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's the 'in your face', shameless flaunting of terrible behaviour that winds me up. There are decent ways to end a relationship in a respectful way.

My old boss had an outrageous affair with someone from work, very public break up with his wife then smashed up car, dumped belongings in works car park then harassed, spat on OW. It's tainted everyone's views of them. The Ex-wife may be mentally unstable, poisoning the children's minds etc and the OW's ex an overbearing, stuck up, male-chauvinistic pig but what everybody remembers years later is how badly they treated them. They need to move away and start again as everything they do gets judged unfairly.

They could have split first from their partners and then discretely got together after a few months. They lacked the control.

I think if they acted like they felt bad about what they did and the people they hurt then they would get a better reception from people. There's no acknowledgement though. It's almost as if they thrive on the drama of it all.

She hurt people, blew up her family and left devastation in her wake. Of course this has to be the Romeo and Juliet of our time! Otherwise it would just be two selfish people acting selfishly... and we couldn't have that could we?

That’s exactly how I see the couple from my family, who I just mentioned @magoria.

The other couple are way more low key, although they didn’t actually have to end relationships to get together; they were a couple while one of them was married, then they split and then the spouse died, so they (eventually) got together. It makes sense that they are the ones who don’t need to drive the point home about how desperately in love they are.

weezol The Burmese is an utter menace! He knows how to open three different kinds of door (can work latches, turn doorknobs and push down lever handles) so there is no privacy from him and his loud meowing .

Whenever the hoover is turned on he flops down in front of it and rolls over for his stomach to be hoovered- honestly has to be seen to be believed. In his younger days he used to bring home a rat and a rabbit a day and frequently beat up the neighbour's border collie.

I don't believe there'll ever be another cat like him (but my own little moggy is so much easier to deal with, haha)

OP your mother sounds so selfish, and so disconnected from the feelings of others - so lacking in insight and empathy - that I’m furious reading about her.

She was willing to give you up? What kind of a parent says that? Of course she denied it when you asked her about it. She’s someone for whom deception is the norm.

You never had the opportunity to grieve about losing your stable home, had to support everyone else and accept your mother’s narcissistic preening for fear of being completely rejected...you’ve had a really rough time and have every right to acknowledge your feelings.

Daffodil397

Thank you, that means a lot to me

I agree that I'm used to minimising my own feelings a lot, and probably would benefit from counselling. I think I will look into the possibility in the New Year (once I've finished my MA and have some more disposable income).

Op what were circumstances of your DM leaving her first husband? Did she take your DB with her? Are you close to your DB? Just asking as wondering if you could have had support from him at all?

‘Finally together’ until the magic wears off and one of them finds some one else that they were ‘meant to be with’. They’ve only been together a couple of years.

I have personal and painful experience of this.

You're a better person than me, OP. My dad left when I was 18 - I didn't attend his wedding with the ow, and ten years on we have virtually no relationship. He has always prioritised the OW and her daughters and I think sees my sister and I as inconvenient reminders of the 30 year marriage he walked out on. Not that my mother is some kind of wronged saint either - she's a bloody difficult woman. Their divorce showed up both my parents as selfish individuals who couldn't be relied upon in any meaningful way, which was a slightly crushing realisation at 18. Am civil to my father when he bothers to get in touch, but am buggered if I'm condoning his immorality by pretending to be all happy families with his new family. I do actually really admire people who manage to see past their parents having affairs - I hope one day I'll be able to be nicer about it but at the moment it's only been a decade and I'm still too cross!

That little 'work of art' sound damned nauseating!

There's just something wrong with people who find their 'happiness' on the backs of other people's misery.

I understand that people fall out of love or sometimes marry the wrong person. And that people find the 'right one' sometimes when they are still married to the 'wrong one'. But there is a way to end even a 'bad' marriage leaving all parties with a bit of dignity.

Your mother is a selfish shit.

That "artwork" sounds cringe-inducing, even for an outsider who might not know the backstory...

Personally, I get sick of lectures about how horrible it is to judge others. Everyone judges, on some level, whether or not they intend to or would ever voice their so-called "judgments". And honestly, some people (or "some people's behaviors", if you want to sugarcoat it) deserve to be judged!

It strikes me that the people who are most vocal about "mustn't judge" are probably feeling guilty about some of their own behavior (past or present)-- or at least hoping that they aren't being judged for it. (Unlikely. Count on it that someone somewhere is judging. )

OP my DBs burmese is exactly the same he’s a complete escape artist

Another to say counselling might help you with some techniques to handle your DM. I think it is very wrong of her to make you put up that picture. Quite provocative

Tbf, if the mum had left the Op’s Father before the affair, would she still have destroyed a family?
What about all the threads in here that are telling people to LTB and that’s veryine will be much happier once they’ve separated??

People are reacting as the the mother was some sort of evil who has destroyed everything. And the father some sort of angel.
I suspect that neither of those are the truth (because humans aren’t!) and the story is much more complex.

Of course divorce is hurting people. But it doesn’t mean that divorce wasn’t the right thing to do.
Here we have a woman who made a mistake and had an affair. She tried to make it work. It didn’t work and she got divorced.
How can that be wrong? Is it not a case of her giving the opportunity to her DH to be able to meet someone who will actually love him, unlike her? That’s what you can read on MN all the time. Or is that a lot of tripe too??

I think I’d be politely taking her to one side and saying that whilst she has my suppprt because she is my mother she needs to be more discreet because your dad is still your dad and also has your support

A lot of people after they cheat have to make the grand gestures to prove to the world that their lying and cheating which devastated other people had to be done because they were star-crossed lovers who were meant to be.

It's easier than facing the truth - that they were willing to leave their children and force them to live in a house with one parent
Basically they're selfish people who place more value on satisfying whats between their legs than the long term happiness of their own families.

I can empathise, my mum told my husband years ago that she would step over my brother and me to get to her OM in a crisis situation. I've never challenged her and have mostly forgotten about it, husband however has not.

Ok she left
Ok she did it after an affair.
Neither are great but either can be done in such a way as to try to minimise the hurt to others.
The ops mum hasn't't even tried to understand how her child may be feeling. There is a complete lack of emotional intelligence. Rubbing it in her face is cruel even if there were very good reasons for her to leave.

Could you get some help through your University counselling services?

BTW Thanks for your reply regarding your dad. It's great you've been able to talk about this.

Antehanna

I don't really understand your point. The fact was that she wasn't given 10 minutes to digest her feelings and that now she might be given that opportunity. Counselling isn't some sign that someone's emotions are wrong. Quite the reverse in fact

Ok your mother is such an ugly person. Utterly ugly on the inside. She has absolutely no remorse for all those people she affected. To then openly go about it as if she shoulf be proud is so shameful. You are better than me as I would have very little contact with her.
She's actually a horrible person.

Thetreesareallgone Fri 29-Dec-17 12:45:56

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 really don't think this is in reality what happens. Most people joggle along in semi-satisfactory or even quite unhappy relationships, and meeting someone else who you have a much better time with is going to put a death to that.

I don't think the OP's dad would have been happy if his wife just got up and left him not even for another person but because she couldn't stand being married any more. I know someone this happened to, and he was devastated that his wife would rather live alone than with him (which is the truth, she never took up with any-one else). Would it honestly have been so much better if she had taken up with this other man 6 months later? I expect the dad would still have been devastated at the emotional abandonment and still dumping on his adult daughter (which I don't agree with at all).

I find MN weird for affairs, they are disgusting/fucking horrible/never ok, but weirdly co-exist with a lot of 'LTB' 'what does he bring to your life?' type posts. Splitting from people, leaving them behind, selling houses, splitting up children's homes is devastating or it isn't- it's not only awful if someone is having an affair. I would honestly rather my husband just got up and left me than stayed out of obligation, believing he'd rather be with someone else. I'd be devastated/cry/be miserable for 6 month then find someone else.

I don't think anyone is obliged to stay in a marriage if they don't want, and it's better to be happy with someone else than poison the marriage you are in. My dad left when I was 18 and it was 100% improvement all round as he was a negative person who was always looking for something or someone better- he found someone 'better' (in his eyes), left and probably regrets it but who cares, our household was happier and my mum went on to find a much nicer man and live in the big family house with him (having bought him out when cheap) which pisses my dad off no end.

It is different when they leave and no child maintenance/low living standards for children, that really is despicable/disgusting.

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I very much agree with Thetreeseareallgone; we do seem to be very hypocritical about people leaving marriages on MN. It's inevitable that many marriages will end because one partner has met somebody else even if there isn't an affair - the new person is the catalyst.

My issue is the way the mother has treated cosmonaut really, I can't find an excuse for that even if I can see that people can and will leave marriages if they aren't happy. There's no excuse to treat your former spouse or your children as if they no longer matter though, none at all.

And yet runwalkrun when they wait til the child has left home, so they dont leave the child to be raised by one parent, they get.just as much shit for it. honestly, how long are they supposed to wait?

I can help feel that (admittedly limited to my experience with friends and family) that those couples (whether an affair was a factor or not) who seem hell bent on publicity and constantly declaring the perfection of their relationship are invariably those who unions are most likely to flounder.

I half wonder if it's akin to "fake it till you make it" or a mild form of self hypnosis where if you say enough times that it's the greatest love story ever then it will eventually become true....

Conversely the most solid and enduring relationships I've encountered are the most "private" in so far of actively eschewing any grandiose gestures. I can't help thinking that when a union really is that solid and contented the knowledge of that is so innately understood it really doesn't need any public validation.

What is an actual deal-breaker for me is that you've said your mother told you that you 'were one of thethingsshe 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.

This. Your DM sounds a peach. That must have been so hurtful x