My Parents Remarried Each Other – But It Was All a Trap by Their Exes

My Parents Remarried Not Knowing That It Was a Trap Set by Their Ex-partners

It appears like Carly has a second shot at happiness when her separated parents decide to get married again and reignite their romance. They have no idea that their ex-spouses have planned the whole thing and are using the circumstances to force them back together. What are their real intentions?

When I was ten years old, I was set down on our tatty couch in the living room and told that my parents were divorcing. That word lingered in the atmosphere like a detonated bomb.

Soon after everything was said and done, Mom got married to David. David, well, that’s another tale. Indeed, he is a charming man who has the ability to make you laugh even when you don’t want to.

However, beneath that allure lies something slender and commanding that becomes apparent only at close range.

After the divorce, Dad grew more aloof. Although he had always been a quiet, powerful man, it felt as though a wall was standing between us now. I was bewildered by his marriage to Helen.

She was harsh, cold, and had eyes that could cut right through you. She was the complete antithesis of my mom. Helen wasn’t particularly cruel, but she lacked warmth altogether.

Things were, for the most part, okay for a time. I moved back and forth between their homes, attempting to adjust to this new normal with stepparents who weren’t exactly welcoming. But then the fissures became visible.

David’s charm began to feel more like a leash, and Helen’s sharpness escalated into full-blown animosity.

I observed as they gradually and steadily wore down my parents. It seemed as if they were deleting the portions of Mom and Dad that I knew and substituting them with undesirable replicas.

David and Mom were the first to go. Little things quickly turned into arguments, their shouts tearing into the night as they echoed through our house’s thin walls. The split was a comfort.

A few months later, Dad and Helen did the same. That was one I didn’t see coming.

I believed Helen was keeping him too close to her, but perhaps even she was uncomfortable with the man she had made him become. After their breakup, Dad appeared to be living more and more like a ghost, existing only in memory.

You may therefore understand my amazement when I learned that, ten years after their divorce, they were dating once more.

I discovered this by chance when I saw them laughing together at a coffee shop. A part of me was relieved to see them smiling, but my heart was screaming that this could only end badly. My heart was doing this crazy flip-flop thing.

When they later announced to me that they were getting married again, I was not sure if I should laugh or cry.

However, my gut knotted up when they said they’d invited Helen and David to the wedding.

“Are you serious?” I asked, attempting to maintain a steady tone. “Why would you invite them?”

Mom said, “It’s about closure, sweetheart.” “We’ve all moved on, haven’t we?”

Progressed? Yes. If by “moved on” you meant covering up an open wound with a bandage and acting as though the bleeding had stopped.

“We’re all adults here,” dad added. All it is is a wedding.”

Only a nuptial. Yes. It was going to be the most intense, emotionally charged event they could have planned. However, what action might I take? I nodded and smiled, feigning agreement even though my gut told me that this was a terrible idea.

I therefore believed we had avoided the impending catastrophe when they informed me that Helen and David had politely declined the invitation.

Perhaps things had truly moved on and we could enjoy a peaceful, drama-free day.

Yes, exactly. In my heart, I was still nervous. After all, this was my family. With us, peace never lasted long.

The actual event proceeded without incident. Mom looked amazing, her face beaming with joy, and Dad’s smile had a nearly childlike quality to it, as though he was being given another opportunity at something he had feared was lost forever.

As we made ourselves at home in the big hall that hosted the reception, I began to think that the worst was over.

Then it took place.

The doors to the reception hall creaked open just as I was finishing off a talk with my cousin. “Who could be this late to a wedding?” was my initial thinking. But my heart fell to my stomach when I turned around.

Helen and David were standing in the doorway holding champagne glasses.

There was complete silence in the room. A pin could have dropped. With a tension that crackled through the air like a live wire, everyone turned to stare at them.

Even the music stopped, I promise, though maybe my memory is being mischievous.

They appeared unaffected by the attention, in fact. Helen wore a beautiful mask of control as she stood there with that cold serenity that she was so excellent at. But David had this sly smile that gave me the creeps, as if he knew something that the rest of us didn’t.

It was Helen who spoke first, her voice like a knife piercing the stillness.

She stated, “We weren’t planning on attending,” in a tone so cold it gave me the chills. “But we realized that there’s something everyone here deserves to know.”

My heart was beating so fiercely that I thought it would explode from my chest, and I felt my hands ball into fists at my sides. My parents looked at one other, expressions of bewilderment on their faces, but they remained silent. Nobody did. All we could do was wait for the other shoe to fall.

David moved forward and gave a fictitious toast with his glass.

He added, “It’s funny, really,” with that annoying charisma of his that never failed to endear him. “You all think this reunion was some sort of divine miracle, but the truth is…” He held back for impact, relishing the spotlight as though it were his preferred beverage. “Helen and I had a hand in it.”

The audience let out a collective gasp. Mom’s shocked expression was pallid, and her eyes were wide.

Dad did nothing but stand there, mouth agape as if he was still processing what was going on.

“What are you talking about?” Eventually, I choked out, sounding far more scared than I meant to.

Helen looked at me, and for an instant I thought I saw something in her eyes that was almost like sympathy.

She stated, “We knew you were meant to be together, John and Elizabeth,” as though she were describing something as basic as the kind of weather. “So we… nudged things along.”

“Nudged?” Dad said again, his tone rough. “What does that mean?”

David calmly interjected, “It indicates that we kind of played puppet master. You know, stoking disputes, sowing doubts, drawing you closer to one another again. Really, it was all done for your own benefit.”

Everyone was staring at Helen and David like they were monsters, the room frozen.

My parents’ pleasure seemed to be disintegrating in front of my eyes, as if they had been smacked on.

As they attempted to balance the happiness they were experiencing with the betrayal they were receiving with such grace, I could see the wheels turning in their minds.

At last, Mom spoke something, her voice wavering. “You did this… to help us?”

With an inscrutable expression, Helen nodded. “We witnessed the enduring affection. All we did was lead it.”

There was silence for a long while. It seemed as though we were all holding our breath in the eerie silence, waiting for someone to shatter it.

I was having a hard time processing what I had just heard. They had taken control of everything and made our lives into a test subject. However, they took that action because they thought my parents should be together.

Dad ran a hand through his hair and eventually let out a nervous breath. His voice shaking, “I don’t know whether to hate you or thank you.”

Helen’s cold exterior slightly loosened. “Maybe both,” she mutely said.

And then Mom came up and hugged Helen, as if the tension had finally broken. Although there were tears in her eyes, I could also see a hint of relief.

Then Dad came in and embraced Helen and David, and the atmosphere in the room changed instantly. After a period of silence, there were whispers of surprise, sporadic applause, and then, yells from everyone in the room.

With my heart still pounding in my chest, I saw it all happen.

This was by no means how I had anticipated the day to go. However, as I saw my parents, who were now grinning despite their tears, I came to the conclusion that perhaps Helen and David’s manipulation was just a bad instance of kindness.

Perhaps, at the end of the day, we had all achieved our goals.