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.

They are one of those families where they have a favourite child, and your friend is not the favourite! They are being completely blatant in favouring her sister, even when she has behaved despicably.
I had a friend like this growing up - I realised how bad it was when her parents were giving me a lift home. The little sister came with us, by my friend was told quite sternly that she needs to stay and run her sisters bath...
This might not sound too unreasonable...until I mentions that said little sister was 14 at the time, and my friend was 15.5...both lovely girls, but I don't think the parents see much of the older one now!

Your poor friend needs to lean on her friends for love and support, and minimise contact with these people, who don't value her.

They're abusive, she needs to go NC and fast to save her sanity (it did mine!).

I think as well as supporting your friend you need to help her get a really good lawyer to obtain custody of the kids and the maintenance she needs. I can not believe that her parents are being so nasty and naive.

@fizzygreenwater
Shit husband yes but as a dad he is still maintaining a relationship with his kids which is good.
As shit dad would be off galavanting with his new bit, putting time into a new relationship instead of seeing his kids

But on the whole he sounds like a cunt

She should cut them all off and just focus on her kids. Financially I don't think it's her parents responsibility to help, she's an adult and made the decision not to work - no one forced her so that's her responsibility and she should now make sure she becomes financially independent (apart from his child maintenance contributions, obviously), but emotionally I agree with PP - be there for her, she needs you. X

What a complete bunch of arse wipes. Poor woman and as for the children, being related and having to spend time with such twisted, poisonous bastards. I know the father has rights but I'd be minimising contact as much as possible, like moving to the other side of the country....

No Grandparents at all is much better than Toxic Grandparents who are emotionally abusing your poor friend AND her children by talking about "silly mummy". Very glad your friend has you to support her. The GPs are trying to drive a wedge between your friend and her children and she must take steps to keep the children away from that toxicity. 💐

Poor, poor girl. I cannot even begin to imagine how she must be hurting, totally let down by everyone whom she thought she could rely on and now they are just carrying on the hurt. Gosh, how do you recover from something like this, who knows. I truly hope there is something wonderful just around the corner for her.

Shit husband yes but as a dad he is still maintaining a relationship with his kids which is good.

No, he's a shit dad. He's deliberately turning his kids against their mum. Making kids hate a good person who loves them for your own selfish reasons is beyond shit.

The parents have no morals. The husband must have something on them, be it money, the kids, whatever. Ultimately i feel sorry for the children because the adults around them are normalising disgusting behaviour.

This is horrid, absoloutely evil i dont use that word lightly . In her shoes i would alert the school, and SS about the situation and that you are concerned about the emotional abuse the children are expieriencing and that they are being encouraged to abuse you emotionally. Then stop all contact even with the dad let him kick off youve already alerted SS so it will be recorded.

Shocking.

Your friend should immediately go NC with her family and file for sole custody. Her Ex and her sister are fucking with her children's heads, so she needs to find people who will fight for her and her children.

Agree BewareofDragons

Awful, dreadful, poor woman. Someone mentioned earlier about what tale DH and Sis are telling parents about the break up. My BIL had a long affair which eventually got found out and after lots of heartache (and more lies) SIL decided to divorce him. The utter crap my BIL spouts to his parents about why he couldn't keep his dick in his pants is unfuckingbelievable - and my dumb ass in laws fall for it every time. I know love is blind and he is their son but he is the most childish, pathetic, manipulative arse that ever lived. When my MIL said to me 'well you do know she has a lover' I nearly imploded! Apparently, she also didn't give him enough attention (she was main breadwinner and working her arse off!) My SIL has had a lucky escape - feel so sad that this is your friends parents though - maybe cosseted little sis and DH have told them all sorts of shit about your friend to justify their actions? Agree with everything Kahlua said about supporting your friend and helping ensure that she is emotionally able to cope with the challenges of what her shitty family are throwing at her, and stay a strong mum to those poor confused kids.

Op said the GP's had been referencing the mum as 'silly mummy' to (in front of) the children, not the dad

This story is so shocking. The parents, sister and husband are all appalling.

I would be taking him to court for every penny I could get.

I would also let little sister know it will be her turn next when this evil man gets bored of her.

Then I would go no contact with the lot of them.

I think in my more mean mood I would also go out of my way to let their social circle know what the sister and parents had done.

Truly awful people.

A male friend once told me that his father left his mother for a cousin of hers.

They then tried to alienate him from his mother, but he saw through it when he found his mother crying one day. She told him that she was sad because she was scared of losing him. It was then that he realised that his father and OW were trying to turn him against his mother, and he called his dad out on it.

After that the father and OW lost interest in him and things dwindled to only occasional contact. Now as an adult, he has virtually no contact with his father, who is still married to OW.

I think it would be OK for the children to see how this is affecting their mother (in an age appropriate way). Perhaps they could even see a councillor or something together?

No, he's a shit dad. He's deliberately turning his kids against their mum. Making kids hate a good person who loves them for your own selfish reasons is beyond shit.

This.

Touchingcloth "Shit husband yes but as a dad he is still maintaining a relationship with his kids which is good."

I do not think it is good for the kids to have contact with a man who would behave in this way, who would noralise this this kind of abusive relationship. If he had an ounce of shame or decency he would establish a relationship with his kids and only introduce their aunt as his 'partner' once life had established some sort of 'normal' balance.

To rub his wife's nose in this tawdry affair, and to expect his kids to play happy families with their aunt, his mistress, is pretty sick and fucked up. It's very possible he or the aunt will bugger off with someone else at some point, so his kids are not in any way his focus. I'd say his focus was pretty obvious! The parents behaviour is shite and I'd want nothing to do with any of them.

I hope that the affair does crumble and the grandparents realise they have bet on the wrong parent, choosing heir SIL over their own daughter is vile.

None of this says good parenting! From either generation!

The OP will be picking up the pieces for a while to come, I hope she can find happiness with her kids and away from these vipers.

Does your friend know how long the affair had gone on for before she found out?

This is ab utterley horrendous situation your friend is in.I am stunned that she is being treated as if SHE is the one in the wrong. As others have said, she should cut her parents out of her life, and, possibly think about going through court to minimise the amount of time her children have to spend with their Father and Aunt. And I only say that because surely such a twisted situation can only have a detrimental impact on her kids? Thank goodness she has you xxx

I know it sounds like I'm sticking up for the husband but I generally think he is a bastard for what he has done. But I haven't read the OP stating that he has done any slandering/whispering to the children. My understanding is it's the grandparents reaction and behaviour that is An issue.
In which case I think the children's exposure to them should be limited.
If that then means the dad gets limited time with them too because he is constantly with the new bit and grandparents then so be it.
Any childcare professional would say that stopping children from seeing the other parent can be damaging. Unless the other parent is abusive and the children are frightened. As long as their safety is assured they should still see their father.

MiniMummy576 when I was a small child my father had an affair with a member of my DM family, my DM got a restraining order against the family member and the judge who granted it said that it was potentially psychologically damaging for a young child to have a family member suddenly become a stepmother and it would be confusing. The restraining order was in place until I was 16, I think this is definitely something your friend should look into, it's not fair for the children have their auntie suddenly be daddy's girlfriend and have this new family forced on them. I think your friends parents are disgusting and she should consider having a break from them too

@shockers it was only going on for a few weeks before she found out.

@touchingcloth14 he hasn't been saying anything nasty about mum to the kids, which is one thing I suppose but he hasn't done anything to accept the blame either and hasn't really corrected what the GPs have been saying.

Thank you all for your replies and your support for my friend. She's quite a private person so was a bit upset with me when another friend told her I'd posted about her on MN, so I don't think she'll be signing up for an account but I have made the suggestion to her.

Things kicked off a bit at the weekend. I hope you're sitting down - it's a bit of a shocker.

Friday night - my friend was upstairs having a bath after a very long day at work whilst me and the girls were cooking dinner. (We had an evening of both Dirty Dancing films, wine, chocolate cake and, depending how drunk they got, Magic Mike XXL planned) (DC were with their dad). Her mobile starts buzzing on the dining room table. It's the sister. Cue much bitching between us about the skank girl. My friend comes downstairs just as the phone starts ringing AGAIN. Against our advice she answers it. Sister and the ExH have had a row - she thinks he's cheating because of some rumours that I can neither confirm nor deny that me and the girls were involved in.

Because my friend is the kindest person in the world she listens to her sister blub for about 10 minutes before we wrestle the phone off her and tell the sister that she made her own sodding bed and she can bloody well lie in it. The evening continues after pouring too much wine in my friend's glass.

Saturday we (the friends) all go out with DHs and DCs and my friend's DCs seem pretty much back to normal ('look at me mummy!', 'over here mummy!', 'can you carry me mummy?' etc etc, which was lovely. The first time we'd really seen her smile in weeks.) Hope shimmers on the horizon.

Sunday - there's a party for my friend's father's mother (still with me? ) at her care home/residential home. Everyone is clapping along with 1940's drag queen act and having a great time singing war songs etc, when from inside an argument is suddenly heard. Sister is screaming at ExH and he's doing his best to keep her quiet. My friend's daughter gets involved because auntie is throwing stuff at her daddy. Auntie/sister swears at her . To his credit - and this is probably the only thing - ExH gathers up his daughter in his arms and tells the sister that he won't accept that sort of behaviour towards his children and promptly removes a crying daughter from the situation, but daughter promptly wants mummy and wraps herself around my friend. Little brother is also now crying and clings to mummy's legs. GPs hurry over to try and hush up the situation. Everyone at the party is watching in fascination when in sweeps Gran - home from Europe as a surprise for other grandmother's birthday - and demands to know what is going on.

She removes the family members (friend, sister, ExH, GPs) into a room and the story all comes out. When they exit the room my friend's mother is looking very shamefaced after a proper dressing down from her mother.

GPs are now falling over themselves to apologise and it seems the spell has been broken with the DCs and they're back to normal. Gran has told my friend that she's sorting everything. It's not over yet but it's looking a darn sight better than last week, thank God.

That's good. What her parents did is unforgivable though. Your friend shouldn't let her guard down either. Her family were prepared to throw her under the bus, one argument is unlikely to change that. She should still take steps to limit their contact with the children.