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Gonna try to explain.

In 2019, I was, err… assaulted and I had a son (underage pregnancy). I hid my pregnancy all throughout so my father I live with wouldn’t know about it. My female friend who wanted kids agreed to take my son and say he was hers, but we stayed connected still as discreetly as possible.

I was born and grew up and still live in an abusive household, I couldn’t let my father know about my son so he wouldn’t have to be part of this family. We manage to see each other when I come to their place very safely when possible. He loves me, he knows me, I love him too, he’s a good kid, he’s adorable…
Fast forward to the AITA.

My boy wanted to spend the day together for Mother’s Day

Image credits: Bethany Beck (not the actual photo)

He knows that I am his real mother. It was arranged that I would, by coming to their house. But that day, I couldn’t leave because my leg was hurt. My father made sure I couldn’t and shouldn’t leave the house, and I fear he would know. So since I couldn’t come, they came to see me! I had made it absolutely clear how they shouldn’t do this! Without even warning, they were coming over! Had they, I would have said no because it is dangerous.

My friend said it was okay because my dad just wouldn’t learn about our linkage/relation and just pass them as a friend and her son

Image credits: Daiga Ellaby (not the actual photo)

But it’s much more than that, my dad can be dangerous to even my friends and me. It had already happened once, in elementary school. My girl-friend from kindergarten I told to not to call my house (it was in the ’00s, no cell phones back then for us; if you tried to call someone the parents might answer), after a long relationship of several years of her listening and not calling again, we saw each other at school every day, I learned the teacher had decided I would skip a grade… So we wouldn’t be together anymore. We learned that at the end of the year, so we parted. She decided to break her promise and called my house. She had the number because usually I call her because she made it clear that I could. Only I wasn’t there… and my father answered… I don’t know exactly what he told her but I never saw her again.

He made it clear and outright told me since my birth, really, that if I didn’t comply to what he wanted me to do, he would pass me as crazy

Image credits: Simran Sood (not the actual photo)

If I did anything to displease him ever unknowingly, it would be easy for him; he raised me, after all. He would pass me as bad to have tutelage over me ever + sympathy from other people. And it worked! Not sure what he said but he ended a half dozen years’ relationship in a few words… Because she believed him instead of me after a half dozen years of a relationship!

I know my father is good with words, I know he is manipulative (it even worked on me to an extent; but set someone on fire a few times and weirdly they’re not as inclined to believe you anymore; Not the ever-towering-above-me fear of ‘I’ll pass you as crazy if you do one thing I don’t like,’ though! That!! That is real!! He can completely do it! He has all the power, the will, the means…)

And I don’t want that for my son! He has to stay away from him!

If one word from my father is enough to turn my friends of years against me, they absolutely can’t meet! Not because I have something to hide, I don’t. Because it has always worked, no amount of innocence on my part can protect me from lies. I do not trust them to believe me. No one ever has but I’m also really scared if he learns of the parentage; how would he, considering? If my father could make my friend talk, she would outright tell him. In the end, I ended up not shooing them away, because I couldn’t and for fear of seeming ever more guilty (the amount of things in my life I’ve done to avoid not being wrongly accused of something I didn’t commit…)

I need to be able to trust them. Trust them when they say they’ll never pull this stunt after I’ve made them swear again they would not and they told me yes.
I didn’t mean to make them feel bad or unwelcome.

Moderator’s note:

Please note that the images included in this article are for illustrative purposes only and do not represent the actual individuals or items discussed in the story.

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