Met up with a fellow classmate of mine the other day. We hadn’t seen each other for five years, so there was a lot to talk about. Melissa shared her family news, chief among which was the regular presence in their home of her husband’s daughter by her mistress.
At first I didn’t understand what they were talking about, and when Melissa vividly described what was going on with them, I just couldn’t find the words to comment on the situation and sat silently listening to my friend.
Her husband did not come home alone a year ago. With him was Maria, a seven-year-old girl, a lovely blond first-grader. Her husband introduced Maria to Adam and Victoria, introducing Maria to them as his little sister. They understood that if they did not accept Maria into their “team,” they would lose their father’s money, which he generously gave them at the first request. So the sixteen-year-old brother and the fourteen-year-old sister greeted their youngest “friend” very kindly, paying her enough attention. Of course, the child in this situation was completely unrelated, Maria was simply a hostage to the relationship of the adults.
Melissa did not accept the guest at first, but after her husband’s ultimatum, she put up with it, too, and spent the weekend with Maria while her husband relaxed with the girl’s mother.
I was surprised when I asked Maria how she could stand it, but the answer was absolutely pragmatic: “Why, when I have grown children, I have everything, I live for my own pleasure, do I have to risk it all because my husband is fooling around with someone else? You’re welcome to it! He doesn’t know yet how I’m taking a break from him…”
Maybe I don’t understand something, but living in a family where the husband brings his daughter from his mistress and blackmails everyone with money seems completely immoral to me. That’s my opinion, and I can’t condemn Melissa, if only because I’ve never been in that position. Anything can happen in life, I accept some frivolous affair on the side, infatuation, after which I realize that family is the most important thing in life, but absolute promiscuity in relationships is something I absolutely cannot accept.
