This summer I was reminded that one of my besties was not, as I believed, the godmother to another bestie’s child, a daughter now 23 yers-old, because at the time of the choosing, she was going through a divorce; the father in the equation objected to her being the family pick because divorce and adultery, and shame on you, GF. Oh right. I remember that. Why was that again? Ridiculous.
Why ridiculous? Okay, yes, she had been cheating on her husband for sometime with the man to whom she is now much more happily married. That her husband was also cheating on her was unknown, so that was not a factor. His cheating came out later, and made a lot of sense because of course he was; I’d long noticed that horrid woman (she’s actually not that bad) drooling over him for years. He’s remarried to his cheat as well, and everybody is truly happier as a result, but it did feel messy at the time, given the friend’s group and all that. It was messy. Complicated. Human.
Her husband, the non-godmom’s husband – now ex – used his knowledge of her to guilt her into taking total responsibility for the break-up. ‘How could you!’, etc., etc. And she, being a truly good person, knowing she had in fact cheated, owned it, paid out a lot of money, and moved on, finding a love note from his paramour once the house they’d shared was being cleared out. Her ex has still never openly owned his part in it all, because why would he? Why should he? Common decency? Fairness? Nope. He is a man, after all!
Back to the godmother thing, because there’s a theme here, which is that the father of the baby in question, remember him, the guy who blocked my BFF from being a godmother to his newborn child? HE WAS CHEATING TOO. He was fcking around while my other bestie was pregnant, and after their child was born. I smelt it but couldn’t prove it, running into him out walking their pure-bred Labrador in Central Park, smoking a cigar playing Mr. Big, sweating profusely in a suit and tie, reeking of privilege and quickie summer sex. Yet this prick had the gall to make our mutual friend reject another fabulous, wonderful, perfect godmother material friend as godmomma because ‘messy, adulterous divorce’.
Every time I think of this – because in reality she is quite close to this now semi-adult child we all love so much – it hurts my heart.
How is the judgy-asshole-cheating father of the now 23-year-old doing? Not well. She has changed her last name, dropping his after numerous very hard lessons in who her father is. Her parents divorced before she was 3, and he was at one point living in his car despite a very, extremely generous settlement. I don’t want anyone living rough in these United States, but. Insert shrug emoji here ____________