Member-only story
Has My Parents’ Relationship Affected the Way I Love My Partner?
Number 23 in Keeley’s February Writing Challenge
Do I really have to write about this?
It’s just too damn hard. I had a mother and a part-time father from when I was born to when I was 6. I don’t have any memories of their relationship but I figure it wasn’t good. My older half-brother from my mother’s first marriage was killed 6 months before they split. I think she probably didn’t cope well with the death of her only son and my father was no support. When I say split, he knocked my mother unconscious and took my sister and me straight to his parents — my grandparents where he left us for 4 years until he remarried.
My new mother had two sons whom she doted on, especially the younger one, but my sister and I were treated like Cinderellas, especially me since I was older by 3 years. She was previously divorced and Dad was her saviour from a life of single motherhood which was hard back in the fifties.
Dad gave her a good life but he was hardly ever home in between working as a postmaster, being the president of the local rugby league club as well as the swimming club and running the “chook” raffles every Friday night at the pub. He was heavily involved in the community but not so much with us kids or his wife in those years…
