family value

What hurts most about Mark's recent actions is how he treats his family.

We've been his family for 20 years. I grew up fighting with him, snuggling with him on the couch, shouting over chores not completed and laughing about the jokes that went over our parents heads. My parents were the ones who raised him, helped him with homework, yelled at him when he was being a jerk, told him they loved him every night, gave him all the stupid toys and video games he wanted, and tried to teach him to be a good person.

This girl, this manipulative stripper whore bitch, is not his family. Neither is her baby, whom she allegedly cares so much about but whom she easily left in Washington to move to California with Mark on a whim.

And neither is Mark's biological mother.

I am so frustrated and hurt and on the verge of tears when I see how they interact on Facebook. When Mark was in Afghanistan, he and I talked about him visiting Yakima. He was going to come up for a whole weekend, and he was excited about it. He wanted to go to salsa lessons with me and he wanted to go camping and climbing with my friends; we were going to have brother-sister time, just the two of us.

When it came down to it, though, he was too busy driving off to Boise to see the stripperwhore dance for him (which is just SO GROSS I can't even begin to articulate). He thought he would come up here the day he left for California, but refused to leave her behind so he and I could have time together.

But when he drove across the state just to see his half-sister's high school graduation, it was a different story. His birthmom asked if the stripperbitch was coming with him, and he said, "No, she'll do her own thing so we can have family time." And then the stripperbitch told her thank you for being so welcoming.

You know why she's welcoming, you disgusting twat? Because she has no stake in Mark's future. It does not matter to her if he ends up saddled to your diseased stripper ass for the rest of his life, paying for your delinquencies as you screw every member of his platoon while he takes care of your bastard baby.

I'm adopted too, but I have always had it clear that my parents are the ones who raised me, not the ones who had sex and accidentally conceived me. Don't get me wrong; I'm very grateful that I know my birthdad, and my half-siblings; we have a good relationship and my life is richer for that.

But I wouldn't for one second dream of putting them over my parents, or my brother. Especially not after coming back from a deployment in Afghanistan. We spent seven months not knowing if we'd ever see Mark again. Every time I read about a roadside bomb or a deadly explosion, my heart stopped. I cried in my newsroom over and over, had to hide in the back hallway until I got myself under control, until I could calm the overwhelming fear that he would be killed and I would never get to say goodbye. Or that he would come home with a traumatic brain injury, and be there, but be dead inside.

Did the stripperbitch have nightmares like that? Did his half-sister lie awake, night after night, praying that it wouldn't be his foot that triggered an IED? Did his birthmom hope every day that he would call, so she would know he was OK, at least for the time being?

Maybe they did. Maybe I'm not being fair. Maybe they missed him and worried about him and prayed for him, too.

But they are not his family, and their fear for him can never be the same. He didn't know his birthmom & half sister until high school; he didn't know this stupid whore until later.

Why are we so unimportant to him? Why doesn't he understand that your family should be a priority? Why doesn't he see that this girl is going to ruin his life? I don't say things like that lightly -- Mark has been making stupid decisions all his life, and I've given up the delusion that he'll ever learn common sense, but I have never felt such dread about a situation before. He wants to marry this bitch. I want to pay her to never see him again, and you know what? She'd take it. She is with him because it's convenient right now, not because she reciprocates his inexplicable loyalty.

I'm just so hurt and angry and sad and helpless. He's not listening to our family, and he's not even listening to his best friends, who tell him over and over again that he's making a mistake. What do I do if he marries her? I won't see her -- I can be stubborn, too -- but does that mean giving up my brother? I don't want to do that, either.

And there's really nothing worse than hearing your mom sob over the phone, so upset she can't even get words out. How can he do that? How can he not care that he's causing so much hurt to the people he's supposed to love the most?

Hit men aren't that expensive, really.

Love always,
molly