Monday, 03 December 2012
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She Married Her Father
How well do you really know the person with whom you are in a relationship? This CNN article tells the story of Valerie Spruill, who learned that her husband was not exactly who she believed him to be all of these years.In 1998, Valerie mourned the death of her 60-year-old husband, Percy. Six years after Percy’s passing, her uncle revealed a shocking secret to her about her husband: Percy was actually Valerie’s father. Valerie was in absolute shock, so she ordered a DNA test. The test revealed that her uncle was telling the truth: Percy, the man she loved as her husband, was her father! She did not remember knowing her father growing up, since her parents separated when she was young, but it turned out she actually did know her father a little too well...
Valerie entered into a state of physical and emotional shock. Not only did she feel majorly stressed and confused, but she also had two strokes and was diagnosed with diabetes immediately after this secret was revealed to her. She was angry at Percy, and she wondered whether or not he had known that he was her father before they were married. She felt absolutely disgusted at both herself and at him for what had happened and sought professional help in dealing with the aftermath of this situation. The therapist assured her that nothing that happened was her fault.
Although Valerie is still unsure of whether or not Percy knew that he was her father when he was alive, Valerie's religious faith is helping her to forgive Percy if he was, in fact, aware of what was actually going on. Valerie is now retired and has told all of her children and grandchildren about this situation, and they have shown her nothing but love and understanding.
She finds writing out and sharing her story with others to be very therapeutic. While some people are quick to ridicule her about the situation, she has also found support and has helped show support to those in similar situations. In fact, she recently connected with a couple who had found out they were brother and sister. The two people in that couple use her story as a source of comfort as they attempt to work through their own tough situation. The past cannot be undone, so Valerie is trying to make the best of everything and is taking the steps necessary to move forward.
Have you ever learned something shocking about a person with whom you have been in a relationship, either after the relationship was over or after the two of you had been dating a long time? How did you react? Did it change your thoughts about that person or the nature of the relationship?
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- From: iamnotyourgrandma
- Name: iamnotyourgrandma
- About Me: I'm 24 years old, and, as my username implies, there is a 100% chance that I am not, in fact, your grandma. I enjoy discussions about relationship ideologies and examining how a person's background/upbringing affects his/her views about how relationships work. Feel free to leave me a comment or subscribe to my site!
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Comments (28)
I wouldn't condone the act of marrying your parent (or otherwise a relative), but she didn't know and he was only 15-16 years older than her. The saddest part about her situation is that her family knew but they never told her the truth until after his death--I think that would be one of the occasions in which someone should get involved and say something! I don't suppose she lives in a state in which a blood test is required to get married... If I had been in a relationship with a relative, I don't think I would take it very well. I think I would look at him differently after learning the truth.
The question here is, did he know he was marrying his daughter????
Ohhh...that is terrible. =(
To answer your question. Yes, when your partner is violating the morale of monogamous relationships.. for example.. it can be so hurtful. And you look at your partner like someone degrading and not much lovable. .. like he wasn't the person you imagined to be.
But omg, that would be terrible if the father knew the whole time it was his own daughter. It makes me want to avoid dating any Asian man who's much older than me. I look nothing like my father, so.. haha this is a good post.
I like how this and the original article make her out to be such a victim. If her husband was unaware of the fact that she was his daughter, doesn't that make all of this as much her fault as it was his?
I'm glad I don't have to deal with this because I don't date my own ethnicity. Although, I do know who all is in my family. I date white guys/non-Asian so that will never happen in a million years. I've learned something shocking about people yes, but it happened before I was in the picture and years ago. It wasn't incest, more so this guy I really liked hooked up with some of the slutty bitchy girls I hated in high school. He even lost his virginity to the girl I hated most. I came to terms with it because if he was a different way back in high school we probably wouldn't be talking now and it shapes people who they are today. I've never found out anything so significant as being related, though.
Then again everyone is descended from Adam and Eve/Africa so it's all "incest" no matter what ethnicity! hehe.
@T3hZ10n@xanga - "If her husband was unaware of the fact that she was his daughter, doesn't that make all of this as much her fault as it was his?"
How does it make it her fault? If both were unaware, it's not really either of their "fault," is it?
@EccentricSiren@xanga - Wrong choice of words on my part. "Aren't they both equally responsible?" would've been a better way to say it.
Besides, if she was happy in the marriage, what does it matter?
Yes... how did he not know?! Aside from that, teaches you not to date someone fifteen years older than you! Fifteen to be safe.
i think he had to have known bc how did the someone else know that she was married to her father? i think i would be so disgusted and frustrated and i'd probably kill myself by then.
The town I lived in, this happend to people all of the time. Not marrying them or whatever. I lived in a population that was 60% natives, and a lot of them are related. On a couple different occasions I would hear about 2 people dating to find out that they are cousins. o.O
um...I found out that he used to be fat. from fat to fit. it didn't really bother me because who would complain about someone becoming sexier
This begs the question, if someone is not in your life, are they really a parent? It sounds like they didn't have children together.
What I want to know is, how did the rest of the family know? They would have had to know both of their names to put it together, and if they knew those, they should have said something before the wedding. Forget "forgiving" her dead husband/father, the people who she should be angry with are her relatives who knew.@T3hZ10n@xanga - It does if he didn't know. But.. what if he did?
I can't say I wouldn't be a little grossed out.. but why so much drama? There's a huge difference between a biological father and a dad. I mean, imagine that you fall in love & marry a guy. You decide to have kids & through DNA testing, you realize he's actually your father because when he was younger, he donated sperm & you ended up being one of them. It could be a mistake as simple as that, yet as T3hZ10n said, she's playing it up to make herself out to be such a victim.. just say "eww" & move on, don't let this completely kill every good memory you had with your husband.
I just really, really hope he never knew she was his daughter. Then I could understand needing therapy. Of course, I could be completely talking out of my ass because let's face it, how are you really going to know how you'd react unless it happened to you?
@T3hZ10n@xanga - Ok. That makes more sense. But if neither of them got into the situation knowing they were father and daughter, I wouldn't hold either of them responsible. They got married, thinking it was just a normal romantic relationship.
But even if she was happy in the marriage, I can see why the whole thing would come as a shock to her. Marrying one's parent is a pretty strong taboo in pretty much every society, so no matter what kind of marriage they had, I can see why she'd be in shock, and I can see why it would matter to her.
How did the uncle know if the father supposedly did not know?
@Lost__In_My_Mind@xanga - All good points and I totally agree.
@EccentricSiren@xanga - Same here. I guess what I was getting at was just that if I was in love, so much so that I married someone, I wouldn't care about anything else but the fact that I love the person for who (an individual) not what (some relation to me) they are. Of course I'd be kind of shocked, but it wouldn't change the way I would feel about the person.
@T3hZ10n@xanga - Ew you are so gross. So, if you found out the man/woman was blood related to you. You would continue to BANG them, and carry on as if nothing was WRONG?
@Serenity1336@xanga - All humans are blood related, sharing 99.9% identical DNA. The food you eat? Yeah, that comes from the ground... where your ancestors died and fertilized the plants. The water you're drinking... you think that wasn't in another animal's bladder at one point or another? Oh gorsh, using your brain and thinking about things makes them sooooo gross...
Unless you have a system developed for the optimization of sexual selection by ensuring each individual is appropriately genetically distanced, it's not like you're doing any better by systematically not banging an individual at random and it turning out to be a 1st to 2nd generation relation, because seriously, if you could be married to a man for that long and not tell that he's your father, what DOES it matter?
If you take the time to really think about why you feel the way you do about things, you'll see that over the past few millennia, society has been working toward our own extinction by defeating all of our naturally evolved, positive traits in favor of "fair" competition anyway (if it's fair, it's not competition, it's gambling).
Sexual selection within a society is optimal when it is randomized. Why do you think people wear clothes when around one another? You win some, you lose some.
@Serenity1336@xanga - He is an odd child, just read all of his other posts in other blogs, lol.
@xinq@xanga - Dating outside your race is a pretty reliable way to eliminate the possibility of accidental incest. I also had similar thoughts because my mom was adopted, so there is a whole set of relatives I do not know
@T3hZ10n@xanga - PC movement is killing us
How disappointing and horrifying.
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex@xanga - I hate how they say it doesn't matter who your biological parents are it's who raised you when someone's adopted...yeah it does matter in case you ever run into an unknown relative and think they can date, lol.
@xinq@xanga - Agreed. Also, some behaviors and personality aspects are genetic.