My Secret Double Life
It was 11 PM at night in the Spanish apartment Dad had rented and was the first time I was actively contemplating defying my family, looking at the next earliest flight back to London. It was only day 5 of a 6 week road trip and already unbearable; the stress had caused acne to rear its head for the first time at the age of 20 and was slowly spreading across my face and neck.
Two weeks earlier I had come home from a weekend in Bristol brimming with excitement and told my family I had started dating someone. The first thing they asked me...was he a Christian? I stammered that no, he wasn’t but I didn’t see an issue and it shouldn’t matter. But, they didn’t want to know anything else. They didn’t speak to me for a week, I’d get the cold shoulder at breakfast and ignored at the dinner table.
That weekend my parents staged their intervention, walked me to the bottom of the garden, and sat me down on a rug with my Mum, whilst Dad was sitting above us on a lawn chair, how patriarchal, I thought. As Dad spoke for what seemed like a lifetime I tried to zone out his monologue and detach myself from what they were so fervently saying. They pleaded with me to reconsider dating a non-christian, that my life with him would be hard and full of conflict, I wouldn’t be allowed to go to church if I married him, and what about our future children?
I spent those 6 weeks in Europe in survival mode, every day would start with a bible study we listened to in the car and I knew Dad was choosing certain scriptures to try and get through to me. He would shout, I would sit there strapped into my seat unable to get away from them, listening to the tirade of insults coming my way. They would pray for me to come closer to God, to be the ‘salt of the earth’, and for me to see the wrong in my decisions. They would also write letters to me and leave them on my bed to find, send me emails that popped up on my phone in the middle of the day, and at one point the pastor of our church even wrote to me, explaining why I should break up with him.
They tried everything to get through to me, the panic of losing control was starting to set in. They shouted at me, prayed for me, ignored me, cried in front of me, told me they weren’t sleeping at night because of my actions, and at one point asked me to clear out my room so they could have (another) place for guests to stay. I knew that last one was an attempt to make me feel guilty but I wasn’t having any of it. I took the day off work and cleared all my stuff out into the attic or to the nearest charity shop. When they came home it looked like a showroom, and I felt smug.
When Dad felt like he wasn’t getting through to me he’d send Mum up to have a word with me. She’d bring me a cup of tea and casually bring it into the conversation. At the end of the summer, I was staying at my Nanny’s house away from them when Mum cornered me to beg me to leave him, my little sister clinging to her side, her blue eyes full of disbelief at her big sister not following their rules. Every time Mum said something it hurt me more than when Dad did, I’ve always been closer to her and it felt like a betrayal somehow. Whatever she said I always knew Dad had put her up to it, given her the script of what to say to me. It felt like sides were being picked, my parents against me whilst my 2 sisters watched in horror at the family falling apart.
My Dad once told me I had become ‘worldly’, that my liberal housemates had influenced my views, changed my ways of thinking, and that I should be careful who I surround myself with. They thought I was losing who I was but the truth was, I had never known myself until I went to University and stepped out of their Christian bubble, and they had never really known me. I became more sure of myself, made my own decisions, and formed my own opinions about things. They said I’d become “hard-hearted” when the truth was I’d developed a backbone, opinions of my own, and a voice I wasn't afraid to use.
Published Anonymously