Dear Dad,

When you chose your mistress and her family over mom and us, I thought we did something wrong. I thought that maybe if my brother and I were really good then maybe you would come back to us. I mean, no 6-year-old understands why their dad would leave, so we must have done something wrong, right?

So, we were good. We were nice to your new family, even when they weren’t so nice to us. Suddenly, it was like we were your second family and they were your first, even though we were there first. But, we were still good, in hopes that you would notice and you would want us to be your first family again.

But then, you got another new family, another family that would come before me and my brother. We still thought it was because of us for a while. We kept blaming ourselves for things kids have no control over.

One day though we realized something.

None of it was our fault.

It was all yours.

Everything we had blamed ourselves for was your fault and your choices. We weren’t the ones who were not good enough, it was you who wasn’t good enough. You didn’t deserve the unconditional love we gave you for so many years. Your children made excuses for you for too long and you didn’t deserve them. You made your choices and you are the one who has to live with them, not your children.

Nevertheless, I would like to thank you. Thank you for making mom show me how to be a strong woman and not needing to rely on a man. Thank you for showing my big brother exactly what a real man isn’t. Thank you for teaching me I can’t control other’s actions; I can only control my own. Thank you for teaching me to not let anyone have control over my emotions. And thank you for teaching me that I cannot make someone stay in my life if they do not want to stay there.

Although it took me a long time to learn these lessons, I did learn them, and I did realize they are all because of you. While 6-year-old me cried every day, 20-year-old me is standing tall because I understand now that I will never not be good enough for someone, and that includes you. So again, thank you, thank you for choosing another family over us because with that we all learned so much more.

Sincerely,

The daughter you left behind