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!

The artwork is a bit nauseating but it's the sort of thing that a couple in a bubble might have.

What is an actual deal-breaker for me is that you've said your mother told you that you 'were one of the things she was prepared to give up to be with this man'. I can't imagine your pain at hearing that. She is a deplorable, self-absorbed and selfish woman. I would be beyond angry and sad at being manipulated into maintaining a relationship.

I've been an OW and, if at the time I'd been in a relationship with children and had decided to leave then I know that my priority would have been to minimise the damage wherever I was causing it, primarily for my children but also for my ex, I would have made it as easy and 'kind' as I could. For my children though, I would not have given them up nor given them any notion that this was even in my head.

I think your mum sounds insecure in her relationship, cosmonaut, people who are insecure are often the ones bleating endlessly about how 'perfect' it all is... because they need to believe that to be true, they can't trust to the future without grand (empty) gestures.

I don't know what else to say really other than however you feel about your mother, you're absolutely and completely justified.

Hats off to you really. My mother did actually give me up to be with her latest man but I'd be walking away if I was you. I was a baby at the time and she's still with him. She thinks she did nothing wrong. Meanwhile I was in care until 18 and it was horrific. But hey, mother is happy .

Perhaps she's really happy. Perhaps your parents relationship wasn't what it seemed?

However the going on and on about it I think anyone would find irritating! But I think it's important to separate your mother and the woman.

She will always be your mother. But she's also an individual who had a life before you. It doesn't excuse the way she did things, but it's something to consider. What if she was the same with your dad when they were first together? But after years that "spark" died.

I'd speak to her about it and YANBU.

It seems like you and sofa both went out of your way to show what decent people you are by getting involved in the affair weddings. I can understand the urge to show that you are being more reasonable than they were, but maybe you can go too far? Perhaps it would be healthier to just be bitchy sometimes, rather than suppressing the rage for the sake of coming across well? You might be afraid of people thinking badly of you, but I've come to the conclusion that actually, people don't necessarily respect you more for being nice.

Maybe she did wait till you were "grown" before she left, which would explain the "finally together". So in her eyes she did make sacrifices for you which shows her love.
Looking at it that way must make it a bit easier for you?

Sorry OP, I've just seen that your mother didn't tell you, your father did. Still, he couldn't have shared that with you if she hadn't said it to him.

Have you talked to them about your concerns about the cats? I think as long as they were taken to the vets when they were ill and being fed I would be o.k with that. If they will ill and not taken then thats really not on.
I think for the rest of it they have been very crass really when they know other people will have been hurt and upset. Yes these things happen but its not O.K to be rubbing peoples faces in it. Thats picture sounds really naff as well. I hink I would distance myself from them tbh and try to arrange some nice things for yourself in the New Year.

Hadn't refreshed the page and seen your last post. She does sound selfish then.

Maybe she did wait till you were "grown" before she left, which would explain the "finally together". So in her eyes she did make sacrifices for you which shows her love.

OP has already explained that the only reason her mother didn't leave earlier was the her OM initially chose his wife, and clearly she wasn't willing to leave without another warm bed to leap to, so no noble sacrifice here!

Sorry, x-post, whines.

3 years?! 😂😂😂. Call me when their “love that has never been loved before” has lasted 30 years, financial difficulties, health problems etc.

They sound selfish and I don’t blame you for being pissed off. Just smile and nod. In my experience those who feel the need to shout loudest about how perfect their relationship is (especially on social media) it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

I think that affairs have a lot in common with rebound relationships: they can be really exciting, with lots of urgent declarations of love, and of course they are usually contrasted with a relationship that has gone on for many years. My first relationship after my exh left was amazing; if it had gone on, we would probably still be telling one another how amazing we were in a nauseating manner. But I wouldn't do it in front of my adult children, as I have half a brain.

I think you have to separate out your feelings here .
Your mum is wrong to push their relationship in your face. Tactless, insensitive. Wrong.

However, you are also wrong to judge her and her choices.

Your mum was possibly unhappy for years and years when you were younger and stuck with your dad for the sake of you and a stable home life. I know- I've got the T-shirt.

It takes huge guts to leave along marriage- I'm on the verge of it after 30+ years. The main thing holding me back is the impact on my DCs now in their 30s. If they weren't around I'd go in a shot.

I also have an old flame who is around and maybe we will end up together, maybe not. I won't leave for him, but we've kept in touch as friends long distance for 30 years off and on.

I think you ought to allow your mum some peace and happiness. Life is short. Yes she started something when she was still married. This happens. Not ideal, but it's not your place to judge.

I think you should talk to her about how 'in your face' her behaviour is, but at the same time accept it's her life and you have all of yours ahead.

It's made even worse by the fact that she had a child from her first marriage, but it's pretty grim in general to boast that a relationship came of an affair. Life happens, people aren't perfect, but don't celebrate it! I remember at a close friend's wedding both her and her husband made speeches in which they spoke jokingly (and in his quite smugly) about the fact that she had another boyfriend when they first got together. I love her, and I think she's much happier with her husband than with her ex so I do think it's a good thing on balance, but I was quite horrified by this - it's just so tasteless to boast about it.

I’ll give it another couple of years......

I’d find the whole thing sickening.

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

People fall in love and leave for other people. It happens. I've seen it countless times with friends, family, colleagues. The 'left' spouse gets over it and usually marries again in a couple of years.

There is no rule that says you can only leave a marriage but not for something else. This is a MN Rule which doesn't work in RL however ideal it may sound.

I think she still feels guilt, deep down, and it's all done to convince herself that she had no choice, their love was destiny, meant to be, blah blah blah. She's trying to control others' reactions. The speed you were forced to accept it all as a good thing is bound to be still ........... mid oesophagus. sorry don't know how to phrase it.

React to every single post to celebrate her new love with a private message to ask if she's feeling guilty about your dad's birthday, wedding anniversary {insert as applicable}

Not much advice here but lots of sympathy. My mum did something very similar. She had an affair with a family friend who I’d previously been very fond of, and ended up leaving my dad to be with him. Because I’d often expressed how much I liked ‘Uncle Pete’ (before I knew about the affair!) my mum went around telling everyone that I was totally fine with it all and that they had my blessing. That was very hard for my poor dad, and I had to phone her one day and tell her to stop saying that to people, because whatever I thought about Pete prior to the affair did not translate into me condoning their relationship!

As the years went on, they would always talk about how they had made it ‘against the odds’ and how they’d proven their great love to all the people who doubted them. It was nauseating to listen to.

A particularly painful moment happened a few years down the line, when I’d bought her and Pete some concert tickets for her birthday. The actual date of the concert was a month or two later. She contacted me the weekend of the event and said it was so kind of me to get them tickets for something on ‘their anniversary’. I hadn’t known it was. I quickly did the maths and realised that this so-called ‘anniversary’ was months before she’d left my dad. Even worse, I figured out that it coincided with a big event that we’d all been at with ‘Uncle Pete’, completely oblivious to anything that might have been going on.

To be fair to her, she was absolutely mortified when I pointed that out to her and acknowledged how insensitive she’d been in talking about it like that. But still...

She and Pete eventually split up a few years ago after their relationship turned very rocky and Pete became an abusive dickhead who started sexting other women behind my mum’s back She’s so much happier now with a lovely new partner and our own relationship is much better than it was, but I can’t help still feeling some occasional resentment for everything she put me and my siblings through.

it was so kind of me to get them tickets for something on ‘their anniversary’
Ugh, frieda, can just imagine that. Just ugh. Even if she had the sense to be mortified.

I really feel for you OP and indeed your DF. I am glad he's found some happiness now. I am divorced because my ex-h had an affair with a new widow who he claims he'd "always loved" . So, he married me, obviously and had a baby. As you do. He left four years ago when that baby was 2 and we had been married for 13 years. Poor OW needed somebody to immediately replace her husband and mine was fair game to her it seems! They have zero shame. I get a solicitors letter from OW if she is ever "outed" and I am not allowed to state that she committed adultery with my ex. Utter pair of twats. The most nauseating thing was when my little boy came back from a contact visit holding a bunch of keys his "father" had forgotton. On it was a keyring with "I found you" engraved on it. Oh do fuck off. These people can justify anything because it suits their narrative to do so. The fact that their "wonderful relationship" has ruined so many lives appears lost on them.

I am amazed at your patience and kindness OP. You're a better person than me

You're a much nicer person than me, OP.

I'd make my own similar canvas with my own memorable dates such as "my parents divorced" etc.

Your mum was possibly unhappy for years and years when you were younger and stuck with your dad for the sake of you and a stable home life.

HA! This would be easier to deal with. Just last month she told me that she'd always love DF really, she just couldn't deny her great passion midlife crisis. DM definitely wanted to have her cake and eat it too as she is now wildly jealous of DF's new girlfriend and is always saying unkind things about her and trying to get me to join in . I normally head it off by saying 'how would you like it if DF was trying to engage me all the time like that about (stepfather's name)' which shuts her up for a bit. Funnily enough, DF is actually very respectful in how he talks about stepfather!

I find it distasteful to witness a ‘friend’ who blogs about her perfect family life (ie gets paid to promote products by pretending she has a perfect lifestyle), with ‘all our kids’ without dwelling on the fact that more than half those kids have a different mother who their father cheated on with her.

The blog archives are full of posts from her previous relationship, and that was apparently perfect too, so they really have to ramp it up now so the new one seems better and ‘worth it’. Of course none of her friends would criticise her to her face, but they’re all privately horrified - I bet you’re not the only one that feels like this.

something similar happened in our family

not exactly the same but my dm passed away about a month later df anounces his new partner and how in love he is

i couldnt even get out of bed most days and he had already moved on-my dsis now has nc with him i see him but i struggle with how different he is now things he woldnt say or do before is now commonplace with his partner

he admitted he would give us all up for her aswell

OP, your post could almost have been written by me 20 years ago. It’s nauseating and your reaction is totally understandable. My best advice would be to lower contact levels with your mother if she is being bitchy about your DF’s GF and seek out some counselling to help you work out strategies to deal with the mental fall-out from it. (Funny enough 20 years on my mum is behaving with her husband exactly as she used to with my dad and complaining about him in a very similar way. So much for their bloody romance of the century which also began with an affair. My dad however is much happier with his second wife