Oh, What a Tangled Web People Weave to Deceive

Oh, what a tangled web people weave to deceive. Yvonne DiVita should know.

This entrepreneur, writer, and editor recently discovered that the man whom she thought had fathered her didn’t. And her Aunt Sherry? Forget it. DNA tests indicate she might be a half-sister.

“There’s a lot missing in my story,” Yvonne tells me from her home in Binghamton, New York. “And now, I have no clue who I am. I’m finding out that nothing my mother said was true.” 

Oh, what a tangled web people weave to deceive. Her mother’s deceit sure entangled Yvonne. She would spend years working through the things her mother had said before she could fully appreciate her self-worth.

Drawn by the Narcissism

Yvonne is a social media friend. We met because LinkedIn had suggested us as potential contacts. “I don’t pay attention to their suggestions,” she wrote in a message to me. “Today I did. Must be a reason …”

Within a few weeks, she and I were talking on the phone about her experience growing up with her now-deceased mother—a narcissist.  

I know a handful of women who’ve married narcissists, and the protagonist in my upcoming novel is engaged to one. But mothers? How would the characteristic gaslighting, mind games, and verbal abuse affect a little kid?

Just as you might imagine.

Yvonne’s Story

Yvonne was too young to remember the day her parents divorced. Her dad, Ross, stayed in Binghamton, while Yvonne’s mother, two older sisters, and herself moved 160 miles northwest to live in Rochester. 

Because her mother couldn’t or wouldn’t care for her kids, the girls lived in foster care, an abusive arrangement. But instead of reclaiming them, her mother threatened to put them up for adoption … unless her ex took custody of the two older girls. Yvonne, her mother decided, would live with her.

“I remember her leaving me alone for hours on end,” Yvonne says. Probably a blessing. Because when she was home, Yvonne’s mother would rage, blaming Yvonne for everything rotten in her life. ‘“You should’ve never been born,”’ Yvonne remembers her mother saying often.

Yvonne worried her mother might be right. Maybe she was unlovable. “I didn’t want anyone to notice me, and I’d burst into tears … then, as a teenager, sadly, my mother got worse.” 

In one of her journal entries, Yvonne remembers writing how she wanted to “disappear in a puff of smoke.” She acted on it … three times.

Her mother’s reaction? She worried about what the neighbors might think.

Oh, what a tangled web people weave to deceive.

The Toll It Took

“It took me years to realize what my mother had done,” Yvonne says. As an abuser, her mother did understand the magnitude of the unrelenting mental abuse. ‘“Someday you’ll be rich and famous,’” Yvonne remembers her mother saying before she died more than five years ago, “and I hope you don’t tell people what I did to you.”’ 

Not surprising, Yvonne’s life had become a train wreck.

In her early 20s, she had an affair with a married man, got pregnant, and then married a narcissist, just like her mother. “The stupidest thing I ever did,” Yvonne says of her ex-husband who fathered two of her three now-grown kids. “You’d  think I’d learn, but I didn’t.” 

After splitting from the narcissistic abuser, she had another affair, this time with her boss, also married. 

She lost her job. He didn’t.

Who’s Your Daddy?

Throughout the turmoil, questions nagged. Why didn’t she look like anyone in the family? Why did her mother abuse her? And why would Ross, whom she assumed to be her father, take her sisters, but leave her behind? 

Oh, what a tangled web people weave to deceive.

DNA Tests Don’t Lie

At the urging of her oldest daughter, Yvonne took a DNA test. And things started falling into place. In addition to uncovering clues that her aunt was her sister (the verdict is still out on that), Yvonne discovered why Ross left her mother … and ultimately her. 

The test indicated that Yvonne is 40-percent Italian. Neither Ross, who has since passed, nor her mom are of Italian descent. 

“When they divorced, I was two-and-a-half years old,” Yvonne says. “Still in diapers. That means either Ross knew I wasn’t his but stayed through my mother’s pregnancy or didn’t know and found out later. He did what any man would do.”

He left.

Oh, what a tangled web people weave to deceive.

Does It Really Matter?

“Things make more sense now,” Yvonne says. “But it also makes it a little worse. My mother blamed me for the breakup of her marriage.” Furthermore, “I have no clue who I am.” 

Does it matter? 

Nothing of Yvonne’s past changes anything about who she is today, a devoted wife, mother, and professional. “How about you look at it from a different angle,” her husband, Tom, suggested before she’d gotten the DNA test results. 

By then, she’d already begun her journey to recovery. “I hung in there. I felt as if there was a reason I was here—but I wasn’t sure what it was. So, I wrote. And wrote. That’s what saved me,” Yvonne says. 

“Over time, I realized that so many of us have these hidden stories to tell,” she continues. “Stories that connect us as human beings. With each story told, I believe the threads of our tales connect us in ways we don’t realize …”

But ultimately that tangled web is woven into “the tapestry of our lives,” Yvonne says. It becomes a piece of our story. Not the whole cloth, just a thread. We can choose to pull the thread and unravel because of past hurts, or we can overcome and be resilient. 

Yvonne chose the latter. 

“I just want people to look in the mirror and say, ‘I am good enough.’”

Oh, what a tangled web people weave to deceive.