ATBU - parents' reaction to affair

[MiniMummy576]

Recently my friend found out that her sister was sleeping with her husband. She's obviously devastated but she's getting no support from her parents, she's tried to talk to them about how she feels they've taken her sister's side but they dismiss it as 'preposterous'.

My friend was always close with her younger sister - even though she was very coddled and a bit spoilt as the ‘baby’ of the family. Two months ago, after becoming suspicious, my friend went to her sister's flat and caught them at it. She 'caused a scene' (as her parents put it) and hasn't spoken to her sister since.

Her parents have told her to ‘stop making a fuss’ and seem very embarrassed by how upset she is and keep telling her to ‘be reasonable’. When the husband has the children for the weekend they all (husband, sister and parents) go out ‘as a family’ but the parents are always ‘too busy’ to see my friend when she has the children. Yesterday my friend found out that the parents are planning on taking husband, sister and children away on a ‘family holiday’.

On top of it all my friend gave up her job on her husband’s insistence to raise their family and is now struggling financially. Her (rather well off) parents won’t help but they are lavishing gifts on the sister, husband and children during their weekends with them.

I think her parents’ reactions are unbelievably cruel and it’s like they’re trying to push her out of her own family in preference of the new little unit they’ve set up. It’s not just me, right? I know the parents have two daughters and it’s a careful line to tread, but I don’t think they’re even bothering to try.

Tell your friend to hang on in there. Her bastard sister will soon get bored of the husband as she probably only wanted him to get at her sister, and he'll soon be shagging someone else. Don't give up on the children, as they're going to need their mum when it all goes tits up and the oldest will realise her father is a dick.

As for her parents, fuckem, they'll be left in the lovely position of crawling to your friend when he fucks off and can't be bothered taking his kids to visit them. They'll be in a state of panic, when it happens and she can do whatever suits her then.

I have no words, I am absolutely and unbelievably appalled. I am so sorry for your friend.

Tell your friend to give the kids to dad and "fun auntie" - she won't be such fun when she has to give up work to look after the kids (he won't) and doesn't have time for exciting forbidden sex. See then who has the last laugh.

I would so move myself and the kids to the ends of the earth to get away from that shower of wankers.

The best thing for your friend to do in this situation is to completely harden her heart. It is very difficult. But @wernethwife suggest the correct thing. It will be very difficult to do in the short term. Your friend should proceed to divorce her slug of a husband. She should them refuse to have full time care of the children. Insist that the children live with husband and sister and she has contact once a week and every other weekend. This will initially please her husband as he will feel he has won. New lady on the side and his kids with him, complete family once again. The sister will be less thrilled to now have full time care of her neice and nephew. Make no mistake, she doesn't love them. If she did she would never have done that to their mum. Her affection for them at present is all an act which will drop soon enough when she has to look after them full time. This will implode their relationship and chances are a man like that will go looking for comfort elsewhere. In the meantime, your friend can be the steady calm rock for her children and be the oasis from the mess that will very soon be their home life. I bet the children will be clamouring to live with her again in a year or two.

I have to say though if it were me, I would be doing something quite criminal and take my chances with a jury. Certain things can drive even he most rational people to extreme actions. This is such a betrayal.

That level of manipulation is emotionally abusive to the children IMO. It must be terribly confusing and damaging for the children to have their parents split up and move straight in to "aunty is now your stepmum and it is all your mums fault". Don't be too harsh on them, just encourage them to be kind to their mum and don't let yourself get dragged in to "actually it was all daddy's fault" because that won't help them either.

The kids involved were a lot older when it happened in our family, but they are all still damaged by it.

Dear God, this is just incomprehensible - how can people be so utterly unfeeling?

To be betrayed by ALL your family AND your husband, and then have the kids turned against you. What on earth did everyone expect your friend to do FFS?

Could social services be contacted about the level of emotional abuse I'm wondering? Yes I know they're busy bla bla bla

Wow what the fuck... rage would have taken over by this point if it was me. The whole happy families with the kids thing would have pushed me over the edge. Incensed just reading about it. Your poor friend

Parents couldn't give a fuck about her. They obviously favour the sister and are putting her needs before their other daughters. My DM is a bit like that she would take my sister's side even if she murdered someone

Disgusting. I have no words.

She is without a doubt a woman most in need of a Shit Hot Lawyer. She can't let the brainwashing of the children continue. Get her to speak to someone asap, consider stopping access or reducing to every other weekend as the behaviour of the father is clearly not in the best interests of the children and get a court agreement in place ASaP.

Also get the schoo onside, speak with teachers about how best to protects them.

What a bunch of horrible horrible cunts. Cunts. The lot of them.

Single White Female-d by her own sister - unbe-fucking-lievable!

Not that the husband is blameless of course, what a fucking fuck.

You are a fantastic friend, focus on supporting her and reassuring her that no, she's not insane, they are absolute garbage people. If I were her I'd confront my parents about behaving so reprehensibly, but that's up to her. They're literally unbelievable.

You may all laugh about this in a few years time when the dust has settled .... she's certainly well out of a relationship with a man like that. In the meantime...

the DC are being turned against their mum ... it's all 'mummy's being silly' from her GPs

WHOOOAA!!!!

At a pinch I can just about see that they're trying to keep the family from fracturing - even though they're going about it completely the wrong way - but that's going way too far. I'm afraid that, if they consider it their place to poison the children, that would be sufficient reason for me to go completely NC

Why are they so desperate to keep this horrible pair onside anyway? Is there a back story, where they're of value to the GPs some way - financial or otherwise?

I wouldn't be letting the kids see the gps at all. I wouldn't be letting the father see the children while the sister is there. So a lawyer is needed asap. And I agree she has to harden her heart, get support from outside her family and a good lawyer.

Doesn't the 'D'H need your friend's permission to take the DC out of the country? There is no way they'd be going on that holiday.

Shocked

I can't get over how nasty your friend's parents are being. Not only to your friend, but also to her children. There's dysfunction - and then there's this!

Was your friend's sister the golden child? You said that she was coddled a lot - by all of them, or simply by the parents? Because this might be why your friend's parents have chosen her side - and make no bones about it... they have chosen the sister's side, I'm afraid.

I have a son and a daughter, but if one were to find the other having an affair with the other parent of their children? I doubt very much that I could behave like your friend's parents have. I don't think there are very many of us who either could - or would. They actually told your friend to "stop making a fuss" over the fact that her husband/the father of her children was having sex with her sister?!

Your friend and her children (before they learn to have affairs with each other's partners/spouses, from their father, aunt and grandparents!) are best off out. Cutting herself free from their blackened little world seems the best bet for your friend to recover, I'm afraid

To the poster suggesting that she send the children to live with the husband, no no no no absolutely not. These children are already being used as pawns in their games, the mother can't be seen to be doing that as well, she has to be the consistent in their lives.

From her point of view however there are things that she can do: Firstly, as hard as it is, she needs to go to mediation with her ex to discuss the access arrangements. As hard as it is, mediation is a place she can bring up the parental alienation in a neutral environment, and if the father persists with this then she will have a good case if/when she goes to court for suggesting minimal contact based on alienation.

Secondly, she needs to apply for maintenance for the children. Based on the minimal contact she needs to base her claim on that. Does she work? Because if not then she also needs to pursue spousal maintenance from him on the basis she put her career on hold to bring up their joint children.

Do they own the house? On the basis of her position as primary carer she needs to apply for the majority of the equity. I know that some advocate fighting to stay in the family home at this point, but the reality is that the more of a clean break she makes from him the better.

What else does he have she can go after? Pension? Savings? The family car?

She also needs to go to the CAB to see what benefits she's entitled to, and she needs to find a decent solicitor ASAP.

How unbelievably awful for your friend. Good job she has friends like you on her side.

My friend has been through similar and 5 years on she is so much better than she was when married. Her exdh and his new wife, her ex friend, did everything they could to cause trouble and mayhem for her. They got SS involved saying she was a bad mum, reported her to the council over her extension, tried to get school to only have their details etc, but they failed on each account. She stayed amazingly strong and put so much time and effort into her dc, even when running on empty, that they are all incredibly close now. I am completely in awe of how well she coped.

Her dc were very confused through it all but she always encouraged them to talk and constantly told them she loved them. She proved that she was there for them no matter what. She is now remarried and her new dh is absolutely wonderful, much better than last one!

Your friend needs to dig really, really deep and stay calm and happy whenever kids are around and awake. Play the winning game, do not give in, and she will come out victorious. Carry on with usual routines, have friends for tea and do fun things at weekends with her friends. Keep telling them how much she loves them and also say that dad and aunty can say how they feel about themselves but not about her because it's not true.

Can you help by arranging to do things with them during the week or at weekends? As a group can you almost set up a rota to help her so the dc love being with her and realise that dad isn't telling the truth?

I don't agree that she should give up custody as that may back fire and also dc will think that she doesn't love them. Yes, they are saying nasty things but they are hurting and don't know how to deal with it.

I cannot imagine being in this position, but am so sad that your friend is.

Please don't encourage her to make her DH resident parent and plunge the kids further into this mess than they currently are. It might be a successful tactic for putting pressure on the STBXH's relationship, but not without consequence for the children and their relationships with both parents.

I'm sure it feels hopeless right now, but I think your friend needs to be patient and reassure herself that at the very least, her children will not remain lost to her. So long as she remains calm and reasonable, the truth about the family will be plain for her children to see when they're older.

'Doesn't the 'D'H need your friend's permission to take the DC out of the country? There is no way they'd be going on that holiday.' the problem with this is that it can and probably will backfire. The husband has already shown that he's prepared to play games with regards to his children, so it's entirely likely that if the friend refuses permission so will the husband for future holidays assuming they are granted a joint parenting order.

As difficult as it is she has to play everything by the book, because that way she wil come out on top as the reasonable one. The courts take a very dim view of parents who use their children, and regardless of what we think, it's unlikely that the courts would refuse permission for a parent and grandparents to take the children on holiday because the relationship with the mother has broken down.

As a previous poster said, the best course of action, although by far emotionally the hardest, is for her to just keep reassuring her children that she loves them, and that they can talk to her at any point. They're six and eight, when they say nasty things they don't really realise what it is they're saying or the implications, so she just needs to dismiss them as such, and in time things will settle down.

That is dreadful. Absolutely disgusting from the sister but the parents? Wow. I haven't got words for that. If they want to support the sister's relationship, fine, that's their decsion (however much I would disagree with it) but treating them as a family? That's beyond the pale. They have no care for their grandchildren here and should be maintaining their link with them via their Mother NOT via their father. Are they hoping for your friend to simply walk away and disappear? The whole situation sounds toxic. Your poor friend . My heart goes out to her.