Walter,
I will never call you "Daddy" again because that entity no longer exists. Maybe he never even did, not even for a year or two. By the time I was six, you were already pursuing a secret life hidden from the people who loved you most. From what I saw of my mother's weakest moments, it was my baby sister wiping away her tears. You were furnishing the apartment you hoped your new love interest would move into with you. I don't believe that you "changed your mind" about that. I believe she did, after realizing how it would break apart your family. That was twelve years ago. The first known incident of infidelity was eighteen years ago.
You lied to my face again and again. Of course I know all about the prostitutes; you kept track of them in emails, in text files, in forum posts and private messages, in Western Union money transfers, and in your cell phone contacts. I also know about the "rent, phone bills, car notes and insurance" (your own words) that you paid for them. You had more than just words to show for that. I have good reason to believe that the majority of your income never went to the family. Again, your own words: "I know perfectly well why I'm broke all the time." And no, I don't believe you when you say your emails and forum posts are "fantasy".
If even half of your $100,000 a year went to us (over the many years), you could have paid tuition up front because that money would have gone into savings. We surely didn't see you spending half your money on house repairs or even new clothes for us. Oh sure, we got some video games for Christmas, and you bought a big screen TV one year. You never even had to pay a mortgage. And you never paid the agreed-upon rent to Nana. How could any person with a conscience and a good job neglect to pay rent to his wife's mother?
Did you really not know you were ruining my credit score, when you neglected to pay my early-adulthood medical bills and my college tuition (which you claimed you'd pay)? Ironically, I was unable to get loans to pay my college tuition simply because you didn't pay my college tuition. Why should I suffer because of your ineptitude? I set the thermostat in my ghetto house at 48 degrees all winter because I could not afford to pay for warmth. In fact, I lived in that house because I could not afford to live anywhere else. I ate free food at any opportunity and bought "VALU TIME" brand food. I made the decisions I did mostly because I trusted you. I will never trust you again.
You seriously tried to use my mother's only retirement account to pay off your debt. You wanted so badly for that to slip past her, without her realizing she was entitled to half of that money. You knew it was quite possible, since she's been trained to "not worry about" the joint finances. You screamed at me for calling you out on it, and hung up on me like a child. That was last week.
How you managed to accumulate almost $30,000 of back taxes is completely beyond me (well, I know you blew all your money on hookers, at least ... but then you didn't save up to pay your income tax from the previous years?). The way you have abused my mother's trust makes me sick to my stomach. When you told her you did file the taxes, it was a lie. It was also a lie the next three years. I guess it wasn't really "lying" when you racked up debt using credit cards in her name, but it was both reprehensible and illegal. I do not need to tell you all of the lies you've ever told or all of the crimes you've ever committed. But I guarantee I know more than you think I do.
Right now you are seething with anger. All I ever do is "throw things in your face" to purposefully "make you feel worse". The truth is that for the first five or six months into this ongoing discovery, I was desperately hoping you would come to your senses. I wanted you to truly apologize. I wanted you to explain yourself as best as you could. I wanted you to give yourself a fresh start and stick with it in an honest fashion. I wanted you to come clean. I wanted you to stop lying to me and the people I care about. You have failed on every single one of those points. I know that you tried. I know that you feel like you are still trying. But it isn't working. At this point, I just want my mother to have enough money to survive and to retire. I want my baby sister to go to college. I want my brothers and sister and mother to be happy. The only way you can help us now is to be financially responsible. We will all move on, except for maybe you. I certainly would not be able to forgive myself of those kinds of wrong-doings.
All you seem to care about is keeping up a front of being a "good guy". You are not paying off debt because you want to make things right with your family. You are not even paying off debt because you acknowledge that incurring the debt was a horrible and spiteful act. You are only doing it because you want everyone to think you're still a "good guy". You don't want your mother to turn against you. And deep down, you know you will go to jail if you do not pay it. I am calling you out on this, and there is nothing you can say to me that will make me believe you ever do anything for the right reasons. Buying name brand mayonnaise and pop tarts for Mama is not going to make you a good guy, not in the eyes of your children, not in anybody's eyes.
Taking my mother's mail right out of her mailbox is certainly not going to make you a good guy. Rummaging around on her property without actually removing any of your junk is not going to make you a good guy. Buying laptops for your kids when they need tuition money is not going to make you a good guy. Avoiding your job, in hopes of getting laid off (to avoid alimony payments), is NOT going to make you a good guy. And photoshopping your children's social security cards for illegal immigrants ... also will not make you a good guy. I really don't understand what you think you are doing. You aren't fooling my mother, and you aren't fooling me or my siblings.
A normal person would not do these things to loved ones. Even a crazy person probably wouldn't do these things to loved ones. I have accepted the fact that you do not love us. You love no one but yourself. Everything you do is motivated by selfishness. After living as selfishly as possible for the past 30 (or more) years, you've dug yourself into a pretty horrible hole. Don't tell me you "gave up everything to support your family" because it just isn't true. You didn't want to give up your free house, the freedom to leave junk everywhere, the freedom to grow expensive plants in the basement. Besides, if you got divorced, your family might have thought poorly of you, and we all know pride is a sin of yours. It seems like pride, greed, lust, and envy have all got ahold of you pretty badly. You've done this to yourself. You are a broken man, but it makes me angrier than anything when you try to blame my mother. She never did anything but love you.
I hope I did not waste my time in writing any of this; there is much more I could point out to you, about your actions, specific events and otherwise. You know the horrible things you've done.
Things I never want to hear you say again:
"I'm doing the best I can."
"I'm working on it."
"It was your mother's job that put us in a higher tax bracket."
"I'm waiting for the tax lawyer to call me back." (or other such nonsense)
"She was my friend from Korean church!!!" (or other such nonsense)
"She'd always bite my head off..." (in reference to my mother disagreeing with your priorities)
Things I hope you will do:
Stop lying.
Not get yourself laid off on purpose.
Pay the agreed-upon alimony to my mother.
Not ruin the life of another woman.
Stay in this country / not avoid the U.S. legal system.
Remove all of your possessions from my mother's house before January 1st.
Keep your genitals to yourself.
Admit to all of the horrible things you've done. All of them, in an itemized list. I expect it to be long.
I write this with sincerity.
-Sarah
P.S. - If you need proof of any of the claims I have made in this letter, I have it.
P.P.S. - Concerning the "open" nature of this letter, please consider how much more open it could have been. Think of all the raunchy details (Gigabytes, in fact) I could make "open". It might be best not to bitch and moan.
