Years ago when my son was born, one of the girls I used to train with at the gym asked me, “Is that really your son? How do you know that she didn’t cheat on you and have a kid with someone else? Now you get to be responsible for him? Are you that stupid, Angel? You are being played!”
To give you some context, my son was born in the Dominican Republic during a brief one-year period of separation that my ex-wife and I had. I visited her often as we tried to work things out and during one of those trips she became pregnant with my boy.
I kind of suspected that this friend liked me in a romantic way, but I was trying to be a good guy and do the right things here. So I never pursued anything with her.
In any case, I took great offense to that statement. First of all, though he was still just a baby, my son always looked like me. The family joke was, “Even if you tried to deny him, there’s no way you could, he is your clone!” We could all see it, so the possibility of him not being my son never crossed my mind.
The second reason I got offended is because she implied that my son’s mom was unfaithful and would do me wrong like that. If you know my son’s mom, you know she is one of the most honest, loyal, and caring people you could ever meet.
I have not always been the best to her and though no one is perfect, one thing I knew is that she wasn’t involved with other people. That would never be her and though we were apart, I trusted her completely.
I have the potential to make mistakes in relationships, especially if I’m not happy about something. It can become easy to justify poor choices in those moments. So yeah, I have done some things I’m not proud of, but my son’s mom is as close to purity as a person can be. So I couldn’t allow that comment to stand and I had to firmly defend her on that one.
So I took a very firm stance and told this friend that this was my son and I didn’t want to hear any more talk about this from her. She was surprised by my response and tone. Like I said, I was offended and though I can be a bit sensitive, I don’t generally get that upset or bring things up. At least not during that period of my life. Back then I was a notorious “keep it bottled up inside” kind of guy. I’m a bit better at expressing myself now.
We were never super close, but after that moment in the gym the friendship became more distant. She was part of a group of people I used to hang out with all the time after training. At one point, it just stopped and we all drifted apart. I’m not sure if she had anything to do with that. I can’t even remember her name and I don’t know what ever became of her or the group. They just kind of disappeared from my life.
I guess the point of it all is don’t mess with my family.
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