Hey everyone. I'm Riley. Unfortunately, my family broke up because of me. I had to make a really important decision. I thought about it long and hard and I think made the right choice. But I'm still not a 100% sure. Put yourself in my shoes when you listen to my story. What would you have done if you were me? I knew that my mom and dad were having some problems. This was all because of my mom. She couldn't tolerate my dad at all. She snapped at him every chance she got. My dad is a very easy-going person. I've never heard him say anything bad. He's good to the point of being naïve. That's why I couldn't accept my mom's behavior toward him. But I could see that my dad loved my mom despite everything.
One day, when I was looking at my mom's Instagram posts, I realized that someone that I didn't know had given likes all her photos. I thought that was very strange. The man's account was private, so I couldn't see who he was. My mom stopped working when I was born. So her social circle consisted of her friends from university, and the mothers she met through my school. But it looked like my mom had an admirer. As far as I could tell from the tiny profile pic on his account, he was quite handsome. I googled his name but nothing came up. I didn't want to ask my mom about it. But I was really curious about what was going on. Whenever my mom would post a new photo, I'd check if the man gave a like to it. I noticed that he never missed one. I realized something else as I looked through her photos. She had stopped posting photos that we took together. The last 15 or 20 photos were just of her. One day, while she was busy in the kitchen, I came up with a plan. My dad was still at work. My mom's phone was charging in the living room. She came to check something on her phone and then went back to the kitchen. I grabbed the phone before the screen got locked. My heart was pounding like crazy.
I opened Instagram and looked at her messages. Just as I thought, there were tons of messages between her and the man. I looked through them. Most of it was pretty casual stuff. As I was scrolling down, I saw one message where the man said, "I miss you." She replied, "Me too. But please don't write stuff like this here. My phone is always lying around at home." I got so annoyed with her. I checked out the man's profile. All of his photos were from the gym. He was either a gym junkie or a personal trainer. Turns out, my mom was cheating on my dad with this guy. I cried for a long time in my room. I felt so bad for my dad. This was the worst thing she could do to him. I decided that I had to talk to my mom about it. I called her and asked her to come to my room. "Are we communicating by phone in the house now?" she said as she came in. My eyes were swollen from crying. She panicked and asked "What's wrong Riley?" and I started crying again. I told her about what I had seen. She didn't deny it. "You're old enough to understand this. I never loved your father. Our families pressured us into getting married. I was too young to say no. But I haven't had one second of happiness in this marriage" she said. "Then you should have gotten a divorce. Why did you stay married" I asked. "Because you were born and I didn't want you to grow up without a father" she said. For a moment, I almost felt what she did was justified, but then I thought of my dad and got really angry. I was about to say "My dad is a really good person. You shouldn't have done this to him" but she stopped me before I could say anything. "Do you think your dad deserved to be with me? He's a pushover. I've been putting up with him for years. Don't you dare defend him! I want to live my own life from now on" she said and left the room, slamming the door. I was so angry that she was so comfortable with all this. So what was I supposed to do? Was I going to be a part of this lie? At first, I calmed myself down and thought for a long time.
I finally made my decision: my dad should know that my mom is cheating on him, and I had to be the one to tell him. I'm going to tell you this part really quickly because even remembering that night hurts me. In short–when my dad came home, I asked him to come to my room, and I told him about the messages, and the conversation I had with my mom. He was shocked. His face went red. His eyes watered. As usual, he acted so nicely. "Perhaps you misunderstood. Let me talk to your mom" he said. He came back quickly. "Riley, your mom is gone" he said really sadly. He gave me a note he was holding in his hands. It said, "I didn't want to leave like this but I'm still really happy that I left." My mom knew that I would tell my dad everything when I called him to my room. While we were talking, she quickly packed some clothes in a suitcase, and left her husband and daughter. You can imagine what happened after that.
Our life completely changed. My dad tried hiding it but I could tell that he was having a really hard time. I, on the other hand, kept on wondering, "Did I do the right thing by telling him?" But what else was I going to do? Pretend like I didn't know that my mom was cheating on him? My dad must have felt that I was struggling because one night at dinner he said, "Riley, you did the right thing. And your mom did the right thing by leaving. Neither of you had another choice." I felt relieved after he said this. " So what happens now?" I asked. He smiled. "We'll clear the table" he said. I knew what he meant. We were going to move on with our lives. We didn't have another choice. Days were going by really fast. I was aware of my mom's absence but it was really odd that I didn't miss her at all. Every time I thought of her, I just felt empty inside. She had abandoned me. "I want to live my own life from now on" she had said. She had preferred another life and another person to me. One evening, something unexpected happened. My phone rang and it was my mom. I wasn't sure if I should pick up. Why was she calling me? Did she regret leaving? I decided to answer the phone. She sounded really sad. "Riley, sweetheart, I miss you so much. Can I see you tomorrow? There is something really important I want to talk to you about" she said. I felt like I missed her too, but I didn't want to admit it. I turned ice-cold and said, "No you can't because I don't want to see you", and hung up the phone I was really nervous though. Had I done the right thing? What was so important that she had to tell me? Should I tell my dad that mom had called? I went to bed with these on my mind. I was so confused the entire week. I was glad that my mom was sad and that she missed me. But if that was the life she wanted, why did she miss me? I didn't say anything to my dad. We had settled into our new life and everything was calm. I knew he was thinking of my mom all the time but I didn't want to stir things up again.
That Saturday I woke up really late. It was almost noon. I grabbed my phone and looked at my messages. There was a message from a number I didn't know. I couldn't believe my eyes. "Riley please help me. Come here with your dad and save me. I'm sending this message from someone else's phone. I'm going to delete it now. Please show your dad the location I sent." I read the whole thing again. Yes, this was definitely mom. I checked the location. It was about 3-4 miles away from our house. What had happened? Who were we going to save her from? I ran to my dad and showed him the message. He panicked. "Are we going to go?" I asked. He said, "What kind of a question is that? We have to go and at least see what's going on". When we were in the car, I noticed my hands were all sweaty. I was scared but at the same time excited that I was going to see my mom. I was also really curious about what we were going to find. After driving for a while, we finally got there. It was a tall building. I counted the floors from the car. There were 8. Was my mom on one of them? How many apartments were there on each floor? Why hadn't she written the whole address? Maybe she didn't know. Maybe she was brought here by force. Whose phone did she text from? Where was her own phone? I was asking my dad all these questions. He was nodding and looking at the entrance of the building, clearly worried. Just then, a man came out and I recognized him right away. It was the man that my mom had left us for. One look at him and you could tell that he spent his whole life at the gym. I said, "That's him" and my dad knew what I meant. He was holding onto the steering wheel with such force that I wondered how we'd get back home if it broke. In a desperate voice, he said "This is beyond us. We need to call the police."
The police arrived shortly. We told them what we knew. They entered the building and checked each apartment one by one. They found my mom in a small apartment on the 6th floor. When they brought her out, she ran to us right away. She was so happy and wanted to hug me. I felt bad for her so I let her hug me, but I didn't hug her back. We learned about what happened as my mom was talking to the police. The man brought her to this apartment. She thought he lived there but she found out that the apartment was rented out daily. Apparently, he was married. When she found out, she wanted to leave, but he wouldn't let her. He took away my mom's phone. He'd lock the door when he was going out. My mom sent the message from his phone when he was sleeping. The police asked, "Why didn't you contact us instead of your daughter?" My mom mumbled something, but didn't give a coherent answer. I'll tell you why she didn't call the police. She wanted to use this situation to make things up with us. If she had called the police, they would have saved her, but we wouldn't have known about it. She contacted me because she wanted us to witness everything and see her as a victim. According to her plan, we'd pity her, and forgive her. If she had been planning all this, she must have really wanted to win us back. But would she have wanted us back if that man was single? Of course not. She would keep on living the life she wanted with that man. But when things didn't go her way, she wanted to take advantage of her bad situation. The next day, dad and I went back to our calm life. A few months later, my parents got divorced. I obviously chose to live with my dad. My mom has the legal right to see me but she doesn't have the guts to do it. Because she can imagine the things I'll tell her and she's scared to hear them.
Well, that's about it guys. Telling my dad that my mother was cheating on him completely changed all of our lives. What would you have done if you were me? Please write in the comments. I'd love to know. If you like stories like mine, you can subscribe to the channel now. Bye.
Dan_tgh1
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