“Obviously She Doesn’t Love Me”
“I’m a guy, 23. My dad is 64, was 40 when I was born, and last year he married a woman who was 22 at the time.
My parents weren’t really together, never got married, and split soon after I was born. My mom’s black, and my dad’s an Iranian who came to the U.S. in the 70s as a student and never left (revolution in Iran meant he was stuck with no visa). My dad left school, was pretty transient, moved up and down the East coast, and eventually settled in New Jersey, where I’m from.
I didn’t keep much contact with my dad, but I started talking to him again a few years ago. He didn’t have much companionship, so eventually he went back to Iran, met a woman who already had a kid and was divorced, looking to make a better life for herself. So my dad married her, and she and her son came over just before the [travel] ban.
My dad talks pretty freely about his feelings toward his wife, and hers toward him. He’ll say things like, “Obviously she doesn’t love me. She just used me to come to the U.S.”
Both my dad’s wife and her son have had a hard time learning English. The wife had a mental breakdown last year, and checked herself into a psych ward, into which I’d also checked myself a year prior for depression and attempting suicide.
My dad’s pretty poor and lives in a mostly [poor] neighborhood with not much to do. It sure seems like my step-mother is isolated, and until she learns English she’s pretty much at my dad’s house all day long.
Another fun fact, my mom’s mom is younger than my dad. My mom’s mom had my mom at 17, when my dad was already 19.” Story credit: Reddit / @breadstuffs