By Farraday Miller
Telling you this story is like taking a shower and washing my hair. I want to erase all the toxins, the dirt, the oils, the sweat and all impurities that have taken up residence in my temple. The secrets that I carry with me are not my own. But ones I’ve had to keep because they were imposed by the choices of others. It would be years before I realized that everything I grew up in was a lie and everything that I was taught was rooted in wrong. I was forced to see people who I once held in high regard differently because their sins were surfacing and shattering my innocent thoughts of childhood purity. I was arrested by the image in the mirror and was ashamed at what I saw. There were too many partners to count and when I came to realize exactly what the word adultery meant, it was too late. I, just like both my parents before me, had already jumped into the lake of temptation and replaced all the right that we had been taught with our selfish need to satisfy our forbidden desire. It would be years before I recognized that what my little eyes saw caused me to be broken and led me to an unimaginable place of despair.
In relationships I had what I called “spares.” Yes, just like the tires. I kept them for backup, in the event something happened to the main tire. It’s embarrassing to admit today but when I look at it now, it’s like I never intended to really invest. I used sex and relationships as an escape but the irony in that is that I ran to what I ran from. My parents was a part of that 10 percent. Both were established business professionals with a great deal of notoriety. We lived in an immaculate home and my siblings and I wanted for nothing. We were envied by everyone because we always had the best of everything. But inside our home was the strangest emptiness ever imagined. It was a distant pleasantness that I know now to be a nonchalant unconcern. Their relationship was over but they did what so many couples do, they existed under one roof while leading separate lives. I didn’t know this at the time but they each vowed to stay while both secretly had lovers.
While my father remained attentive to our needs by providing everything imaginable that we could ask for, my mother seemed to be consistently distracted. Her fog would happen after phone calls or visits away from home and would escalate to agitation when we asked the simplest question. My life continued this way for 15 years, knowing that there was something wrong but not having a clue as to what it was. The stares and the whispers became apparent as I got older and there were certain circles that we were a part of that just felt like freezers because the atmosphere was so cold. When I put the pieces together in my early twenties I felt ill to know that we socialized and played with the kids of the men and women my parents had affairs with. Evidently, that was the definition of “family friend.”
It was hard for me to understand my true feelings in relationships but I think that I loved one of my “spares.” Although our relationship was true to form with all the ups and downs and unnecessary emotions that my parents had inflicted on to me, I think I came to love him or at least the thought of him. See that’s the problem with what my little eyes saw. I couldn’t distinguish what was real and what was make believe. I wanted to be with him but not all the time but I didn’t want him to be with anyone else but I wasn’t quite ready for a commitment relationship but when he decided to marry someone else I stopped the wedding – it was just a mess. I was just a mess. I remember meeting and discussing the status of our relationship after he finally got married to someone else and emphatically saying that we could not be friends while driving to the hotel where we we spent the night just days after he said “I do” to someone else. He told me it was a mistake and all the excitement and emotion encouraged me to accept him as he was because after all my parents had done it so it must not have been so bad. For years we remained in constant contact, enduring both our marriages to other people and the birth of children. We celebrated with one another and kept the torch burning strong until one day when it all came crashing down for everyone.
Farraday Miller is a singer and songwriter who believes that one must be healed first before helping others. The stories that she tells whether through song or written is her offering of peace.
It truly takes a lot of courage to admit the hurtful truth about the wrong that has been done to another good person. But the admission is a really good start to steering your life back into one where you recognize where real love is & where your honest love should be given.
When we discover that life wasn't as it seemed, it's earth-shattering. But to know that someone feels you are worthy of such deep love & respect shows you that it's OK to give it whole-heartedly in return.
Yep, many of us learned about infidelity while we were still "knee high". We can't be delivered from these generational curses, until we begin to reveal them…..then maybe we can stop living with and spreading venereal diseases and emotional drama. Maybe then we can have our children with "the real daddy", and not the one we pretend is the daddy. Keep talking, my Sisters, until you're healed of all the ills our parents raised us with. Then let's get to livin' and lovin' in a way that is life affirming.
This is real talk. A lot of people are living lies in their relationship and desperately want to break free.
Thank you for writing this. I applaud your strength and courage. I was crying when I read it because your story is my story