I guess it's an odd concept to most people, keeping the peace by hiding your relationship with the woman who gave you life. Secret conversations, private jokes, unspoken time spent together.
Or perhaps it is more prevalent than I think... Many of us are raised and controlled by Step-Parents who just don't have that same bond with us as they do with their own flesh and blood.
I have been my Mothers Mistress for 35 years now... since a man, not my biological Father, wandered into our lives and took center stage. I am grateful for his endless devotion to my Mother at a time in her life when she needed somebody to cling to. His loyalty, fidelity and friendship has never wavered nor has his jealous, controlling, demanding and childish possession waned.
A grown man so insecure he couldn't bear the idea of a mother alone with her child. Weekends spent sitting in the dark, refusing to eat, waiting at the window until she returned from her "work required weekend". Tantrums and Fury at time spent shopping for curtains without him because it required an excess of 3 hours absent from his company.
The constant "handling" of this man, a biological stranger in our midst. The lies and elusive stories drawn around our existence of Mother and Daughter grow a fury in my belly... Worse than that is the self loathing that comes from the voices in my soul... What is wrong with me that makes him so much more important? Living in the wake of a deceased sibling, the endless question of... "Was I the child slated to die?", "Did destiny twist the knife and take the wrong child?", "Would things have been different if the son had survived?".
This man had no male friends. He surrounded himself by women. Women took care of him, provided for him, nurtured him... Hating to be challenged in any way, not really being an Alpha Male by nature he retained Alpha Male status by environmental default.
Raising a son would have been problematic for sure... unfortunately for our family unit, I developed my brothers place and carried his alpha gene into the world.
Problematic is an understatement.
I didn't fight his place in our family, at my Mothers request I called him Dad and accepted him into my life. However, By my very nature, I challenge and I grow.
I grew to be my Mothers mistress and she allowed it.
On my own quest to be a Mother, things had to change. Old behaviors needed to be addressed or stopped.
The thought of my child accepting the dysfunction as I had... the idea that my child may have to play secret games to gain the love of a Grandmother... that my child would feel inadequate or witness my overcompensation for perceived inadequacies has forever changed me.
Before my beautifully perfectly imperfect child weighs my belly and my breast, before my life is gifted as the fertilizer for this clean slated soul... I roar!
Every mistress eventually becomes tired of the unfulfilled promises, the delaying tactics and eventually every mistress... has to face herself in the mirror and accept what she knew from that first whispered declaration of shallow pillow talk... "I'm going to leave my wife".
"Ssssshhhhh, Dad doesn't know..."
If you can't give me what I need... truthfully and unashamed... then I don't want it.
If you can't face your own deeds and partake in the accountability... then I don't want it.
I can no longer be my Mothers Mistress.
By Next Mothers Day, I plan to unashamedly, unconditionally hold up my love for the world to see... Next Mothers Day, I plan to vow to put my child first before all others... to love and defend... to nurture and encourage... but most of all to take great pride in loving openly and honestly.
I will roar and roar and roar again, to honor my place as a Mother.
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