During our relationship, I asked my boyfriend several times to come to his house to visit, but Alfredo always delayed. Sometimes he said he was busy with work, other times he said he would wait for the right time to bring me home to meet his family.

When I became pregnant, Alfredo was overjoyed and took me home right away. As soon as the car entered the alley in Batangas, a boy about 8 years old, who looked quite similar to him and called him papa, ran out to greet me.

It seemed that he could no longer hide it, Alfredo admitted: he had been married before. They did not get along so they divorced. At first, the child lived with his mother, but after she remarried in Quezon City, she pushed the child back to him to raise.

I am a beautiful, unmarried girl with a stable job in Makati. Alfredo was afraid that I would not agree to love a single man, so he hid his true family background.

Since I found out, I was sad and disappointed, but because I was pregnant, I gritted my teeth and endured, as long as the wedding went smoothly.

Before the wedding, Alfredo said he would leave the child with his parents in Batangas. However, a year after the wedding, he began…

brought my stepchild – Jerome – to live with me, the reason being that I stayed home to take care of the baby so I could “conveniently” take care of Jerome while my grandparents went out to earn money.

Since Jerome came to live with us, the family atmosphere has always been tense. His parents-in-law spoiled Jerome, making him stubborn. I didn’t listen to what he said, and even argued back.

I decided to raise him seriously because I thought that if he went bad in the future, my husband and I would suffer the consequences. But every time I taught him, Alfredo would intervene:
– You are not my biological mother, you have no right to say anything to me.

With his father defending him, Jerome became even more difficult to teach, and even argued with me. Once, when I saw Jerome rummaging through my wallet to take money, I told Alfredo and advised him to re-educate his son. Unexpectedly, Jerome accused me:
– I didn’t marry him, my stepmother falsely accused me and even beat me.

Alfredo didn’t listen to my explanation, believed my stepchild, and slapped me painfully. After that slap, I knew I had married the wrong person. If I continued to live, I would be crushed by both my husband and his children. If the child is still young and spoiled, it will be even harder to fix it when he grows up. Therefore, I decided to divorce to find a peaceful life.

Before the court date, my mother-in-law came from Batangas to “mediate”, but she only advised me to be humble, and that her son “did not do anything wrong”.

The night before, I couldn’t sleep, so I went to the balcony and saw Alfredo and his mother sitting and talking. I was shocked to learn that last year, Alfredo had saved enough money to buy a piece of land in Laguna under his grandparents’ name. His mother asked:

– What about that piece of land?

Alfredo replied:

– Wait until after I divorce my wife, then I will transfer it to Jerome.

My mother-in-law continued to ask:

– What about your second child?

Alfredo said bluntly:

– I only care about Jerome, the second child is taken care of by his mother.

They are both children, but my husband is blatantly biased. I stepped forward to demand rights for my child. When I suggested dividing the land in half, each of us getting half, Alfredo growled:

– Don’t even dream about my property.

Why is it that Alfredo, who is also my blood, discriminates between this child and that child so cruelly?