I begin this by saying my sister raised me more than my mother ever did. Names are changed for obvious reason. I, Jason, 32 have an older sister Emily, 35 and our mother Krystal, 57. Let me begin way back in the past of when I was 18 years old.
My mother is an alcoholic. When she gets drunk and gets locked into an attitude, good luck getting her out of it. She had started an argument with me about a war veteran and how I should always respect him. It got so heated that she kicked me out of the house. She kicked me out of the house a total of 3 times before I had enough of her antics.
The third and final time she kicked me out I reached out to my grandparents, dad's parents, and they said if I could find a way to get to them in Alabama that I could live with them. I had an amazing friend who helped me and drove me 600 miles from Eastern North Carolina to Central Alabama. I lived with them for twelve long happy years but they are now gone and I am on my own in Alabama.
But this is a story about my mother. First warning was not even 6 months after I had moved to Alabama my mom reached out and said she had just moved to the same city with a job opening a restaurant. She was one of those general managers in a big steakhouse chain that would send her to different cities to open new restaurants and get them on their feet in the first year.
My grandmother was instantly suspicious.
After a couple years of my mom being in same town she ended up moving to South Carolina because she said Alabama was boring. Fine. Dandy. Don't let the Dixie door hit you on your way out.
Time goes on and years pass and my grandparents and I have moved to their hometown here in Alabama. Rocket City (Huntsville). I'm working a new job I'm a manager at and have only heard from my mother a hand full of times over the years. One story that I was suspicious of was she had gone to the gym (she's never worked out) and ended up breaking her arm...
Fast forward and I'm at an after hours work event and I get a call on the phone. It's my mom. So I excuse myself outside and answer the phone. My mother greeted me with her usual "hey son" and was testing to see what kind of mood I was in. That's when she hit me with the words that made the world pause for me.
"I'm getting married!"
First and foremost since she had divorced my father before I was even one year old and I was maybe thirty at the time of this phone call, she had never expressed interested in having another relationship.
She went on saying she met a man about a year ago and they hit it off and that they were going to have a zoom meeting and that she would send a link to said zoom call. I was weirded out by it because she didn't sound like herself and as we were talking and I was asking questions about my supposed new stepfather HE CHIMES IN ON THE CALL! My mom even sends me a pic of him while we're on the phone so I can see what he looks like. Turned out as she was talking to me he had his ear to the phone so he could hear everything.
We continue talking fir a bit and we hang up and I go back to the work event. I'm walking into my home when I get a text from my sister.
"Mom just married and piece of shit call me when you can."
HERE WE GOOOO...
I get on the phone with my sister and she starts to tell me how our new stepfather is abusing our mother. He verbally and physically abuses her to the point t my sister is having to rush to his trailer to save our mother. She even tells me he's been to prison for 13 years and that she did a background check on him if I wanted to see it.
But it's not all on him it's also on our mother because she has grown attached to him and has created a cycle.
He abuses her. She calls my sister for help. Sister saves her. She goes running back to him.
My sister even says that one of the times he pinned her down to the ground so hard that he broke her arm (she never went to the gym).
Part of the background check showed that he had a pattern with women. He would get into relationships with women. Have them fall in love with him, alienate the women from their family. Cut them away so he would be the only one the women would need and abuse them the whole time.
Lovely stepfather who I'll name Wilson has now been locked up due to causing a 5 vehicle crash in Ohio. My mother upon learning the news of his lock up has spiraled into an alcohol induced depression to the point that no one, not even her own mother my other grandmother doesn't want anything to do with her. She's lost her best friend, she constantly verbally abuses my sister, and she believes i know nothing about this.
When asked why they kept this info from me for so long my sister and grandmother said that I was happy and they didn't want to ruin that.