When the people you trust the most are the ones who disappoint you.
“Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you.” — Confucius
I’ve always believed in karma. Not the fast kind that gives you immediate satisfaction, but the quiet kind that shows up eventually whether you’re watching for it or not. Which is why before I do something I know could hurt someone, I ask myself if I’d be okay on the receiving end of it. I’m not a saint. But I try. And I’ve made enough mistakes to know that the trying matters.
This post has been sitting in my head for years. I’ve rehearsed it so many times — how to start, what to include, how much to say. I think the only way to do it is to start from the beginning.
We grew up poor, but I didn’t mind because I had parents I respected. My mom worked in the government. My dad tended our small farm — didn’t finish high school, but had principles. He smoked but didn’t drink, didn’t gamble despite keeping a handful of fighting cocks at home (yes, feeding those chickens was part of my morning and afternoon chores). We were sent to the city to study as soon as we turned twelve. I always thought I was a daddy’s girl.
And then Xavy’s dad came into my life. My sister and friends had reservations from the start. I thought I was in love, and for a while it was good — but he cheated. More than once, with different people. Dami kong inaway na mga babae during our relationship. Yes, totoo talaga na madalas sa mga seaman, manloloko. Cheating has always been a hard line for me, maybe because I’d never done it to anyone and couldn’t understand choosing to. The final thing was finding out he had cheated with his second cousin while Xavy was almost one year old.
Yung totoo, I wasn’t completely sure I was going to end it — until a good friend at work looked me in the eye and said plainly: “Senorita, what are you still doing with him? Throw him out of your place right now.” That was the moment something clicked. A few weeks later, my boss found me crying in my office and took me aside to talk some sense into me. I had good people around me, and they gave me the strength to finally walk away.
My dad knew what happened. He saw how broken I was. And I was broken — deeply. I was going to be a single mom, I was heartbroken, and I couldn’t even fall apart properly because I had Xavy to feed and keep alive. I’d look at him sleeping at night and cry. Weeks of that. Months of not being able to listen to love songs or watch anything romantic without falling apart. Eventually I just put my broken heart somewhere else and focused on keeping the roof over our heads. I figured it would heal on its own eventually.
Around that time, Dad recommended a yaya for Xavy — someone connected through a mutual acquaintance, a woman in her mid-thirties from a neighboring town. She turned out to be genuinely good with Xavy. She didn’t need to be told what to do. She cooked, prepared food for me to take to work sometimes, and kept the house running. My dad started coming by more often. I assumed it was because he was becoming attached to his apo.
My sister, calling from abroad, started to suspect something. I dismissed it — my father had principles. He knew exactly how I felt about infidelity. He had heard me say more than once that I would never be someone’s mistress and that I never wanted what happened to me to happen to my parents. He knew all of that.
Then one day I saw the messages on the yaya’s phone. The endearment was “love.” I felt everything go still. I confronted my dad — he denied it at first, then admitted it when he realized I wasn’t bluffing. His first instinct was to ask me to stay quiet. It would destroy the family, he said. It meant nothing.
I kept it to myself for a few weeks, going through the motions. I found out later that a colleague who rented a room in the house had already seen things — yung yaya at yung dad ko na naglalambutsingan sa living room habang natutulog kaming lahat sa itaas. It had been going on for a while.
I eventually told my siblings. My brother had already suspected and assumed I knew and had chosen to tolerate it. My sister called my mom immediately. I confronted the yaya and told her she needed to leave — not with cruelty, because she had taken care of Xavy well and I recognized that, but clearly. There was no version of this where she stayed.
My dad and I had a long conversation afterward. He never apologized. Instead, he blamed me. Said I was the one who first brought shame to the family by becoming a single mom — as if Xavy’s dad cheating with his cousin was something I caused. He said my situation was what led him to do what he did. Hindi ko pa rin maintindihan yun, honestly. I didn’t point a gun to his head. I didn’t make any of his choices for him.
We haven’t spoken properly since. The dad I respected, the one I put on a pedestal — he turned out to be the same as the rest. And he did it under my roof, with someone who cared for my child, and then made it my fault.
My mom eventually went back home. She’s of the generation that holds to “until death do us part” even when everything around it has broken. Her town is small, her faith conservative, and she has her own reasons we may never fully understand. She visits my sister abroad every few months. We worry about her.
Karma is real. But I’ve learned it doesn’t always come in the form you expect, and it doesn’t always spare the people who didn’t deserve it. What I know now is that no relationship — romantic, parental, or otherwise — is immune. And if you’re the other person in someone else’s marriage: please stop. Think about the family you are helping someone else dismantle. Think about what it would feel like to be on the other side of it.
That’s the story I’ve been sitting on for years.
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