Growing up as a child I used to love Christmas. Without a doubt, it used to be my favourite time of year.
That all changed about two years ago when my boyfriend left me at Christmas after eight years in a relationship.
What devastated me wasn’t the fact that he left me at a time when I had told myself that this was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It also wasn’t the way the break-up unfolded.
It was the fact that he left me for my brother.
I was in shock when I found out the man who I wanted to marry and have my children with
was cavorting with my brother who had just returned to Barbados.
I had no idea my brother, who is five years younger than me, was gay. Growing up, he was the baby of the bunch and the darling of the brood. Everyone liked him and the fact that he was kind and generous, plus good-looking, made him also a charmer to many.
He had so many girlfriends when he was in his teenage years and even when he was in his 20s.
By the time my brother turned 30, he migrated to Canada where he lived for the last ten years.
He then returned saying that he had enough of Canada and complained that he had missed Barbados.
My whole family was happy to have him back home because we too also missed him and was glad he made the decision to return.
I introduced him to my boyfriend and they hit it off from the start.
They would talk and talk every time we all met up at family functions and even when my brother called for me at home, my boyfriend would spend a long time talking to him before he even handed me the phone.
On the odd occasion too, my boyfriend and my brother would go out for drinks and my boyfriend would come back in really late at night.
I didn’t think anything of it at the time. In fact, I quite liked the bond they had formed, especially since my boyfriend didn’t have a lot of male friends.
I always tried to encourage him to go out and have fun with his friends and, on the odd occasion, he would and when he did, he enjoyed himself.
After some months of my boyfriend and brother hanging out, one of my girlfriends asked me if I didn’t find it strange that they were with each other too much and that it had become weird.
I said no but secretly I did start to find it strange and felt a little uncomfortable.
I then started to take my own mental notes of what was going on and I realized that my brother was no longer calling for me, but for my boyfriend.
Also, we weren’t going out anymore and instead, they were spending all their free time together.
Something wasn’t adding up to me and I started to wonder if something was going on.
At first I started to put that thought out of my head, but it still lingered and I was getting scared.
Dreadful Christmas
Then that dreadful Christmas time came when my life came tumbling down and everything I thought was real and true was just one big farce.
That Christmas, me and my boyfriend were supposed to be hosting family lunch. We were all making plans for the day and we were all excited about being together as one big family.
Every night during the week before Christmas my sister and my brother would come by the house so that we could discuss plans for lunch.
One night, me and my sister decided we would take a break from the talk and go out and grab dinner.
Initially, me and my sister were going to eat dinner out and leave my brother and boyfriend at home.
We told them we would be about an hour. They said take our time.When we got to the restaurant, my sister said she was too tired to sit and eat and would prefer if we went back to my house with our food.
That we did.
When we approached my house, I started to feel strange but couldn’t understand why.
We got out of the car and we started to hear noises coming from my bedroom.
We were suspicious and went to the window which we could look through from the side of the house.
Me and my sister were not prepared for what we saw. There was my boyfriend and my brother locked in a passionate sexual position. I could not believe it.
The rage that took over me I cannot even repeat in this story for the newspaper, but needless to say, that relationship came to an abrupt halt.
It broke my family up, it broke my relationship up and it almost broke me up.
Thankfully, I had the support and love of my friends to help me rebuild my life. To this day, however, Christmas has never been, nor will it ever be the same for me or my family.
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