“Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you.” – Confucius
I’ve always believed that karma exists. Sometimes not as fast as you wanted it but still, it’s there, sulking in the dark and just waiting for the right moment. Which is why if I do something really drastic I always take into consideration if I would be okay if someone did the same thing to me. I’m no saint, I’m a bitch most of the time. But hey, I try to do good most of the time but still I’ve made mistakes and I’ll prolly make more in the future. Who knows really.
This post is long overdue, years overdue. I’ve ran this scenario thru my mind countless times, thinking about what I’m going to write, how should I tell this story. I suppose it’s best I start from the beginning.
We grew up poor but I always thought that it was okay because I had respectable and good parents. Mom worked in the government and Dad toiled our very small farm. I had high respect for my father because even if he didn’t finish high school, he had principles, he smoked but he didn’t drink, didn’t gamble although he had dozens of fighting cocks at home (yes, my childhood included chores such as feeding these chickens every morning and afternoon). Although we were sent to the city to study in good schools as soon we turned 12, I’ve always thought I was a daddy’s girl.
And then I met Xavy’s dad. Despite what my sister and friends said about him, I thought I was in love. Yes, we did have a good run, but he cheated on me with various girls. And dami kong inaway na mga babae during our relationship. Yes, totoo talaga na madalas sa mga seaman, manloloko. And cheating for me is such a big deal. Maybe because I’ve never cheated in any of my past relationships so I know I didn’t deserve to go through something like it. (PS Xavy’s dad and I were on a break when I had a brief relationship with Pikot). I knew it was the end when he cheated on me with his second cousin. Xavy was about to turn 1 when I found out about it. But yung totoo, I wasn’t so sure about ending it that time but I had this good friend at work, Oscar was his name, he was the one who told me “Senorita, what are you still doing with him? Throw him out of your place right now.” And I thought, yes, I don’t think I deserve that. I remember a few weeks after, how one day my boss caught me inside my office crying my heart out. He took me to his office and talked some sense into me. Thank goodness, I have amazing friends at work who gave me strength to end it.
And my dad saw that. He knew that Xavy’s dad cheated on me and saw how broken I was after. I was broken as fuck, I was going to be a single mom and I was all alone. It was hard enough to deal with a broken heart, then there was this lifetime responsibility right before me that I can’t escape. Yes, I cried my eyes out for weeks, I couldn’t even watch a single freaking romantic movie or listen to love songs without breaking down for months, yes months! At night, I’d look at Xavy when he’s sleeping and burst out crying. Yes, it was that hard, emotionally and financially. And I couldn’t catch a break and deal with my broken heart because the fuck I had someone to feed and raise. I think I put my broken heart down and figured it’ll heal on its own eventually, the priority was to keep the roof over our heads and our stomachs filled.
So Dad recommended a yaya who ccording to my Dad, textmate daw ng kilala nya. She’s about 35 something and she was single. She was from Jimalalud (neighboring town of our home town). So she started working with us. To cut the story short, she was a really good yaya to Xavy. I didn’t have to tell her what to do. She’d even prepare food for me to take to work sometimes. She knew how to cook too. Dad started coming over more often, I figured it must be because he’s getting fond of his apo. My sister, who’s out of the country started to suspect that there must be something going on with the yaya and my father. I shrugged it off thinking that my father wouldn’t do such a thing to my mother who’s all her life has done nothing but be a good wife and mom. And I have always been vocal to my dad and everyone in the house about my stance when it comes to mistresses. My dad knew about this one incident when I got an indecent proposal from the husband of someone I work with. I’ve repeatedly mentioned that I wouldn’t want to be someone’s mistress because I don’t want the same thing to happen to my parents.
And then one day I saw Dad’s texts on the yaya’s phone. It was the kind of messages I didn’t expect to read, their endearment was “love”. I think I saw red that time but I acted as if nothing happened. I confronted my dad first, he denied at first but eventually admitted when he realized I was not bluffing. His first instinct was to convince me to just keep quiet because it would destroy our family and it meant nothing to him anyways. I kept it all to myself for a few weeks, pretending to the yaya that I didn’t know, or maybe Dad already told her then. Of course I was going to send her home but I wanted to do it at the end of the year, it was November. Anyways, one time I opened up to my officemates about the issue. Apparently, some of them already knew coz one of my officemates was renting one of the rooms in the house. He’s seen the yaya and my Dad na naglalambutsingan at the living room when we’re all sleeping (nasa ground floor yung living room at lahat kami, sa second floor natutulog). And it has been going on for a while now.
It was then that I decided to tell my sister and brother about it. Looks like my brother also knew about it already and he thought I tolerated it. My sister right then and there called my Mom and had move out of the house and come to my place. I also confronted the yaya and told her she’s going home right there and then. I didn’t swear or say bad words to her cause I took into consideration the fact that she took care of Xavy really well. I just told her that of course I am not going to tolerate and accept whatever it is that’s going on with her and Dad.
Of course my Dad and I had a long conversation. He never apologized for his actions. In fact he blamed me for the whole thing. He said I was the first one who brought shame into our family for becoming a single mom – like as if it was my doing that Xavy’s dad fucked his cousin. He blamed me, apparently it was because of me that he cheated on my Mom with the yaya. That kind of excuse didn’t sit well with me so I haven’t spoken to my Dad for years now. I just couldn’t grasp what I did that caused him to do what he did. It’s not like I pointed a gun to his head and forced him to fuck the yaya.
This incident left another scar in my heart. The Dad that I put in a pedestal, I respected so much was just like his brother who also cheated on his wife. And worse of it all is that he did it under my roof and blamed the whole thing on me. He knew how devastated I was when Xavy’s dad cheated on me and yet he chose to do the same thing to my Mom. And he blamed it on his father in law, saying that Lolo never liked him for Mom. This was after more than 35 years of marriage.
Now, Mom has gone back home. She wants to stay with Dad’s side – the “until death do us part” part of the marriage vows. I find that that the Boomer generation tend to be very loyal to their marriages. Or maybe because my Mom is from a very small town and her beliefs very conservative. We (me and my siblings) all believe that Dad’s still seeing the yaya. We know our Dad’s tactics, he’s a very smart and manipulative person. My Mom’s been suffering emotional abuse for years and she refuses to leave him. Every few months, she’d go out of the country and visit my sister. My Mom’s psychological state is not very stable. She can’t handle to much stress, she’d start hallucinating if she’s stressed out.
So back to karma. I thought if I said no to that indecent proposal, it wouldn’t happen to our family but I was wrong. This whole thing made me realize anything can happen, karma is real but it comes in various forms. So please, I beg of you, if you’re in a relationship with a married person, please stop. Think about the family you’re destroying. Think about how it could also happen to you or your kids families in the future.
That’s my story.
Xavy & Mom 