blurred because I have tried to block it out of memory for such a long time now. I recall that I quietly turned around and went back to bed. I must have cried for hours that night, helplessly crying myself to sleep. My mother must have heard me because she came in to see what was the matter. I told her what I saw and asked her why, why she was doing that with my uncle. I?m not sure what she said, but I remember her telling me that it would never happen again. It was already too late–my childhood life was destroyed. My picture of the perfect American family was completely shattered. How does a seven year old boy handle such a situation? How does one respond to finding his father sleeping soundly in bed–probably having dreams of his wedding day?while his mother moans in ecstasy with her breasts in her brother-in-law?s mouth? The next day, I woke up and immediately attempted to block the horrible image from my mind. I tried as hard as possible to imagine my parents standing together and being happy. The sad part is that my father was under the same false impression. My father is the oldest male in a family of nineteen. He has three older sisters, six younger sisters, and seven younger brothers. His father had passed away when he was sixteen, so his mother asked him to drop out of high school. He was left with the responsibility of taking care of the family farm and raising his younger siblings. My dad?s brother, who is five years younger than my father, became his brother. He had a normal relationship with the rest of his siblings, but he treated Jason as he would have his own son. Since the day his father died, my dad had raised each and every brother and sister, even the older ones. He disciplined each and every one until they were old enough to get married and move off the farm. When my dad was 21, he married my mother, who already had two kids–my older brother and me. My mother had lived in California where she had met my ?biological father?, but he treated her badly and abused my older brother. After becoming pregnant with me, my mother divorced him in order to prevent future abuse. She moved back to Kentucky and lived with her parents in Lawrence County, where I was born. My brother was three and I was eleven months old when my mother and my current father got married. The only man that I have ever known as a father, is the incredible man who is my father now. I consider him to be my only father. Even at the age of seven, I knew that I had to do everything necessary to keep my father from finding out about my mother?s affair. I knew if he were to find out, his world would be totally dilapidate. My father is a very delicate and caring man. He loved his brother with all his heart, so much that he let Jason move in with us when he had no place to go. Yes, my uncle lived with us when all this occurred. All was fine for several years–that is, until my seventh grade term. I was then thirteen, barely a teenager. I still wanted to trust that my mother didn?t lie to me that night when she told me that it would never happen again. I soon found out about her deception. On the Saturday morning before the Kentucky Academic Achievement Tests, I woke up to the sounds of a shattering mirror, the cries of my mother, the screams of my dad, and the bangs of my uncle?s head against my bedroom wall. I knew exactly what was going on. I began to cry and walked out of my bedroom to see my uncle lying on the living room floor with blood all over his face. My father had busted his fist through the mirror on the wall when he caught them, and then he broke my uncle?s nose and knocked two of his teeth out. My mother had gone into her bedroom, still sobbing. After kicking my uncle out of the house, my father sat down on the couch and cried. My brother and I walked over and hugged him, crying in his arms. He got up and walked into his bedroom to talk to his unfaithful wife. I listened as he asked her how long it had been going on. He asked her why she had done such an unspeakable thing to him? If it had gone on every night after tucking him into bed? If she would climb out of his arm?s and onto the couch with his brother? Since then, my brother and I have been closer to each other and to my father than most people I know. We have never cared as much about our mother, though. By some miracle, my parents are still together. They have been through a whole lot, but my father has stuck by her through it all, even when he learned of her affair, he would remain in blissful disbelief and stay by her side. He is far more of a man than I will ever be because if that were my wife sleeping with my brother, I would have taken my kids and left. I have faced many hardships in my life. I have never seen my ?biological father?–not even a picture. I had to mature at the age of seven and face the ugliness of the real world. I have had to live with not being able to trust or love my mother again. I had to skip childhood and become mature enough to handle an adulterous affair. These factors have altered my life greatly. At the age of eighteen, I am as immature as I was when I was six. This is due to the fact that I was forced to grow up at age seven. I am now having the ?childhood fun? of which I was earlier robbed and I?m still trying to rebuild the concept of relationships, trust, and faith. I give my girlfriend much credit for my progress because she has been incredible and faithful to me. I know that she would never do anything to hurt me or destroy what little notion of trust and faithfulness that I have managed to rebuild. I can relate to the phrase ?What does not kill you only makes you stronger,? after having had such a rough childhood. I am now as wise to the expectations and cruelty of the ?real world? as most adults are. I have learned that trusts is not something that is inherited but is something that is built up over a period of time. There are only eight people who have my full trust—my girlfriend, my father, my brother, my girlfriend?s parents, and of three my high school friends. Life has taught me a lot. I hope that some of the hardships I have faced will not come back to haunt me in the future. I hope that no one has to go through what I have gone through. If they do, I hope they handle it as well as, if not better than, I did. Most importantly, I know that God has been with me through it all and has given me a chance to have an incredible life with the girl I love.

Acid Rain. Acidrain.html at www.mde.state.md.us page 1. The Environment-Acid Rain. tgl.geology.muohio.edu/focus/acidrain page 1-5. The Environmental Agency: Acid Rain www.ea.com page 1. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commisssion at www.sos.state.tx.us/tac pages 1-2.