What It's Like To Grow Up With A Cheating Mother

I tried avoiding and overlooking the facts till I couldn't anymore. How I wish I could unsee what I saw.

I was 11 years old and my brother was 8 when our father got deployed to Leh. We stayed back at home with our mother, who was a teacher at a college.

I always saw her as an exceptionally beautiful, strong and independent woman. She pushed me to be tough and like any mother she did it all for me. Life was good from what I remember.

Until one day when something bizarre happened.

I walked in on my mom bathing with another man. Yes! That's how it happened.

Let me tell you how exactly. My mother would teach at a college where she met this student. He came over to our house to meet her and it was all very normal. With time, the intensity grew and he was over almost everyday. It made me uncomfortable but he brought us presents and our mom told us he's just a good friend.

One day, on my way back from the park, me and my brother rang the bell. Nobody answered. We shouted ‘Mumma’ and knocked the door, nobody answered. Ke kept trying to do so for 15 minutes. Eventually, I made this little tear in the net door wider and squeezed myself in through it. And then I ran to my mothers room. Because I was honestly worried that something had happened to her. And there she was! In the shower with her student! Yes I saw them naked!

It was very unfortunate how it happened. How I wish I could turn back time to when I didn't have to worry about any of it.

I thought it would actually stop there. It didn't. It went on for a year where we would wake up locked in our room at night and cry and scream for our mother but nobody would unlock us. We were made to take trips to the water park with that man while my father was completely oblivious to this fact.

It was torturous but it finally ended when my father came back. He never figured out though. And we never had the courage to tell him either, because that would break their marriage. So I kept myself shut

I am 23 now, and someone who doesn't believe in dating. I still might not be completely over it. I still wonder what led my mother to do what she did? I hope someday I can have a honest conversation as to what made her take those decisions! We as kids like to believe our parents our perfect but we forget that they are only humans at the end of the day. I wouldn't justify it but for my sanity I'd like to believe that someday I’ll get the closure I need.

It gave me a broader view on life and how maybe there's no black or white. Maybe sometimes you find peace in the grey.

All my experiences have made me keep myself immune from feelings and I only and only lived for myself. She did manage to make me a strong independent woman after all. And that is something I will be grateful for.