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

[cosmonautkitten]

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 .

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!

It sounds like she is justifying the relationship, proving to anyone who knows the story or through anyone who may know - that it has worked out with him.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say she doesn’t like being told ‘I told you so’.... so she’s going to make it work?
Still sucks though. Steal the cats. I’ll have them for you...

mustang27 Yes, my DF's doing a lot better! He's been seeing someone new for about a year now and I really think she'll stick around for a long time . Spending time with them is so refreshing in comparison to DM and DSF's relationship.

You're right in that no-one was really there for me to lean on. The night after I found out I left my uni flat and went on a long long night time walk through the city - I knew that that was really my only time to myself to accept what had happened and I had to be strong for DF. I hadn't been at uni long and didn't really want to bore my new friends or seem like someone who should be pitied so purposefully didn't lean on anyone at the time either. I think I was just trying really really hard to not be sad about it, and it mostly worked...

A common story with relationships that start as affairs I think, OP. Fucking kudos to you for being as strong and fair minded as you have been. You should congratulate yourself for that. Best of luck to your Dad too.

I think you're being more than reasonable, given the circs.

It drives me mad how everyone is meant to praise a couple for getting together nowadays, whoever else has been hurt in the process.

I'm glad your DF seems to have found someone new, I wonder if your DM will be as happy about that as she expects you to be about her new set up.

Your story is similar in ways to mine, OP, and I have to say, you are a much more forgiving person than me.

It sounds as if you need to get it out - I’ve written dozens of angry, angsty letters over the years. I don’t tend to send them, just use them to vent and offload.

I’ve also confronted him (my DF in my story) a handful of times, to tell him how I feel. Unfortunately my findings were that he simply didn’t actually care, felt his needs were more important at the time (I too, was told he would ‘give me up’, aged 17, straight from the horses mouth; horrible memory) and had no qualms about telling me that. He’s since shown his capacity to be a selfish fuckwit in other ways so it appears to be part of his personality. So we are now NC, after 15 years of strained, uncomfortable communication. I’m sad often but life is a little easier.

I don’t know what to say other than try writing it out, and if you are brave enough, maybe take a bit of a break from them and see how you feel.

Your feelings are reasonable, you own them. Your father and mother own theirs.

I had similar. If I am honest with myself, the reason I was so hurt and angry ( but still organised their wedding, like a dutiful daughter ) was that I confused my father loving his new wife so much, as rejecting his past and his children in favour of her.

The reality is different. Yes he rejected his first marriage and his new relationship took absolute precedent BUT as years (20) have passed he is still my father. DM is remarried, to a boring arse, but she is a tricky woman too.

I think, on reflection, it worked out to some degree. However, if similar happens to DH and I, we have learnt how important it is for the children to still feel loved and valued. No matter what age.

It sounds like you feel your DM has treated you all as disposable while showing herself capable of great love to the new man. This will make you feel unworthy but honestly, you are not. It will calm down. Thpugh for us it took years. Just live your life and build up your people around you. Xx

It could feel refreshing just to not have a relationship thrust upon you that you are told to like or to beat it . It's really crap when you realise something like a parents self obsession and selfishness it changes how you view them entirely for the rest of your life.

I honestly feel for you, uni is a massive change I actually think it's scary how many people seem to think they no longer need to parent their adult children and be there for them. It must feel a bit like you got to 18 and your mum downed tools and just decided your feelings no longer matter.

I hope you survived uni whilst all this went on. You do sound like you dealt with this incredibly well and have put up with a lot you haven't felt comfortable with. You are allowed to be sad about it and especially for yourself.

Similar thing happened to me, my DM died and a few days later we were introduced to my fathers 'friend'. Turns out he'd been seeing her for months before my DM died. Becaumy parents had a difficult marriage I was immediately forced down the route of accepting my fathers new partner because 'she made him happier than he'd been for years'. I may have been able to it a little if she'd been a nice woman but she quickly got her feet in my fathers home and revealed her true colours as a total bitch.
Because I would not accept her in mine or my children's lives my father cut contact with me, declaring his love for his partner was more important. It broke my heart but when I think about it, if he's the type of man to do this to his offspring then he doesn't deserve us anyway.

(but still organised their wedding, like a dutiful daughter hmm)

An aside but when has it ever been a daughter’s duty to organise a wedding? ..... It not exactly being dutiful to your wronged Mum!

It could feel refreshing just to not have a relationship thrust upon you that you are told to like or to beat it... It's really crap when you realise something like a parents self obsession and selfishness it changes how you view them entirely for the rest of your life.

^ This. Consider your own feelings going forwards and don’t feel you have to be bounced into accepting requests or behaviour you aren’t comfortable with.

I regret agreeing to my stepmother being referred to as “Granny Barbara” to keep up pretences that everything was happy families for my father’s sake. She didn’t deserve the honour - we quietly dropped it later and just referred to them as Grandpa and Barbara. I can honestly say that having my own children brought a lot of historic pain over their relationship into focus.

Thank you for the comment coconutty. I was asked to do it and did. And my mother attended. It was 6 years post divorce and the whole point is my parents did their best to make sure that we children were not pressured to take sides. I.e. trying to prevent a feud, which would help no-one.

I hope that talking about it here helps. I really empathise.

I also agree with badbadhusky. IME it will make you re-evaluate accepting behaviour from others or being put in invidious positions

If talking to a third party about your feelings helps you to bear being with them, so be it. But personally, I'd suggest that either you distance yourself, or (better) you just talk to her about how this has affected you. What you've said here is really reasonable.

There's a risk there though. If she's generally lacking in psychological insight she may become defensive and rejecting. If that risk is greater than the risk of this eating away at you then you may decide not to do it

Also, as you get older you may come to see your father a little differently. He was put in a terrible situation, but he also put his daughter in a terrible situation. I am so sorry.

It still eats away at me a little (slightly different situation ) 25 years later

I think that your top priority here is you. And that may involve now getting some psychological help. Good luck. You sound so nice and kind

You sound so lovely and understanding OP I feel for you.

sofato5miles Thank you! I think I needed to hear a slightly more positive story amongst all the doom and gloom, haha. I don't want to lose my DM - when we're getting on, we really do have the most lovely times and I would love nothing more than to let my resentment go entirely. She just makes it rather hard sometimes to love her, but I try my best.

NotAgainYoda My DF knows he leant far too much on me at the time and told me things that he shouldn't have told his daughter. We've had some quite meaningful conversations about it in the past year and he's told me how sorry he was. When my DGM died (his only relative besides me) he was in a terrible place so I found it easy to understand and have genuinely forgiven him.

DM will not respond positively if I brought any of this up to her. She is like a teenager in a lot of ways - constantly seeking her own pleasure and feeling every emotion to extremes, to the exclusion of reality. She and my DBro (we have different dads) are basically NC these days because she won't acknowledge or validate his feelings about things that happened in his childhood, so I can see that being my future quite easily.

It's interesting in that I think I do put up with a lot from my female friends. I don't know if this is a result of DM's parenting and this situation, but I've let a couple of people in particular get away with things that I would end a friendship with a male friend or split up with a boyfriend over. Of my two bosses, I'm also much more likely to say 'no' to the man than the woman.... it's slightly worrying seeing it written down like this, as I'd never really evaluated it before

A different perspective, it sounds like she waited quite a long time before leaving, until you had 'flown the nest'. That's presumably something she did for her family, rather than herself? Was she supposed to stay unhappily married until you finished uni? I would see any comments your dad made about her sacrificing her relationship with you in that light - if that was true, she would have left in 2011, surely, rather than trying to keep the family together?
I'm waiting it out til the kids are older. All life is compromise. Leave now, kids see their dad less, we are all poorer, quite possibly also not happier. I know its still hard at any age to see your parents separate, but there has to be a point where you live life for yourself.

Well done for not vomiting on the canvas.

OP you sound very reasonable and level headed

The canvas sounds naff

Painting They didn't end up together in 2011 only because my stepfather's ex-wife begged him to stay with her and he agreed to give their marriage another go. DM therefore had the choice of being alone or staying with DF, and she chose DF (who probably would have forgiven her even if she'd murdered someone tbh). She also left my DBro's DF when DBro was about 3, so I am quite sure that 'not wanting to split up the family' would not have been a consideration of hers.

Thank you for your thoughts though! It's true that she has to live life for herself, and I'm not particularly upset that my parents are divorced, as such, but more the way in which the relationship was formed and how blatant she still is about it, rather than letting how they got together fade into the past... if that makes sense?

Well done for not vomiting on the canvas.
This.

I do wish parents (married or not) would remember the impact on their children of breakups, infidelity etc.

pic = guilt.

Or they're battling to save the relationship they gave so much up for.

I'm definitely scarred by my parents divorce when I was your age, OP. I think the trouble is you are expected to handle it as an adult, but really you are only an adult on paper in your late teens/early 20s, you still get hurt like a child. I think this play a huge part in how your DM and your DF handled it with you.

I can't help thinking that your DM is putting all her eggs in one basket. From your description she has over invested herself and is not her own person. Perhaps that is also what bothers you?

Was she supposed to stay unhappily married until you finished uni?

She could have left the marriage without having an affair. I suspect both OP and her father would have found that much less hurtful.

I'm waiting it out til the kids are older.

It's your life and you have to do whatever you think is best, but if you think the kids are going to thank you for this you're delusional. I knew a few people whose parents split up as soon as they went to university (and I now teach at a university and have encountered it a few times as a reason why a student is really struggling in the first year) and without exception they felt either a) so betrayed by the revelation that their apparently happy family life had been a complete lie or b) resentful that their parents had made them live in an atmosphere of festering tension for years only to finally do the obvious thing once they no longer lived there. Not one of them thought 'how selfless of them, to stick it out for me!' - but I think that's what their parents deludedly expected.