August 26, 2025 • 21 mins
Family secrets can shatter our perception of loved ones and force us to reevaluate our entire history when they come to light after death. We explore the devastating discovery of a father's 40-year affair and second family, revealed on the same day as his passing, just months after losing a mother.
• Discovery of father's 40-year affair and second family on the day of his death
• Being asked to financially support father's mistress and her adult daughter
• Finding and reading hundreds of letters that documented the affair
• Learning why childhood was marked by financial struggle despite appearances
• Understanding how father's deception created lasting wounds for three children
• Process of forgiveness and healing from complicated grief
• How the experience shaped relationship with money and financial planning career
• Reconciling with brother after years of misunderstanding and tension
Stay tuned for part two where we'll explore how this situation impacted my mother and created further dysfunction, followed by a special episode featuring my brother sharing his own experience.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris,
where we talk about relevantissues as it relates to
individuals in grief as theynavigate finances and the
advisors who help them.
We help clients in griefnavigate financial matters.
We also teach advisors how toemotionally and financially work
with clients in grief throughan unparalleled process.
(00:24):
This week's podcast issponsored by Life After Grief
Financial Planning and LifeAfter Grief Consulting.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I think I caught some folks' attention with the title
of this podcast calledInfidelity and Child Abuse, or
you can reverse it Child Abuseand Infidelity.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Real Talk
with Life After Grief, chris.
What I'm about to disclose maybe a shock to some of those in
(00:55):
my inner circle and some ofthose who have been in my family
or known my family for a very,very long time.
However, I've been encouragedto share my story as it could
help many other folks.
As I commonly do, I like tostart off podcasts with some
storytelling, and so the day wasFriday, november 14th 2008.
(01:19):
This was the date in which myfather passed away, so the
hospital that my father was atasked for my consent to have a
catheter port removed due toinfection.
My father was in the hospitaldue to elevated cardiac enzymes
at the time, and at the point ofsurgery, my father had a
(01:42):
massive heart attack.
At that time, I was working atBank of America and I was
specifically on the eighth floordowntown Orlando and, to give
you an idea, it's probably about45 minutes If I leave my office
walk to the elevator, godownstairs, walk across the
lobby, go up the elevators andget into my car and then I get
out of the parking garage, haveto navigate downtown, get on the
(02:04):
expressway, go to the hospitalpark, walk, go through their
common area and then go up theelevators so probably about 45
minutes.
And so I received the call fromthe hospital that my father
died of a massive heart attackand, mind you, this was two and
a half months after my mom hadpassed away.
(02:25):
So I raced downstairs to my carfrom the bank and, honestly, I
probably reached speeds inexcess of 100 miles an hour.
As I was just in completedenial about the whole situation
, I first met my wife, ann Marie, at the hospital and I could
tell immediately she was anemotional wreck and my wife
isn't normally that way and shetold me that he was dead.
(02:50):
And then I went to his room toconfirm what I already knew, and
he was laying in bed aspeaceful as I had seen him in
years, and that concluded thatchapter of my life with regard
to my mom and my dad.
That chapter was over.
There was no going back, andwhat I just explained to you
(03:15):
wasn't the worst part of thatday, and I'm going to say that
my father's death was not theworst part of that day was not
the worst part of that day.
So I went home where Amory, mybrother and whom I've lovingly
called my personal priest, hisfather Leo, would meet me at
home.
Father Leo has been a constantin my life since I was 16.
(03:37):
And he's helped me through alot of situations and how to
navigate life and he was thereto pray over us and give us some
spiritual guidance.
You know, for my father'spassing specifically and during
the process.
This is where things start toget a little bit dicey.
During the process, I receiveda phone call from a lady by the
(04:00):
name of Sandy Kuhn and I had noidea who this lady was.
She called my line, my homephone number, and she said to me
your father said, if anythinghappened to him, that you would
take care of us, and I'm goingto repeat that.
So she said to me and again, Ididn't know who this lady was.
(04:21):
She said to me if anythinghappened to your father, he said
that you would take care of us.
And I just kind of paused andshe was telling me that my
father was saying that I wasgoing to be taking care of this
lady financially.
I had no idea who this was.
My brother was there and Ihanded the phone to him and I
(04:43):
said, mike, you have to know whothis lady is.
You got to know about this.
I have no idea.
And so, yeah, I mean she wenton to say that I was going to
take care of her and herdaughter financially.
And again, like I was, I wascaught off guard, and so my
(05:03):
brother is nine years older thanme and I figured he had to have
known about something.
This was out of my periphery.
I didn't know what was going onat all, and the result of this
phone call it wrecked me, and soI asked my brother a few
questions who this lady was, andthen I asked who her daughter
(05:26):
was.
So the result was this was mydad's mistress for 40 years, and
she had an adult daughter whowas seven years older than me.
I'm going to repeat that.
So this lady, sandy, was mydad's mistress of over 40 years,
(05:47):
and she also had an adultdaughter who was seven years
older than me.
And, like I'd indicated, mydad's death wasn't the worst
part of my day.
This was the absolute worstpart of my day.
It felt like somebody, just youknow, took a dagger and put it
through my heart and I'm justgoing to pause for a second, I'm
(06:12):
going to take a breath.
The person that I looked up toa majority of my life was a very
dishonest man and caused greatpain to my mother and my brother
, some other folks and certainlyme for a number of years, and
(06:32):
two things happened.
As a result of that phone call,I learned of my father's affair
.
After his death, I learned of apotential sibling I'm going to
emphasize potential and so myfather had always had this brown
chest.
It's probably about four feetlong by two feet tall and two
(06:56):
feet deep and he always said tome I never want you going into
this chest, and I remember himsaying that very distinctly this
is off limits, you can't gointo this.
But he always had a key in thechest, I guess, so he wouldn't
lose it, and so when he died,the first thing that I got hold
of was that brown chest.
(07:17):
You better believe it.
I was very, very angry with myfather, and I just had a million
things going through my mind atthe time, and one of which is I
had no idea if this girl thatall of a sudden kind of popped
up was my biological sister, andso I opened my dad's Pandora
box I'm going to call it what itis and in the box I was shocked
(07:40):
.
I found hundreds of lettersfrom my dad to Sandy, and then
from Sandy to my dad.
I also found hundreds ofletters from my dad to my mom
and then my Sandy to my dad.
I also found hundreds ofletters from my dad to my mom
and then my mom to my dad, andmy quest was to find the truth
about Kim, and it took me aboutthree months to read each and
every gut-riching letter in thatbox.
(08:00):
They tore me apart.
Every one of them that I readit just tore me apart, and it
wrecked everything that I knewabout my father and what I had
known about his allegiance to mymother.
It was all destroyed, and inone letter I finally found out
the truth.
I found out that Sandy had arelationship with another man
(08:21):
just prior to my father, and theresult was Kim and she was not
my biological sister.
And those were Sandy's exactwords in the letter.
I was completely bewildered atwhat happened and how my world
was now turned upside down.
I'd lost my mother in August.
I lost my father in November,who I extremely looked up to,
(08:45):
and a lot of other people lookedup to, my father, and then that
image was completely destroyedand I completely felt alienated
and alone.
I had to now grow up and I hadnobody else to look up to.
In that dynamic as a father, mybrother and I had a lot of
dialogue and he knew a lot.
(09:06):
And the other thing is mybrother assumed that I knew
everything and I had to tell mybrother.
I was too young to know when allof this was going on in Kansas
city I was under the age ofeight years old.
We moved from Kansas city toOrlando when I was eight.
It was impossible for me toknow and put these things
together.
My brother was 17 at the timewhen we moved and he stayed back
(09:29):
.
And that one aspect changed mybrother and I's relationship.
He thought that I was somewhatokay with what was going on or I
was just trying to be betterthan the situation.
I actually had no idea what wasgoing on and we talked at length
(09:50):
and he told me what he wentthrough for so many years.
He was made to lie to my momand you know, kind of be an
intermediary between them and itwas just a terrible situation
for my brother and I really feltbad for him and I understood
why my brother had such disdainfor my dad.
I really, really did, and I wasat that level too, and there
(10:14):
were many incidents where mybrother he was made to lie to my
mom as a result of my father'sactions and, inadvertently, my
brother's actions as the resultof my father unknowingly drove a
wedge between my brother and Ifor so many years.
My brother and I were at oddsand on a previous podcast we
(10:37):
kind of told you how werectified and my brother and I
were smarter than the situationthat we were involved in and you
know, forget my French but thissituation was.
It was effed up.
I mean, there's no disputingthat and you know it gets worse.
You know, for me, some thingsopened up and I will get to the
(11:00):
part that this gets worse, as ifit's not bad enough, it does
get worse.
So this situation completelysidelined any grief I was going
through with the death of my momin August of 2008 and my father
now in November of 2008.
I finally reached a pointseveral months later where I did
(11:20):
forgive my father and that wasvery, very healing for me.
However, I still had somequestions about what was going
on or what transpired.
I always, as a child, feltbroke and I always questioned
that.
Other people were saying, oh,your family had money and you
know, you guys were doing sowell, and I always felt broke
(11:44):
and those questions would beanswered in the years after my
father's death and through a lotof self-reflection.
Like I said, I forgave my dadand that was a very, very
important aspect that wasinstilled upon me by Father Leo,
and so, through counseling, Iwould be encouraged to have a
conversation with Kim and, if Ididn't mention this before, kim
(12:06):
was the girl that looked up tomy father as a father figure and
she would answer a lot ofquestions for me.
I reached out and I found heron Facebook and I asked her if
she would have a conversation.
So, in how this transpired, inOctober of 2020, I honored a
commitment to meet a buddy inSouth Dakota for a few days and
(12:27):
during the trip I had somedowntime and prior to the trip,
I had been speaking to speakingat length to a counselor at the
time about questions I had aboutKim and some of my feelings
associated about herrelationship with my father, and
I had some infrequentinteractions with Kim over the
years, as I look back, and Ithought it was nothing more than
(12:48):
my father mentoring anotherchild and my father was in the
habit, from what I understood orthought I saw was in the habit
of mentoring other kids and itwasn't uncommon for a kid to
come to the house that my fatherwas helping or whatever the
case may be.
So I had a conversation, Ireached out to Kim and she was
(13:10):
receptive and she completelyopened my eyes and filled in a
lot of gaps that I had since achild.
And first she disclosed to methat my father was supporting
her and her mother in KansasCity.
That was another blow to me andmy dad paid for her to attend
private school dance lessons,you name it and after 40 some
(13:33):
years I was finally able toclose the loop as to why I
always felt broke as a kid.
My dad was supporting twofamilies.
There's no way that anybodynormally could support two
families.
It's hard enough to support onefamily and I recall, you know
vividly as a kid and I tell thisto a lot of people the power
(13:56):
got cut off, the water got cutoff, the telephone got cut off,
my mom had to basically makecheap food for us because we
didn't have enough money to goout and buy things.
We had to shop at the Goodwilland my mom made our clothes and
(14:17):
it was just a lot of financialsacrifice for no good reason
because of my father'sselfishness, and we were paying
the price for that.
And this experience talkingabout finances this is a
financial podcast theseexperiences with money shaped me
and it was an indelibleexperience on me from an early
(14:38):
age.
I didn't know why.
I just accepted you know thatwe didn't have a lot of
financial means and just kind ofmoved on and I said to myself
I'm not going to be like thatand I wanted to be very
self-sufficient when it came tomoney from a very, very early
age.
And it shaped the way I didthings, you know, with money
kind of going forward.
And I also realized why myfather was absent a lot while we
(15:03):
lived in Kansas City.
He was spending time with myfamily and then he would go and
spend time with Sandy and Kim,and so in speaking with Kim, she
also told me that on holidaysmy dad would spend time with my
family in the morning time andthen he would hustle and go
spend time with her and her momin the evening, and you know I
(15:24):
was beginning now to understandher allegiance towards my dad.
I'm going to take a step back.
There was a Dale fam reunion inSt Louis this is probably about
five years ago and I elected notto go for various reasons.
And after the reunion I foundout that him was there, and you
(15:47):
know, god works in somemysterious ways.
After the reunion I found outthat Kim was there, and you know
God works in some mysteriousways.
And this would have been beforeI had the conversation with Kim
and this would have been a very, very nasty blow up at the
family reunion, a very, verynasty blow up.
And you know people were saying, oh, your sister was there and
I'm like I don't have a sister,and on and on and on.
(16:15):
And you know you can justimagine how I felt.
But a lot of these thingswashed out.
After I had the conversation,you know, with Kim, I also
realized that my dad wreckedthree lives of kids me, my
brother and Kim.
I only found out that realityas an adult.
My brother lived it his wholelife and Kim knew a completely
absent father figure after wemoved to Florida.
So it was just a jacked upsituation To take this a step
(16:39):
further and naturally mybrother's going to develop some
unhealthy coping habits alongthe way.
Kim had some issues with menand abandonment since my father
exited her life when we moved toFlorida and I developed habits
of survival, not knowing whatwas going on.
I just had to survive andyou'll learn more about that as
(17:02):
I kind of get into the nextaspect with my mother and how
she dealt with the situation.
You know, kim told me somethingelse that was very, very sad to
me.
She told me that you know mymom, my brother and I were
family number one and that sheand her mom were family number
two.
That I mean.
(17:23):
That just broke me.
And she also told me that sheand her mom loved us very much.
And I told her unfortunately Ican't reciprocate the feelings
as I only found out about thisas an adult and I had no
feelings towards her really atall I just really felt sorry for
(17:43):
her.
But I felt sorry for me and mybrother too.
And you know, sure, as I lookback now as an adult, there are
incidents that I can piecetogether.
There was one time inparticular that comes back to me
.
My father took me to a lady'shouse and you know, as a child
you kind of take what yourparents say.
(18:03):
My father said that he's going.
He had to take me to a businessmeeting is what he told me.
I didn't question that it wasdark outside and I didn't
question the fact that when wegot there, this lady you know
she had a downstairs area and myfather just asked me to play
downstairs while he handled somebusiness upstairs.
(18:25):
Well, the business that hehandled upstairs was not the
business he should have beentaking care of.
And I look back and now Iunderstand that I think at the
time I couldn't have been morethan probably six when he took
me.
Again, I didn't question, so Ijust thought, you know, he was
going to do some business stuff.
He wasn't going to have somerelations with a woman that
(18:48):
wasn't my mom.
And I'm sure there's more andyou know I choose not to dive
into too many of those.
I don't want to go too far back, but I can piece a lot of that
stuff together now and so I'mnot completely a fool and I
didn't want to go on Kim'stestimony basically alone, so I
started calling my mom's sistersand they completely verified
(19:12):
her stories and I was bothsaddened and dismayed.
I had no idea this was going onand you know someone said to me
well, how did you not know?
And I said, well, imagineyou're an eight year old kid at
the top end when we moved.
But from ages one through eight,you know some of this stuff is
(19:35):
going on and you don't have theability to put these things
together.
You just know that.
You know your dad is not there.
You don't know why.
You don't know why you'restruggling, you know with money.
You don't know why your mom isdepressed.
You have no idea why this stuffis going on and you can't
really mentally process it.
And so it was.
(20:02):
You know it was prettydevastating and having to deal
with that and understand thegravity of that situation.
Please stay tuned for part two,where I go into detail as to
how this impacted my mother andeventually how the impact on my
mother caused furtherdysfunction to my brother and I,
and then, after the nextepisode, I'm going to be
interviewing my brother and tohear a little bit of his
(20:26):
experience.
I hope you like this podcastand please feel free to send
this on to any friends, familymembers or colleagues.
Cheers Be well.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
If you are a client and arelooking to work directly with
Chris and or our firm, head onover to Life After Grief FP.
That is Life After Grief FP.
That is Life After Grief FP.
The FP is for financialplanning.
If you are an advisor lookingto emotionally and financially
work with your client in grief,or if you are a client looking
(21:03):
to get your advisor's head inthe game, head on over to
lifeaftergriefconsultingcom.
That islifeaftergriefconsultingcom.
Any related informationreferenced in this week's
podcast will be located here inthe podcast section.
Welcome to Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris,
where we talk about relevantissues as it relates to
individuals in grief as theynavigate finances and the
advisors who help them.
We help clients in griefnavigate financial matters.
We also teach advisors how toemotionally and financially work
with clients in grief throughan unparalleled process.
(00:24):
This week's podcast issponsored by Life After Grief
Financial Planning and LifeAfter Grief Consulting.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I think I caught some folks' attention with the title
of this podcast calledInfidelity and Child Abuse, or
you can reverse it Child Abuseand Infidelity.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Real Talk
with Life After Grief, chris.
What I'm about to disclose maybe a shock to some of those in
(00:55):
my inner circle and some ofthose who have been in my family
or known my family for a very,very long time.
However, I've been encouragedto share my story as it could
help many other folks.
As I commonly do, I like tostart off podcasts with some
storytelling, and so the day wasFriday, november 14th 2008.
(01:19):
This was the date in which myfather passed away, so the
hospital that my father was atasked for my consent to have a
catheter port removed due toinfection.
My father was in the hospitaldue to elevated cardiac enzymes
at the time, and at the point ofsurgery, my father had a
(01:42):
massive heart attack.
At that time, I was working atBank of America and I was
specifically on the eighth floordowntown Orlando and, to give
you an idea, it's probably about45 minutes If I leave my office
walk to the elevator, godownstairs, walk across the
lobby, go up the elevators andget into my car and then I get
out of the parking garage, haveto navigate downtown, get on the
(02:04):
expressway, go to the hospitalpark, walk, go through their
common area and then go up theelevators so probably about 45
minutes.
And so I received the call fromthe hospital that my father
died of a massive heart attackand, mind you, this was two and
a half months after my mom hadpassed away.
(02:25):
So I raced downstairs to my carfrom the bank and, honestly, I
probably reached speeds inexcess of 100 miles an hour.
As I was just in completedenial about the whole situation
, I first met my wife, ann Marie, at the hospital and I could
tell immediately she was anemotional wreck and my wife
isn't normally that way and shetold me that he was dead.
(02:50):
And then I went to his room toconfirm what I already knew, and
he was laying in bed aspeaceful as I had seen him in
years, and that concluded thatchapter of my life with regard
to my mom and my dad.
That chapter was over.
There was no going back, andwhat I just explained to you
(03:15):
wasn't the worst part of thatday, and I'm going to say that
my father's death was not theworst part of that day was not
the worst part of that day.
So I went home where Amory, mybrother and whom I've lovingly
called my personal priest, hisfather Leo, would meet me at
home.
Father Leo has been a constantin my life since I was 16.
(03:37):
And he's helped me through alot of situations and how to
navigate life and he was thereto pray over us and give us some
spiritual guidance.
You know, for my father'spassing specifically and during
the process.
This is where things start toget a little bit dicey.
During the process, I receiveda phone call from a lady by the
(04:00):
name of Sandy Kuhn and I had noidea who this lady was.
She called my line, my homephone number, and she said to me
your father said, if anythinghappened to him, that you would
take care of us, and I'm goingto repeat that.
So she said to me and again, Ididn't know who this lady was.
(04:21):
She said to me if anythinghappened to your father, he said
that you would take care of us.
And I just kind of paused andshe was telling me that my
father was saying that I wasgoing to be taking care of this
lady financially.
I had no idea who this was.
My brother was there and Ihanded the phone to him and I
(04:43):
said, mike, you have to know whothis lady is.
You got to know about this.
I have no idea.
And so, yeah, I mean she wenton to say that I was going to
take care of her and herdaughter financially.
And again, like I was, I wascaught off guard, and so my
(05:03):
brother is nine years older thanme and I figured he had to have
known about something.
This was out of my periphery.
I didn't know what was going onat all, and the result of this
phone call it wrecked me, and soI asked my brother a few
questions who this lady was, andthen I asked who her daughter
(05:26):
was.
So the result was this was mydad's mistress for 40 years, and
she had an adult daughter whowas seven years older than me.
I'm going to repeat that.
So this lady, sandy, was mydad's mistress of over 40 years,
(05:47):
and she also had an adultdaughter who was seven years
older than me.
And, like I'd indicated, mydad's death wasn't the worst
part of my day.
This was the absolute worstpart of my day.
It felt like somebody, just youknow, took a dagger and put it
through my heart and I'm justgoing to pause for a second, I'm
(06:12):
going to take a breath.
The person that I looked up toa majority of my life was a very
dishonest man and caused greatpain to my mother and my brother
, some other folks and certainlyme for a number of years, and
(06:32):
two things happened.
As a result of that phone call,I learned of my father's affair
.
After his death, I learned of apotential sibling I'm going to
emphasize potential and so myfather had always had this brown
chest.
It's probably about four feetlong by two feet tall and two
(06:56):
feet deep and he always said tome I never want you going into
this chest, and I remember himsaying that very distinctly this
is off limits, you can't gointo this.
But he always had a key in thechest, I guess, so he wouldn't
lose it, and so when he died,the first thing that I got hold
of was that brown chest.
(07:17):
You better believe it.
I was very, very angry with myfather, and I just had a million
things going through my mind atthe time, and one of which is I
had no idea if this girl thatall of a sudden kind of popped
up was my biological sister, andso I opened my dad's Pandora
box I'm going to call it what itis and in the box I was shocked
(07:40):
.
I found hundreds of lettersfrom my dad to Sandy, and then
from Sandy to my dad.
I also found hundreds ofletters from my dad to my mom
and then my Sandy to my dad.
I also found hundreds ofletters from my dad to my mom
and then my mom to my dad, andmy quest was to find the truth
about Kim, and it took me aboutthree months to read each and
every gut-riching letter in thatbox.
(08:00):
They tore me apart.
Every one of them that I readit just tore me apart, and it
wrecked everything that I knewabout my father and what I had
known about his allegiance to mymother.
It was all destroyed, and inone letter I finally found out
the truth.
I found out that Sandy had arelationship with another man
(08:21):
just prior to my father, and theresult was Kim and she was not
my biological sister.
And those were Sandy's exactwords in the letter.
I was completely bewildered atwhat happened and how my world
was now turned upside down.
I'd lost my mother in August.
I lost my father in November,who I extremely looked up to,
(08:45):
and a lot of other people lookedup to, my father, and then that
image was completely destroyedand I completely felt alienated
and alone.
I had to now grow up and I hadnobody else to look up to.
In that dynamic as a father, mybrother and I had a lot of
dialogue and he knew a lot.
(09:06):
And the other thing is mybrother assumed that I knew
everything and I had to tell mybrother.
I was too young to know when allof this was going on in Kansas
city I was under the age ofeight years old.
We moved from Kansas city toOrlando when I was eight.
It was impossible for me toknow and put these things
together.
My brother was 17 at the timewhen we moved and he stayed back
(09:29):
.
And that one aspect changed mybrother and I's relationship.
He thought that I was somewhatokay with what was going on or I
was just trying to be betterthan the situation.
I actually had no idea what wasgoing on and we talked at length
(09:50):
and he told me what he wentthrough for so many years.
He was made to lie to my momand you know, kind of be an
intermediary between them and itwas just a terrible situation
for my brother and I really feltbad for him and I understood
why my brother had such disdainfor my dad.
I really, really did, and I wasat that level too, and there
(10:14):
were many incidents where mybrother he was made to lie to my
mom as a result of my father'sactions and, inadvertently, my
brother's actions as the resultof my father unknowingly drove a
wedge between my brother and Ifor so many years.
My brother and I were at oddsand on a previous podcast we
(10:37):
kind of told you how werectified and my brother and I
were smarter than the situationthat we were involved in and you
know, forget my French but thissituation was.
It was effed up.
I mean, there's no disputingthat and you know it gets worse.
You know, for me, some thingsopened up and I will get to the
(11:00):
part that this gets worse, as ifit's not bad enough, it does
get worse.
So this situation completelysidelined any grief I was going
through with the death of my momin August of 2008 and my father
now in November of 2008.
I finally reached a pointseveral months later where I did
(11:20):
forgive my father and that wasvery, very healing for me.
However, I still had somequestions about what was going
on or what transpired.
I always, as a child, feltbroke and I always questioned
that.
Other people were saying, oh,your family had money and you
know, you guys were doing sowell, and I always felt broke
(11:44):
and those questions would beanswered in the years after my
father's death and through a lotof self-reflection.
Like I said, I forgave my dadand that was a very, very
important aspect that wasinstilled upon me by Father Leo,
and so, through counseling, Iwould be encouraged to have a
conversation with Kim and, if Ididn't mention this before, kim
(12:06):
was the girl that looked up tomy father as a father figure and
she would answer a lot ofquestions for me.
I reached out and I found heron Facebook and I asked her if
she would have a conversation.
So, in how this transpired, inOctober of 2020, I honored a
commitment to meet a buddy inSouth Dakota for a few days and
(12:27):
during the trip I had somedowntime and prior to the trip,
I had been speaking to speakingat length to a counselor at the
time about questions I had aboutKim and some of my feelings
associated about herrelationship with my father, and
I had some infrequentinteractions with Kim over the
years, as I look back, and Ithought it was nothing more than
(12:48):
my father mentoring anotherchild and my father was in the
habit, from what I understood orthought I saw was in the habit
of mentoring other kids and itwasn't uncommon for a kid to
come to the house that my fatherwas helping or whatever the
case may be.
So I had a conversation, Ireached out to Kim and she was
(13:10):
receptive and she completelyopened my eyes and filled in a
lot of gaps that I had since achild.
And first she disclosed to methat my father was supporting
her and her mother in KansasCity.
That was another blow to me andmy dad paid for her to attend
private school dance lessons,you name it and after 40 some
(13:33):
years I was finally able toclose the loop as to why I
always felt broke as a kid.
My dad was supporting twofamilies.
There's no way that anybodynormally could support two
families.
It's hard enough to support onefamily and I recall, you know
vividly as a kid and I tell thisto a lot of people the power
(13:56):
got cut off, the water got cutoff, the telephone got cut off,
my mom had to basically makecheap food for us because we
didn't have enough money to goout and buy things.
We had to shop at the Goodwilland my mom made our clothes and
(14:17):
it was just a lot of financialsacrifice for no good reason
because of my father'sselfishness, and we were paying
the price for that.
And this experience talkingabout finances this is a
financial podcast theseexperiences with money shaped me
and it was an indelibleexperience on me from an early
(14:38):
age.
I didn't know why.
I just accepted you know thatwe didn't have a lot of
financial means and just kind ofmoved on and I said to myself
I'm not going to be like thatand I wanted to be very
self-sufficient when it came tomoney from a very, very early
age.
And it shaped the way I didthings, you know, with money
kind of going forward.
And I also realized why myfather was absent a lot while we
(15:03):
lived in Kansas City.
He was spending time with myfamily and then he would go and
spend time with Sandy and Kim,and so in speaking with Kim, she
also told me that on holidaysmy dad would spend time with my
family in the morning time andthen he would hustle and go
spend time with her and her momin the evening, and you know I
(15:24):
was beginning now to understandher allegiance towards my dad.
I'm going to take a step back.
There was a Dale fam reunion inSt Louis this is probably about
five years ago and I elected notto go for various reasons.
And after the reunion I foundout that him was there, and you
(15:47):
know, god works in somemysterious ways.
After the reunion I found outthat Kim was there, and you know
God works in some mysteriousways.
And this would have been beforeI had the conversation with Kim
and this would have been a very, very nasty blow up at the
family reunion, a very, verynasty blow up.
And you know people were saying, oh, your sister was there and
I'm like I don't have a sister,and on and on and on.
(16:15):
And you know you can justimagine how I felt.
But a lot of these thingswashed out.
After I had the conversation,you know, with Kim, I also
realized that my dad wreckedthree lives of kids me, my
brother and Kim.
I only found out that realityas an adult.
My brother lived it his wholelife and Kim knew a completely
absent father figure after wemoved to Florida.
So it was just a jacked upsituation To take this a step
(16:39):
further and naturally mybrother's going to develop some
unhealthy coping habits alongthe way.
Kim had some issues with menand abandonment since my father
exited her life when we moved toFlorida and I developed habits
of survival, not knowing whatwas going on.
I just had to survive andyou'll learn more about that as
(17:02):
I kind of get into the nextaspect with my mother and how
she dealt with the situation.
You know, kim told me somethingelse that was very, very sad to
me.
She told me that you know mymom, my brother and I were
family number one and that sheand her mom were family number
two.
That I mean.
(17:23):
That just broke me.
And she also told me that sheand her mom loved us very much.
And I told her unfortunately Ican't reciprocate the feelings
as I only found out about thisas an adult and I had no
feelings towards her really atall I just really felt sorry for
(17:43):
her.
But I felt sorry for me and mybrother too.
And you know, sure, as I lookback now as an adult, there are
incidents that I can piecetogether.
There was one time inparticular that comes back to me
.
My father took me to a lady'shouse and you know, as a child
you kind of take what yourparents say.
(18:03):
My father said that he's going.
He had to take me to a businessmeeting is what he told me.
I didn't question that it wasdark outside and I didn't
question the fact that when wegot there, this lady you know
she had a downstairs area and myfather just asked me to play
downstairs while he handled somebusiness upstairs.
(18:25):
Well, the business that hehandled upstairs was not the
business he should have beentaking care of.
And I look back and now Iunderstand that I think at the
time I couldn't have been morethan probably six when he took
me.
Again, I didn't question, so Ijust thought, you know, he was
going to do some business stuff.
He wasn't going to have somerelations with a woman that
(18:48):
wasn't my mom.
And I'm sure there's more andyou know I choose not to dive
into too many of those.
I don't want to go too far back, but I can piece a lot of that
stuff together now and so I'mnot completely a fool and I
didn't want to go on Kim'stestimony basically alone, so I
started calling my mom's sistersand they completely verified
(19:12):
her stories and I was bothsaddened and dismayed.
I had no idea this was going onand you know someone said to me
well, how did you not know?
And I said, well, imagineyou're an eight year old kid at
the top end when we moved.
But from ages one through eight,you know some of this stuff is
(19:35):
going on and you don't have theability to put these things
together.
You just know that.
You know your dad is not there.
You don't know why.
You don't know why you'restruggling, you know with money.
You don't know why your mom isdepressed.
You have no idea why this stuffis going on and you can't
really mentally process it.
And so it was.
(20:02):
You know it was prettydevastating and having to deal
with that and understand thegravity of that situation.
Please stay tuned for part two,where I go into detail as to
how this impacted my mother andeventually how the impact on my
mother caused furtherdysfunction to my brother and I,
and then, after the nextepisode, I'm going to be
interviewing my brother and tohear a little bit of his
(20:26):
experience.
I hope you like this podcastand please feel free to send
this on to any friends, familymembers or colleagues.
Cheers Be well.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
If you are a client and arelooking to work directly with
Chris and or our firm, head onover to Life After Grief FP.
That is Life After Grief FP.
That is Life After Grief FP.
The FP is for financialplanning.
If you are an advisor lookingto emotionally and financially
work with your client in grief,or if you are a client looking
(21:03):
to get your advisor's head inthe game, head on over to
lifeaftergriefconsultingcom.
That islifeaftergriefconsultingcom.
Any related informationreferenced in this week's
podcast will be located here inthe podcast section.
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