Daddy #3? Yeah No

My parents got divorced last week. This isn’t sad. It’s been years in the making and comes as a surprise to no one. They got married when I was two years old. My mom had me with Daddy #1 and split shortly thereafter. She started dating Daddy #2, an old flame, when she was still pregnant with me. Daddy #2 had several redeeming qualities Daddy #1 did not possess, including: 1) a job and 2) a checking account. When you’re seventeen years old and pregnant and on welfare, this is apparently all you can hope for. They may have been in love at some point, although nobody can really remember when. They dated for two years then decided to get married when (again, surprising no one) my mom got pregnant again.

The thing is they stayed together for years and years. They never had one of those obnoxious, head over heels loves you’re supposed to have, but they raised the kids (the last one, my brother, came when I was five) and didn’t kill each other. They even got along, although there certainly weren’t any fireworks. Very early on Daddy #2 became just Dad, and the kids liked it that way thank you very much.

Sometime around the time I graduated from high school my mom got tired of Daddy #2 and started dating one of Daddy #2’s employees. The fact that this embarrassed everyone involved apparently didn’t matter to my mother. Neither did the fact that this guy was a complete tool (he was a computer technician in literally every sense of the word) and only a few years older than me. She swore up and down she was in love, and she made Daddy #2 pack his shit and get out. There are more details, but it’s a bit hazy. I was very, very stoned at the time. Who wasn’t? I was eighteen. So, doing the math, Daddy #2 left when I was eighteen and the divorce became finalized last week. Apparently it took them twelve years of living in separate houses and dating different people before they were sure about things.

Daddy #2 has been with one woman this whole time- he lives with her and her college-age daughter. My mom has bounced from man to man, looking for Daddy #3. I thought that was bad. But now that she swears she’s found him I’ve realized I really don’t want any more Daddies.

I just got back from spending Christmas with them at her place. This was the last chance for me to make up my mind about him. He’s rubbed me the wrong way from the start, but I love my mother so I figured I’d give him another go. Yeah, he sucks.

There’s no way to sugar coat this- my mom is fucking crazy. Not in a cool, inspiring-sympathy Mommy Dearest kinda way. More in a drama queen, publicly humiliating kinda way. She’s the nicest and most considerate person in the world, but there’s no denying she’s an absolute trainwreck.

She’s gone over the top for this guy. On the surface he seems okay- a bit older, divorced, wealthy, clean criminal record. But once you get to know him he’s simply an intolerable asshole. You know that guy who makes really stupid jokes you’ve heard a million times, then punches you in the ribs over and over keeps saying “You get it?” until you grit your teeth and admit that yeah, you get it? He’s that fucking guy. He’s also the guy that feels he needs to relate to me, like he’s worried his impending marriage to my mother my derail if I don’t approve.

Hey buddy, I’m thirty years old. I know what people who are ‘in love’ do to each other in the bedroom. You’re the guy that’s having sex with my mother that isn’t my father. I don’t care about your opinion about anything. Keep spending money on her and be there for her so I don’t get the drunken, hysterical phone calls at 3am when my latest potential Daddy fucks off. Just leave me alone and do whatever it is you two wanna do. You and I don’t want me to have to kill you, but we both know I will.

You get it?