After my divorce, every boyfriend I introduced to my daughters seemed to vanish soon after. It became a pattern I couldn’t ignore. When one man abruptly left in the middle of dinner without a word, I realized I had reached my limit. I had to know why this kept happening. Determined to uncover the truth, I started digging—and what I found out about my daughters’ hidden motives left me shocked and heartbroken.
I never expected my life to take this turn. For 15 years, my marriage to Roger was filled with love, and together, we had two wonderful daughters—Veronica, now 14, and Casey, 12. But as time passed, things began to crumble. Roger’s late nights at work turned into arguments, then into long stretches of silence that neither of us could break. Eventually, we reached the point of no return and divorced. I was granted full custody of our daughters, while Roger had them on weekends.
Two years later, I decided it was time to move forward—not just for myself but for my daughters as well. I believed they needed a strong father figure, and I was ready to open my heart again.
But when I introduced my most recent boyfriend, David, to them, things took a bizarre turn. That night at dinner, he suddenly went pale, stood up, and left without saying a word. I was stunned, sitting in disbelief as Veronica and Casey sat quietly, avoiding my eyes.
“David, what’s wrong?” I asked, my voice shaking.
He didn’t respond. He grabbed his coat and walked out, leaving me sitting there with more questions than ever.
“What happened, girls?” I asked, trying to steady my voice. But they remained silent.
That night, I called David multiple times, but he never answered. The following morning, I received a single text message: “It’s over, Melinda. I can’t marry you. Goodbye.”
My heart shattered. This wasn’t the first time it had happened. Earlier that year, Shawn, another man I had dated, vanished in a similar way. And before him, there was Victor. All of these men had known about my past and my daughters, so why did they all disappear so suddenly?
I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bigger was going on. Desperate for answers, I turned to my friend and colleague, Jose.
“Jose, I need help. Every single time I introduce my boyfriends to my daughters, they vanish,” I told him, my voice heavy with frustration.
Jose chuckled. “Come on, Melinda. It can’t be that bad.”
“I’m serious,” I insisted. “Something’s going on, and I need to figure out what.”
After a moment of hesitation, Jose nodded. “Alright, I’ll help.”
A few weeks later, I invited Jose over for dinner, introducing him to my daughters as my new boyfriend. The moment Veronica and Casey saw him, their faces fell. I asked Jose to have a conversation with them while I stayed in the kitchen, pretending to be busy, though my heart pounded with anxiety.
After dinner, I noticed the change in Jose. He looked pale, unsettled. He barely spoke before he left. That night, I called him.
“Jose, what happened?” I asked, my voice shaky.
He sighed heavily. “Melinda, we need to talk in person.”
The next morning, I met him at work before our shift.
“Tell me. What did they say?” I demanded.
Jose hesitated, then took a deep breath. “Melinda, your daughters think you and Roger are going to get back together. They’ve been intentionally scaring off your boyfriends.”
I froze. “What?”
“They told me horrible things about you,” he continued. “They said you don’t know how to cook, that you don’t take care of them, that you’re addicted to shopping. They even said you’ve had seven different men over this past week.”
My stomach dropped. “None of that is true.”
“I know. But they’re doing this because they want their family back together. They don’t want you to move on,” he said gently.
That evening, I confronted Veronica and Casey.
“Girls, we need to talk,” I said firmly. They exchanged nervous glances but said nothing.
“I know what you’ve been doing. Why are you lying to my boyfriends?” My voice cracked.
At first, they denied it. But when I threatened to cut off their allowance and cancel our upcoming vacation, they broke down.
“Mom, we just want you and Dad to get back together,” Veronica admitted, tears streaming down her face. “We miss our family. We need things to be the way they used to be.”
Hearing those words crushed me. I took a deep breath. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“We were scared you’d be mad,” Casey whispered.
I pulled them into my arms. “I understand, but what you’ve been doing isn’t fair. Not to me, and not to those men. We need to be honest with each other.”
We spent the rest of the night talking. I reassured them that while I understood their feelings, I also needed to move on.
“But Mom… is it too late for you and Dad?” Veronica asked softly.
I hesitated. “I don’t know, sweetheart. But we have to support each other, no matter what.”
The next day at work, I couldn’t focus. My daughters’ words echoed in my mind. Could Roger and I possibly fix what was broken? I had to find out.
That evening, I picked up the phone. “Hey, Roger. Can we talk?”
His voice was cautious. “Sure. What’s going on?”
“It’s about the girls,” I said. “They’ve been sabotaging my relationships because they still believe we’ll get back together.”
Roger was silent for a moment. “Why didn’t they tell me this?”
“They were afraid. But it’s clear they miss our family. They want us to be a unit again.”
He sighed. “I had no idea they were still struggling like this.”
I took a deep breath. “Maybe we should at least try to work things out—for them.”
“It’s not that simple, Melinda. We had real problems,” he said.
“I know. But maybe we could go to counseling, see if there’s anything left to salvage.”
After a pause, he agreed. We started attending therapy together, trying to mend what had been broken. It wasn’t easy, but thinking about our daughters gave me the strength to keep going.
A month later, we sat our girls down.
“We’re trying,” I told them gently. “We’re doing our best to make things work.”
Their faces lit up with hope, and for the first time in years, I felt a flicker of it too.
As time passed, Roger and I made slow but steady progress. Our communication improved, and our daughters seemed happier. One evening at dinner, Veronica smiled and said, “This is really nice.”
“It is,” I agreed, feeling Roger’s hand gently squeeze mine.
We still had a long way to go, but for the first time in a long time, it felt like we were heading in the right direction. Maybe, just maybe, we could make this work. For our family.