My daughter is devastated by betrayal… She just cries and stares at the ground. I am her father.
I’m 73 years old and have always believed I understood life, and what is right and proper.
But my children saw things differently.
I have a son and a daughter. Their mother passed away several years ago, leaving me alone to wait for grandchildren, help them, guide them, and teach them what I have learned through the years.
I raised my children with respect for tradition. In our family, marriage wasn’t just a formality. It was a commitment, a respect for one’s partner, a promise that during difficult times, you wouldn’t turn your back on each other.
But they laughed at me.
“Dad, that’s old-fashioned!” my son would say.
“No one does that anymore,” my daughter echoed.
A wedding? Official marriage? Those were seen as relics of the past.
“We love each other without paper,” my daughter assured me. “A signature on a document won’t change anything.”
And I would watch them and stay silent.
Because I knew that life would eventually set things straight.
And it did.
Thrown out like an unwanted item
One morning, there was a knock at the door.
I opened it…
My daughter was standing there.
With a suitcase.
With a baby in a pram.
With a three-year-old girl clinging to her coat.
I saw her face.
Pale, thin, with tearful eyes.
“Dad… can I stay with you for a few days?” her voice trembled. “George kicked me out. He found someone else…”
I didn’t immediately grasp the meaning of her words.
Kicked out?
Like a dog?
Like an unwanted item?
“And the children?!” I exclaimed.
She sniffled.
“He said he’d pay as required by law. But he doesn’t want me or them anymore…”
I clenched my fists.
How could someone cross out their family and erase their children like that?
I wanted to confront him and demand an explanation, but instead, I just embraced my daughter and let her into my home.
We didn’t talk about it for days.
She simply sat by the window, eyes downcast, tears running down her cheeks.
And I looked at her knowing—she was broken.
Wife? No. A servant in a grand house
She finished her teaching degree, dreaming of a career working with children.
George didn’t want that.
“I don’t need your money,” he boasted. “Take care of the house! I earn enough, I need a wife, not a worn-out teacher!”
She stayed at home, cooked meals, did laundry, cleaned, raised their children.
He would come home, food always hot, the house spotless, the children well cared for.
She never complained.
She believed he was grateful for it all.
She thought she mattered to him.
But it turned out she didn’t.
As soon as he found another, she meant nothing to him.
“I have a new love,” he calmly told me when I called. “The kids? Well, I’ll pay what’s legal.”
He sent her £200 a month.
A pitiful amount.
Exactly what the law demanded.
“I manage,” he said when I asked him to help more. “I’m not going to support you all! That’s the past.”
The past.
What was once his family.
What he discarded in a heartbeat.
My daughter is broken… How to move forward?
A year has passed.
The three of us live together—my daughter, her two little girls, and I.
I’m retired, earning just over £200. She gets a meager allowance.
Barely enough for the children.
She doesn’t work—the youngest isn’t even a year old yet.
But that’s not the biggest issue.
The main concern is—she doesn’t live.
She merely exists.
She doesn’t laugh, she doesn’t smile, she scarcely speaks.
She’s like a broken doll.
Her eyes are empty.
She constantly stares at the floor.
And I know what she’s thinking.
That if she had listened to me then, if she had insisted on an official marriage, things would have been different.
He might have left, but he wouldn’t have been able to erase everything so easily.
There would have been obligations.
She wouldn’t have been left destitute, with two children in her care.
I am old.
I don’t know how much longer I can help her.
But what then?
How will she live on?
How will my granddaughters fare?
Will someone ever love her—a woman with two children?
I could never have imagined I’d be asking such questions.
Young women, don’t repeat her mistake!
Now I’m sure of one thing.
Open relationships are not freedom.
They lead nowhere.
Marriage isn’t just a piece of paper.
It’s protection.
It’s responsibility.
I want to urge all fathers and mothers with daughters.
Don’t let them make the same mistake my daughter did!
Guide them, explain, persuade.
A girl without marriage is left without protection.
I curse the “trend” that came to us from the West, this false freedom where a woman is left with nothing.
I see what happened to my daughter.
I see what it does to her.
And I don’t want it to happen to anyone else.
Take care of your daughters.
Marriage isn’t a guarantee of eternal love.
But it’s a guarantee of security.
Don’t let your children make the same mistake.
