Mommy Not So Dearest Part 2

Needless to say the affair I was trying to stay out of didn’t end. But my very early and young marriage did end, unfortunately. I moved from St. Louis back home to Minnesota to stay with my family during the separation period, which only dragged me into the whole mess of things further.

My soon to be ex husband made things difficult by not returning my son to me when he was supposed to after my son went to visit him. Because we didn’t have anything in writing when it came to the terms of child visitation, legally there wasn’t anything I could do about it. See, I was a stay at home mom, like many military wives, and was trying to start my life again, going to cosmetology school full time and working as much as possible. My parents had to help me pay for one attorney, and I had to take out a loan that my father co-signed on for another attorney in St. Louis, only because neither state could decide to take our case.

My mother took full advantage of all of this, holding it over my head to this very day. All I did was want a divorce. Tried to be amicable. Yet this was all my fault. So, she used this to pull me into her web of lies against my father.

She had gotten a track phone so she could talk to her lover. Because she couldn’t send gifts to my home anymore as I was staying with them, she got a P.O. Box so he could send her gifts. It was all so maddening and living there I began to see my father wasn’t the bad man she was always making him out to be. He wasn’t around because he was running a business to help pay for her horrible spending habit. I learned she had put herself in thousands of credit card debt. Was constantly overdrawing their checking account. Hiding packages almost daily from him. His business was successful with just word of mouth, there was no reason they should have ever been in that financial mess. Plus she had a nice job as well.

Once my divorce was finalized and my son was in my custodial care, I started dating. I met a man I fell madly in love with. We dated for a year. The day we were moving in my mother called yelling at me calling me names (which is the norm with her). My boyfriend yelled for her to stop it and shut up because he and my son who was six at the time could hear her every word. For some reason she didn’t like him. He was very good to me and my son. My opinion, he wasn’t rich, so he wasn’t good enough.

For awhile after we moved in together I was completely shut off from my family, which killed me. I didn’t think it was warranted. We were all so happy, so why cut me off? Finally after many arguments trying to defend my situation and love, I had enough. We were doing nothing wrong. We became engaged and I was told they wouldn’t be a part of it. That’s when I said, “You know what, all we’re doing is loving each other. You’re having a ten year affair! I’ve had it! Either you tell Dad EVERYTHING or I will!” Which of course she didn’t. So I did.

Now my context in confessing may not have been in the right. BUT, I’m not going to lie, it felt good to get it out there and off my chest, yet I felt awful because I knew it hurt my dad. My family didn’t speak to me for a long time. And to this day I know my mother didn’t tell my dad the WHOLE truth.

The Story of My Biological Father

My mom and dad married when I was four years old. My memory of learning about my biological father Richard was when I was around the age of nine. I was in my mother’s room when she was putting clothes away and she spouted it out to me almost like stating this is what’s for dinner. She said, by the way you’re dad isn’t your real dad. That was the end of the discussion. I obviously was in shock. I was going to school under my dad’s name, so you can understand my confusion. I had a million questions running through my head I didn’t even know where to start.

Then when I was thirteen, like most teenage girls, I was going through my mother’s drawers trying on her clothes and jewelry, when I found lots of letters, cards, and savings bonds from Richard over the years for me. I was again blindsided. I of course confronted my mother about this. What I got in response was nothing short of madness. She threw them at me, yelled at me, told me he was a terrible person who beat her up and an alcoholic who didn’t give two shits about me. He only wanted to hurt her. The writings seemed to show me something different. But over the years whenever I asked about him all I got was the same response. Now, I don’t condone what he did to my mother. I’ve been in abusive relationships myself. But I also believe people are capable of change over time. It seemed to me he was trying to reach out. And he definitely was.

Later on through the years he tried calling numerous times to talk to me. My mother would just yell at him saying that he’s just trying to hurt her and hang up the phone. He even tried calling with a priest saying he’s sober and better and she yelled she didn’t believe him and hung up again. If you know my mother, she will harbor feelings forever. Forgiveness is not in her vocabulary. Neither is the word sorry.

She told me his full name was Richard Scott Fisher. I saw no pictures of him. I spent so many years trying to find him via the internet. You can imagine with that common of a name how many numbers I called asking if they had a daughter named Meagan. I had a couple close calls. But didn’t find him. When my mother would find out I was trying to reach him even in my adult years, she would threaten to exile me from the family again. By this point, my engagement to the man I fell madly in love with was over, a control she loved to have in many of my relationships. Even when I was married and we came to visit to baptize my son, she made mention that Richard called saying he was going to have a serious heart surgery, and he had some money for me in case anything happened to him. She said he was a liar and hung up and told me months after the fact.

My biggest fear was I would never have the chance to at least meet him. Know what he looked like. If I had any of his features. To know that part of my history. Health history for me and my son. To ask why he was that way with my mother and if was sorry. To see if he was sober and if I had any other half brothers or sisters out there. Get to know half of my blood and maybe, just maybe half of it wasn’t some evil awful person my mother kept shoving down my throat.

My mother never looked at it in my eyes. How hard it was going to school under one name, then legally having my license under his name Fisher. To have to work with my friends under Fisher. They would all ask, and me with my anxiety about all of it would make a joke saying I’m a secret agent, and laugh and leave it at that. She never understood that I didn’t feel whole in our family, or even in my own skin because I had so many questions that were just hanging in the air. The entire time all she could think of was herself and he didn’t pay child support.

See she had to let him see me when they initially divorced. And he had took me when she left me with him that day. He brought me back because I was crying and he didn’t know what to do. So because of that he had to have supervised visitation. When he was drinking he was also undiagnosed with a mental illness. He was very paranoid, according to my mother. So it made sense to me why he didn’t want to do supervised visitation. Once he got clean, and started calling, I do believe he was trying to throw out an olive branch to my mother so he could visit. But she wouldn’t give it a chance. And I do understand protecting her minor child. But once I was an adult, she kept taking that right from me. And as you can see above, she didn’t tell me the whole truth about his name either. There are not many Richard Beryl Fishers around, I assure you.

It’s the way I found him that’s truly heartbreaking. I will get to that in part 3. Stay tuned.