I can barely type this without shaking.

Two months ago, my dad called me late at night, his voice breaking. He’d just found out my mom had been having an affair for years. Not a one-time thing. Not a mistake. A whole secret life behind his back.

He was destroyed.
I tried to comfort him, but I was states away.
I thought he’d be okay until I could fly home.

He wasn’t.

Two days later, he was gone. Just like that.

And now?
My mom — the same woman who detonated our family — is blowing up my phone saying she “needs closure” from me.

She’s sending paragraphs about how she feels alone, how she needs forgiveness, how “he wasn’t perfect either.”

She even asked me to “be there for her” at the memorial. Like she didn’t just rip a hole through the only parent who ever made me feel safe.

I told her I wasn’t ready. She called me “cruel.”
I told her she had no right to demand anything. She said “it’s time to heal.”

But yesterday, my aunt sent me a screenshot.

A message my mom sent a friend the night before my dad died.

In it, she wrote: “If he can’t handle the truth, that’s his problem. I’m not going to let his emotions ruin my happiness. He’ll get over it or he won’t. Either way, I deserve to live my life.”

I stared at it for hours. That wasn’t guilt. That wasn’t regret. That was arrogance. Coldness. Almost like she had no idea what she’d unleashed.

I didn’t reply to my aunt. I didn’t reply to my mom. I sat there in my apartment, phone in hand, feeling like I was choking on air.

The funeral came, and I went. Not for my mom. For my dad. For the man who raised me with patience and quiet strength, who taught me how to ride a bike, who stayed up nights helping me study, who hugged me when life tore me apart.

At the service, my mom sat in the front row like some grieving widow. Black dress, tissues in hand, face buried dramatically every few minutes. People came up to hug her. Some whispered “stay strong.” Some cried with her. I wanted to stand up and scream. I wanted to shout the truth, that she wasn’t some devastated partner — she was the reason he wasn’t breathing anymore.

But I kept quiet. For my dad. I didn’t want his goodbye tainted by shouting.

After the service, my mom cornered me in the hallway. She put her hand on my arm like nothing had happened. “I need to talk to you. We can’t avoid this forever,” she said.

I pulled my arm back and told her not today. Not ever. She teared up and whispered, “I lost him too.”

I walked away.

Weeks passed. She kept texting. Long, rambling messages about how she was hurting, how she needed me, how she couldn’t sleep. She spun every word to sound like she was the victim. I blocked her.

But here’s the twist. Blocking didn’t stop her. She showed up at my door. She flew to my city, to my apartment. I opened the door one morning to find her standing there with bags under her eyes, clutching a folder.

I froze. My heart sank. I didn’t even know what to say.

She stepped forward like she belonged there. “Please, let me in. Just ten minutes.”

I should’ve slammed the door. But part of me — the part still clinging to the fact that she was my mom — stepped aside.

She sat on my couch, set the folder on the coffee table, and started crying. Not the dramatic wailing I’d seen at the funeral. Real tears, or at least they looked real. She said she hadn’t stopped thinking about him, that she hated herself, that she needed me to forgive her.

I sat in silence, my chest burning. Then she pushed the folder toward me. “I wrote everything down. The truth. About me. About him. About us. You can read it if you want. Just… please don’t hate me.”

I didn’t touch it. I told her to leave. She begged. She said she’d wait outside if I needed. Finally, she walked out with her head down.

That night, I opened the folder.

Inside were pages and pages of her handwriting. Letters, journal entries, explanations. She wrote about how she met the man she cheated with. How it started as “just friendship” when she felt lonely. How she convinced herself it wasn’t wrong. How she kept telling herself Dad would never find out.

But there were also darker parts. She admitted she resented my dad. That she thought he was “too boring,” “too safe.” That she felt trapped in their marriage. She even wrote that part of her was “relieved” when he confronted her because “at least it was finally out.”

I slammed it shut. I couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t sorry. She was trying to justify everything, dress it up as some story of a woman finding herself. My dad wasn’t perfect — no one is — but he didn’t deserve that.

I didn’t call her. I didn’t reply. Days turned to weeks again. But she didn’t stop. Cards showed up in my mailbox. Emails from new addresses. Once, flowers with a note that said: “We can still be a family.”

Family. The word stung.

Then something happened I didn’t expect. I got a call from the man she cheated with. I didn’t even know how he got my number. He left a voicemail. His voice was shaky, nervous. He said he wanted to apologize. That he never meant for things to end like this. That he hadn’t spoken to my mom in weeks. That he was done with her.

I sat there listening, jaw clenched. I deleted it. But part of me wondered — was he just another selfish liar, or was she spiraling even further?

The real breaking point came when I went home for the first time since Dad’s passing. I walked into his old study. His books were still there. His glasses on the desk. And tucked into a drawer, a letter addressed to me.

It was short. He must have written it right after he found out.

“My kid, I don’t want you to ever think this was your fault. Your mom made choices I couldn’t live with, but that doesn’t mean I stopped loving you. I need you to be stronger than I was. Live with honesty. Choose people who value your heart. I’ll always be proud of you.”

I read it over and over until the words blurred. I cried harder than I had since the day I got the call.

And then, something shifted. I realized I didn’t owe my mom anything. Not closure. Not forgiveness. Not even hatred. I owed my dad to live the way he wanted me to — with honesty and love, not bitterness.

So when my mom called again, I finally picked up.

She launched into her usual lines — how she was suffering, how she needed me. I cut her off.

“I read Dad’s letter,” I said. “He told me to choose people who value my heart. That’s not you. Not anymore.”

She went silent. I could hear her breathing, sharp and uneven.

“I’m not going to be your bandage,” I told her. “You destroyed him. You don’t get to use me to heal yourself. You need to live with what you did.”

She tried to cry, to beg, but I hung up. And this time, I blocked her everywhere for good.

Months have passed. I still miss my dad every day. I still feel that hole where his voice should be. But I also feel something else. Peace. Because I know I’m honoring him by living the way he wanted. By not letting her poison me too.

The twist is, I later learned from my aunt that my mom’s affair partner had left her completely. He’d moved states away. She was alone. She wanted me because she had no one else. Karma came for her, quietly but firmly. And while a part of me pitied her, a bigger part of me knew — that was the life she chose.

Here’s what I learned through all of this: sometimes forgiveness isn’t about saying “it’s okay.” Sometimes it’s about letting go of the idea that someone owes you an apology that means anything. My mom can live with her choices. I’ll live with mine.

And my choice is to love the people who love me back. To honor the parent who truly valued me. To live with honesty, even when it hurts.

Because in the end, the truth will always surface. And when it does, you see who really deserves a place in your life.

If you’ve ever been betrayed, remember this: you don’t have to carry their guilt. You don’t have to be their healer. You just have to live in a way that proves you won’t repeat their mistakes.

That’s how I honor my dad. That’s how I move forward.

And if you took the time to read this, thank you. Please share this story if it touched you, and maybe someone who’s struggling with betrayal will see it and find the strength to let go too.