Can I have a relationship with my adulturous father

[tiger66]

My mother and father (in their 60's) have just seperated and become divorced. I have just found out that my father has had 3 affairs, 1 lasting 27 years started when I was 2! This only ended as the woman died! and then another which has just begun in january leading my Mum to kick him out and say goodbye for good.

I am trying to work out if I can have a relationship with a father that is a different man to the man I thought he was. He has gone to live with another woman which I find very difficult.

The father I thought I had was very strict had very high morals of what was right and wrong and extremely hard in how he brought us up. The father I have just found out I have is one that has little morals has cheated on my mum through their entire relationship and has been very unkind verbally more recently.

Can I allow my young boys to be influenced by a man of little morals? I would appreciate any views on this.

[StellaSays]

Would he be influencing your boys to have loose morals? He sounds like he did the opposite with you despite what he was doing.

You are entitled to feel angry and hurt by him since he has betrayed you just as much as he as your mother.

It comes down to whether you feel you love him enough to try and come to terms with how you feel for the sake of your relationship. If the relationship was not good in the first place then its up to you to decide whether its worth bothering. He is still your father though and my advice would be to attempt to keep a relationship if you can.

[tiger66]

Thanks for replying Stellasays and for your advice.

We had an awful relationship until my boys came along. Since then we have got closer and I guess that almost makes it worse. 4 years ago I could have disowned him. Now it is a lot harder to decide.

The kids love their grandfather and I don't want to take that away from them. but I guess I find it hard to accept that he has a new woman in his life and I don't think that I can accept her into our lives.

[cabbageroses]

Can I offer any view here?

If your father had an affair with the same woman for 27 years he must have really loved her. This is not a man who is promiscuous. It sounds tragic to me. Maybe she never wanted him to leave his family- you and your mum. maybe she wouldn't leave hers. it must have been hell for both of them to keep a relationship going for 27 years when , we assume, they may have really wanted to be together.

Maybe your mother knew and turned a blind eye? Have you spoken to her about it?

Has it crossed your mid that maybe your father was doing what he thought was the right thing?- staying with his wife and family.

The new woman sounds as if she is a replacement for the one who died maybe?

I know it's hard, but can you get to a place where you do not judge your father? Who knows what was going on. You don't, for sure.

It's not right that children act as judge and jury on their parent's marriage but it's fully understandable.

Can you tell your dad how you feel? You don't have to accept his new woman- but he is still your dad and it would be a shame to have a permanent rift over this.

Have you thought of counselling? It could help- the whole parent/child relationship is so complex that when a parent "fails" in our eyes it is hard to get over it as we want to love them, but feel they have let us down.

I hope you can get through this.

[garlicbutter]

It depends on a whole bunch of things, all of them about your feelings, which might surprise you. I learned my grandfather had a whole other family Gran knew, apparently, and they all kept it secret for nearly 40 years until OW died. After the revelation, Dad went to visit his half-sister and they stayed in touch. Otherwise, nothing really changed. I didn't even feel a need to talk to Gran about it, except to tell her I knew.

You need to let your thoughts settle first - as you say, you're reeling from the shock of discovering your father is not who you thought he was. What's unclear is whether this 'new' father is one you can still like and respect, despite his deceptions. It could even be that your mother knew, but chose to turn a blind eye to the long-running affair.

I'm sorry for your distress over his betrayal (of you, as well as his wife.) Talking to a counsellor will probably help you sort out your feelings. Good luck, whatever you decide. Give it time :)

[tiger66]

Thanks for all your threads they are really helpful. Yes my mother knew of the affairs and chose to keep them a secret for the sake of the family and let it carry on to keep the family together. I applaud her courage and strength as I don't feel that I could do it.

I guess all the new qualities of him are actually better and happier which I find hard as it is being with someone else! He was always very selfish and never did anything around the house. He is now doing DIY for his new lady and lots around the house. Maybe that is also what I find difficult.

I am seeing a councillor in a few weeks so hopefully as you say that might help.

Thanks again for the posts, it really does help

[cabbageroses]

Tiger- it may be worth thinking about too whether it is helpful to have this good guy/bad guy idea in your mind. ie dad bad guy, mum good guy. Now that we know your mother knew about the affair(s) it changes things a bit.

On the surface that is how you and a lot of people would view it. But the other option is that your mum colluded in all of this- possibly to protect the family- but also maybe because she didn't have the courage to leave. Rather than looking at her acceptance as a sign of strength you could ook at it as a sign of weakness and actually giving your dad permission to carry on.

What is clear is that their marriage was not working or as happy as it could have been. Could you not start to see it as two people who did their best for their kids but neither of whom were perfect, or necessarily doing the right thing?

I am sure counselling will go over all of this- and hope it helps.

[welliesandpyjamas]

Op, I understand how you feel re the disappointment in your father. My father had an affair with my mother's friend and I find it impossible to forgive either of them for being hurtful and for putting themselves first. I am fine about letting my sons continue their relationship with their grandfather but can't see why they should have a relationship with her, someone who IMO cannot be trusted as a friend and who, like you say, has morals that don't fit with mine. I was never that close to her so apart from the fact she is now married to my father, I feel I have no link with her that encourages any sort of relationship. I have no time in my life or my head to spend time with someone who doesn't interest me or to be paranoid about what my sons are told about the whole sorry mess. Sadly it does cause problems with my father (and sadly shows that in terms of spending quality time, his wife comes before his grandsons) but he brought me up to stand up for what I believe in and for how I feel so why should I now not do that and pretend/play fake happy families...

Sigh. Parents, eh! It does get sort of easier in that you just learn to get used to the new status quo but it does hurt a lot.

[welliesandpyjamas]

Oops, I killed the thread with my baggage!

[MrsVidic]

I think you should let him have a relationship with your dc's as they wil be the ones missing out on having a grandad. I know it's difficult but you can't use your kids to punish him (I don't think you would do this intentionally )