I’m an affair baby

Errrmmm yes well I was a bit harsh 🫣😬 but something tells me OP has been mollycoddled a bit!

Got to be cruel to be kind, etc

You've realised your parents are just humans, that makes mistakes just like you. I think the attitude that people are 'good' and 'bad' is juvenile. We all make mistakes, we cause hurt and offence (often without even knowing we've done it), we all sre products of our environment. The way we act, both as spouses and as partners is all part of a huge picture. Life doesn't fit into neat black and white boxes. Judge them on the relationship you have with them and how much effort they have put into parenting you.

My mum was with my step dad, then got with his best mate and married him and had a baby (me). She then had an affair with the original guy, and left my dad (eventually). The original boyfriend was with her for a bit, then left her to get married to someone else after an accidental pregnancy. They started raising the kid together as teenagers. They eventually split up, my mum got back with the original guy. My dad , in the intervening years, had a 'thing' with original guy's ex wife (essentially swapping partners). Anyway, fast forward nearly 40 years and here is me and my sister. Her mum and my dad have died, her dad and my mum are still together. My point being, life is messy!! It's never occurred to me to be bothered about it.

You aren't responsible for what your parents did before you were born. I imagine a huge chunk of the world's population wasn't born as the long planned result of a loving marriage as the fairy tales would have us believe

OP, you are in a shitty place right now. Cheating is awful. Your ex may remarry and live an amazing life and the relationship with his new partner and any children would be very different to yours of course. It would be perfectly normal to still think of your ex as a scumbag in 30 years time. Even if he is a brilliant partner to his new wife and any children. (Maybe this would make it even harder to swallow) But it wouldn't be normal to still be seething in 30 years time and drag any of your children down with you for 30 years.
Fwiw, my parents were brilliant parents. Couldn't have wished for better. But they were terrible spouses.

Yeah some people justify anything when they want to.

There are plenty of people still married in paper dating and living with other people.
If the issue is that they were not divorced that shouldn't be a drama.
If they issue is that they were cheaters that is up to them not up to you.
You are a grown up, let this go. It doesn't matter much now in the present.
You are only the representation of yourself.
I wouldn't give it a second thought if I were you.
Recover from the shock and enjoy your life.

When one party has already broken several marriage vows the other party can’t reasonably be held to theirs, surely?

In an abusive relationship, who cares. Abuse is worse.

Oh hang on... <checks username>

Thing is, isn't that the line that so many cheating men use? "My ex is crazy/abusive", when they're getting in the pants of someone new? Whether it's so that the new partner feels sorry for them and so doesn't count it as cheating, rather they believe they are saving him from the abuser/crazy woman. Or maybe by claiming that his ex is abusive or nuts, he feels that he's justified in his cheating. When in reality, the woman is nothing of the sort.

You weren't theere at the time the affair was conducted. You don't know the ins and outs of either of your parents previous marriages, because you weren't part of it (or born!). You only know what you've been told by your parents and various relatives.

Of course cheating is awful. If you talk to most people, they will say they've been cheated on at least once. My ex decided the best course of action whilst I lay fighting for my life in ICU, was to cheat...and he ended up cheating numerous times.

Presumably your parents raised you in a loving, stable home? If that's the case, then that is what you need to focus on. The fact your Dad left his ex wife, and his children, isn't your guilt to carry. He made a choice, and he has to live with that.

Our parents are human, and like all humans, make mistakes.

It seems that your parents are still together. Has it been a loving and happy marriage for them? I imagine they were absolutely delighted to have you as a sign of their love together.

I think you’re projecting your own experience onto your parents’ actions decades ago. And please don’t end up bitter over this for the rest of your life, as your half siblings’ mother has done.

Think of it like this - you are the product of a loving, happy and enduring relationship.

I'm with you OP: cheating is an awful thing to do. Selfish, entitled and unrestrained, and I do think less of people who indulge in affairs.

BUT it was them, not you. It isn't your fault.

There are different kinds of affairs OP.

Sometimes people in unhappy, abusive marriages don’t see how bad it is for a long, long time. You see it all the time on here - women putting up with all kinds of awful behaviour from their husbands who don’t seem to have the strength even to realise how bad it is, let alone leave.

Then they meet someone by chance who reminds them that they are alive. Yes of course ideally they should get out of the marriage before taking it further, but you’re looking at this through a normal lens, not through the eyes of someone who has been gradually worn down to a shadow. And surely you can’t think they owe anything at all to the abuser?

I really don't understand why you are being so dramatic to be honest. I also don't see why your dad is getting all of the blame when presumably your mum he was in a relationship so it was both of them.

If your parents brought you up well then what went before is not your place to judge.
You may well find yourself in an unhappy marriage with difficult decisions to make about your future happiness. Hopefully people will not judge you.
You are not the embodiment of anything except yourself.
It sounds as though your dad has played fair financially with his first family.
I think you should let this lie and get on with living your life.

I mean… I was going to basically say the same thing but perhaps a bit more gently.

OP- you could be the child of a sexual assault, a one night stand, you could have no idea who your father is, you could’ve been born to a toxic and miserable couple who treated you terribly.

Can we reframe this a second. You were born to two loving parents in a stable home and are one of the decreasing number of people whose parents are actually still together out of love.

Don’t you think you’re being a tad “extra” about something that literally happened to other people before you were even born.

Sure. If hooking up with someone else helps give them the impetus/drive/courage to leave an abusive marriage, I have no issue with that.

No, it’s not ok. But that’s why OP feels differently

@wildgreyseas I too am an affair baby (only came to light when I was around 16/18 years old). My mum was married to a mean man (father to my older sibling), and she and my conceived me (they had been in a relationship years earlier and they were actual soulmates). Conceiving me meant my mum had the courage to leave that marriage and make it official with my dad (they married a week before I was born!). There is no shame, trust me.

You feel like your dad laughed at your pain, OP. That's why you're reacting as strongly as you are.

Your dad was your role model for how men should behave, and you've found out he doesn't have the integrity you always thought he did. That hurts. I get it. But if I can say . . . I think you might've had your head in the sand a little. In the circumstances you describe - particularly the reaction of his ex-wife - I would have doubted their story long ago. Your dad may have laughed because he assumed you had figured that out as you got older. Or he assumed ex-wife had told you.

The thing is, your dad still left his ex-wife and ruined the childhoods of your step-siblings, as you say he did. It doesn't really make a difference if he left them before the ink was dry on the divorce papers or not. The hurt he caused was the same either way, particularly for the kids. I'm not really sure why it bothers you more now than it did before?

How were you coping with their unhappiness before? How had you squared it all away in your head?

Judgy, virtue signalling and making it about you.
Wow.

But ok to sleep with someone else?

Much as cheating isn't great and causes a lot of hurt, if a marriage is over, separated in every way other than a bit of paper I can't see that as fully cheating. There's no 'relationship' there, just some red tape.

I haven't ever questioned if I am an affair baby. I don't think I am, but my Mother cheated on her first husband (an abusive arsehole, which I think also lets someone off the hook if they cheat!) with my Dad.

I might ask. But I might just forget to ask because I don't care, it really isn't a big deal.

Are they still together and happy?
Frankly- they don't need your judgement.
Your mum was in a abusive relationship and she found happiness with someone else who clearly also wasn't happy in their marriage.
Life is messy. I do hope you're perfect.

This is only a big deal because you're making it one OP. What went on in the romantic relationships of two adults many years ago isn't your business, being related to them or being involved in conversations about it doesn't make that any more true. I would sit with it a while as new information and then distance myself from it, there isn't any reason this needs to affect your relationships. It isn't for you to morally police the historical actions of others when they're realistically quite minimal in terms of negative effects. Language like 'disgusting' is very extreme for the circumstances you're describing and you need to be careful how you word things if you speak to them about it or you're likely to create a real issue between yourselves.

It seems like this has more to do with your own trauma around being cheated on, which is understandable but is for you to deal with separately. Unfortunately these things happen in life, all kinds of relationships end and that will work out for the better for some than others and that too is a part of life. it sounds as though the decision your parents made was the right one for them both.