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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

No, your affair isn't the 'love story of the century'

175 replies

cosmonautkitten · 29/12/2017 00:42

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with my DM and the way she portrays her marriage as the most perfect and romantic love story with no thought for the pain and suffering she's caused. Basically, a couple of years ago my mother left my father for my now stepfather, after an affair that began in 2009. Although they originally cut off contact after their spouses found out about their infidelity in 2011, after three years they 'couldn't help' contacting each other again and decided to run off to be together.

I was 18 at the time and had not long left home for university, but was basically my DF's only emotional support for at least a year afterwards, despite being several hundred miles away. With regards to my mother and stepfather, I've tried my best to be supportive and form a relationship with my new stepfather and accept them as a couple - we're going on holiday together in the summer, I was MOH at their wedding and I do actually like my stepfather as a person. However, I do feel like I was forced into being supportive too quickly and that if I'd expressed anger or refused to accept my stepfather I would have lost the relationship with my mother entirely - especially as I was told that DM had said I was one of the things she was willing to 'give up' to be with him Sad.

I honestly think I would be much happier with it if DM wasn't so 'in your face' about it all the time. When I visited over Christmas they had purchased a new artwork - a canvas with words and dates that were important to them and it had in large letters FINALLY TOGETHER! in the middle and the date they ran off together next to it. She frequently posts on Facebook that he's the 'most important thing in the world' to her and really revels in it every time someone calls them a nice couple or such like. They have new jobs working together and their colleagues and other new friends they've made have been told a highly edited version of how they met (along the lines of "oh we were together at uni and had such a spark but then lost track of each other for 30 years and KNEW we were meant to be") with no mention of the other people they were married to at all.

She doesn't tell this version to save face but so everyone will think they are the 'perfect couple'. I understand that this is the way things are but these constant reminders of quite how they started their relationship are still a little hurtful, even three years later. If they could just be quietly in love and not constantly telling me how glad they are to have found happiness in other people's pain it would be so much nicer.

Happy to be told AIBU though and that I should be totally over it after three years - would give me some more perspective!

OP posts:
Butterymuffin · 29/12/2017 00:48

No advice but I'd find that infuriating too.

Lalliella · 29/12/2017 00:53

No advice here either except definitely YANBU. I would find the bit about being willing to give you up particularly hurtful. You do know don’t you though that the best sign of a healthy relationship is no mention of it on Facebook...?

Namechangetempissue · 29/12/2017 00:54

That would get up my nose too. I think she probably knows she/they did a really shitty thing and that her over the top declarations of love are her effort to comfort herself and assuage her guilt. If she was 100% content in her decision she wouldn't feel the need to defend it all the time.
Personally, I would just let her get on with it and ignore all the silly comments and twee signs.

peachgreen · 29/12/2017 00:58

Hmm, I wonder if this is a bit of guilt talking on your DM's part? It's almost like she's trying to justify her behaviour with how special and "meant to be" her relationship is. Perhaps in her eyes if everyone sees the relationship in the way she does - as a grand, fated, beautiful love story - they'll also understand why she did what she did? That would also explain why she brushes over the details with others (although in fairness she's within her rights not to share the ins and outs with the world).

I'm not saying she's right to do this, or that it does in fact justify her behaviour (in fact quite the opposite - I don't believe an affair is ever justified) but I wonder if that's her motivation behind it all - ultimately it's just an attempt to assuage her own guilt.

I feel for you OP - it must be very hard.

CheapSausagesAndSpam · 29/12/2017 00:59

YANBU. My friend's DH has just left her and their teenage children for some woman he met online.

He keeps trying to involve his teens in his "wonderful new family"

He's fucking deluded! his poor DD is very upset and all he can think of is his new family which is in reality, a bunch of strangers.

Bloomed · 29/12/2017 01:01

That's so hard to live with OP. You've done better than I would. Who said your mother would be willing to give up your relationship? I would probably distance myself for my own sanity.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 29/12/2017 01:01

YANBU. The world don't give a shiny shit about your mothers perfect relationships, and nor does it have to.
They both cheated on their partners, so what's to stop them chesting on each other. What goes around comes around and when it does your poor dad and your step fathers ex wife will hopefully and rightly be lapping it up.

SilverBirchTree · 29/12/2017 01:02

You’re not unreasonable at all. That sounds really hurtful.

I don’t think you can do much about it though, apart from learning to let it go. Your mum sounds like a teenager, oblivious to other people’s feelings but consumed by her own.

ShovingLeopard · 29/12/2017 01:04

OP, I think you have the patience of a saint. YADNBU. I totally agree with PPs that this is all about assuaging her guilt.

Devilishpyjamas · 29/12/2017 01:07

Sounds ghastly. Even if this was a first marriage that much shouting about being in love would be hard to stomach. It’s just crass given the pain they caused.

edwinbear · 29/12/2017 01:07

OP I empathise. My DF did similar, ran off leaving my DM (his wife of 30 yrs) after he got in touch with an old uni friend via Friends Reunited. It caused devastation to our family and irreparable damage to relationships throughout as we were expected to be delighted that he was finally with the love of his life. I'm not sure there is anything you can do though, I went NC with my DF and we were estranged when he died 6 months later. I remain relieved he didn't have the time to marry the woman, I could never have played happy families with her and I think you are very strong to have embraced her new relationship as you have.

cosmonautkitten · 29/12/2017 01:13

bloomed My DF told me - he was in an absolutely awful place, especially as my DGM (his DM) died a month after my DM left him. Perhaps he shouldn't have shared it, but I really don't blame him, and at least then I knew nothing I could say would change anything so I had to get on with life.

I brought it up with DM about a year ago and she claims to have never said it and that it was completely untrue. I know she said it and I know she meant it then and that it would still apply now. Oh well.

OP posts:
wanderlust99 · 29/12/2017 01:13

Gosh OP you have behaved beautifully in the face of it, especially after the revelation of her being willing to give you up! How did you find out about that? There is no way I would have gone been MOH either. Your DM sounds so deluded that I am embarrassed for her.

Bloomed · 29/12/2017 01:19

I think your df was right to tell you. In light of all that I would probably distance myself. She may well be trying to assuage her guilt but I wouldn't be playing along. I think how you feel about all this might change as the years go by and you might get more angry.

Weezol · 29/12/2017 01:28

That canvas is nauseating. I probably would have taken it outside and burned it . I think you have been exceptionally neutral thus far.
Their relationship began with lies, and is now sustained by lies. You are not being remotely unreasonable in your response to this.

paranoidpammywhammy2 · 29/12/2017 01:31

I've found it hard with my friend. I've distanced myself as I find her daughter's behaviour disgusting - selfish, cruel and vindictive and my friend just seems to ignore it all. The daughter has just had the 'love story of the century' with her best friend's partner. They'd just got engaged.

My friend keeps harping on about their beautiful, romantic relationship whilst her daughter flaunts it all in everyone's faces. The ex-girlfriend/daughter's best friend was like a second daughter to my friend after her mum died. She's just an inconvenience now as she spoils the story.

thegreatbeyond · 29/12/2017 01:34

You sound very, very tolerant. I don't know that I could manage that, but yanbu, definitely.

MostIneptThatEverStepped · 29/12/2017 01:38

You have my sympathy OP and my kids would also empathise with you. Their dad left us for a new woman and her kids (mine were roughly 10, 12,14) and 8 years later still have to endure stomach turning pictures and statuses on FB. "My darling wife", "the love of my life" etc 🙄
In reality they fight a lot and ruined around 9 other lives to have their joyous existence.

cosmonautkitten · 29/12/2017 01:39

weezol The canvas is truly bloody awful! It doesn't even go with the rest of the house (all antiques and farrow and ball, haha). It also has a reference to their chickens which I loathe, not least because I think they're neglecting my childhood cats in favour of these fucking feathered things Angry

The worst part is that I hung it for them as DM was claiming she had no idea how to hang a picture. No idea at all what I was thinking!

OP posts:
Weezol · 29/12/2017 01:41

Fuck me, she also took the cats?

BrokenBattleDroid · 29/12/2017 01:47

Sounds awful to witness, although I must say it sounds rather like she's trying convince herself that it's all lovey dovey and wondeful. Otherwise, what a waste it all was and she would have put you all through the mill for nada. Much easier to throw yourself into the 'meant to be' crap.

Mustang27 · 29/12/2017 01:51

Oh god that sounds truly awful. I hope your dad is in a better place mentally now. I'm with other posters suggesting it's overkill because she is trying to conv

Mustang27 · 29/12/2017 01:52

Shit fat fingers sorry. *trying to convince herself that it was worth all the pain she caused.

You should just take a step back for your own sanity now you have been an emotional crutch for both of them and doesn't sound like anyone has been there for you to lean on.

cosmonautkitten · 29/12/2017 01:54

They now live in the family home after they bought my DF out of his half after a couple of years of renting, so the cats have stayed put and the little bouncy kitten who was my fifth birthday present is now my stepfather's very elderly lap cat.

I wanted to take them at one point because I don't think they're taken to the vet enough or being fed good quality cat food but it wouldn't really have been feasible. I've got a cat of my own and one of them is a Burmese who can be very territorial with the toilet issues associated with that (not great in a fully carpeted rental)

OP posts:
TemptressofWaikiki · 29/12/2017 01:57

She sounds like an utterly self-absorbed cowbag. So sorry OP, you are being really mature about it but I'd feel the same.