I cannot forgive my father’s affair.

[NCDad]

My father had an affair when I was a child. My mother told me about the affair as they split up for a short period, and it then dawned on me that he had taken me on days out and introduced me to OW whilst the affair was ongoing. My mother got back with him for financial reasons and he was a presence in our home throughout my childhood. I have never forgiven him, even 20 years later I still have a lot of resentment towards him.

Our relationship suffered and we have never been close since that time. I was a very difficult teenager, a massive part of that being because of his affair, and we had a very tumultuous relationship.

Has anyone successfully been able to forgive or move past situations like this? And if so, how?

Nope, and my father has been dead for 17 years now, and my parents divorced when I was 24. I am now 52. He had two affairs that I know of and put my Mum through the wringer.

I don’t know. My dad had his affair when we were small. I remember meeting OW too. I didn’t know it was an affair until OW brought it up in her wedding speech to my dad 🙄 I was a shitty teenager too and thoroughly believe it has tarnished my view of men and myself.

Yes I feel the same about my opinion towards men and relationships. My past few have been abusive, and now I am finally in a healthy one I am constantly fearful that the rug will be pulled from underneath me. I had a lot of self esteem issues growing up and the way I behaved towards my parents as a teenager was very out of character.

I would like to go no contact but me and my mother have a very close relationship and my DC adore her, so it’s a difficult position to be in.

Forgiveness doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Repentance has to come first. If your father has genuinely repented and asked for your mother’s forgiveness, then it is up to her whether she feels able to or not.
You are not directly the injured party, so to speak, but you have suffered from the consequences of his actions.
If he has neither apologised nor asked for your forgiveness, why do you feel any pressure to offer it?
You are free to either see him or not, and if you are still angry with him then perhaps it’s better not to.

He has never apologised or offered forgiveness. Whenever I have tried to broach the subject he is very quick to shut it down and tell me that it’s ‘between him and my mum and has got nothing to do with me’. It’s a big unspoken elephant in our family.

My dad had me. He was a worker in the sixties a dancer and a player.

He is and was a fucking bastard.

Here are some other children he had:

Alison, Nancy, David.

What an asshole.

Whenever I have tried to broach the subject he is very quick to shut it down and tell me that it’s ‘between him and my mum and has got nothing to do with me’

He's right, it is none of your business.

My mother got back with him for financial reasons - needs must I suppose. But if she didn't love him, then that's no example, both equally responsible for bringing up damaged children.

I saw my Dad emotionally destroy my Mum when he left her for another woman. My Mum, my sister and I lived happily for 3 years together after she found her feet again. But then he came back. I couldn’t forgive him even though my sister and my Mum did and we haven’t really repaired our relationship sadly. This happened 33 years ago. We are pleasant and civil with each other but the love is not really there between us. I would like it to be different but I think it is too late and I can’t force myself to love him because we have no bond. I have forgiven him for having an affair but i will never have a close relationship with him. But to be honest, he hasn’t tried with me either, and if he had been sorry or empathetic or even made an attempt to find common ground with me in the past 33 years, I wouldn’t have ruled out trying to repair things. It is just brushed under the carpet and we only speak / spend time together in group situations, but I am at peace with it now in terms of my own happiness. It doesn’t bother me very much.

Affairs rip families apart

It is the business of the children as well as the adults.

My father had a string of affairs but denied them and my mum stuck with him because she didn't have the strength or support to leave.
Eventually the final affair was outed by Someone else and (as us 'children' were now adults) she had the much needed support in us, she took the courage to make him leave.
I will never forgive him for what he put her through. Ever!

I'm so sorry. My younger daughter hasn't and will never forgive her father for his lies. Her mental health suffered because of his behaviour. i do recommend you have some counselling or even CBT - it may help you come to terms with what happened and how to go forward.

Hi so sorry to hear all your stories.
As a mother of four teens, preteens and a 7 year old who was with ex for 24 years but was cheated on over and over for the last six years of the relationship, do you mind if I ask you all a question?
I had the strength to leave the relationship and myself and the dc are much happier. The see ex 3 nights a week and seem well adjusted.
I have however had a 'friend' who has said over and over in the last year that maybe I should have turned a blind eye to exh's affairs and stayed together for the sake of the children as I have no idea the affect of separating will have on them.
Should I have ?!? Thank you in advance

fortygin what was the atmosphere like at home when you were still with your ex?

NCdad no idea how you get past it but I’m in a similar position with my father.

forty no you shouldn’t have stayed together for your children. My parents stayed together for about 20 years too long because my mum worried about how splitting up may affect me. It was far worse when it finally happened and it felt like my childhood/teenage years were a lie.
Yes it would have been horrible anyway but knowing my mum was unhappy for all that time on top makes it worse.

My Dad had an affair when I was 17 and I also watched it rip my Mum apart.
My Mum also lent on me emotionally for support and to bad mouth my Dad, get me to check up on him etc so that wasn't easy. My Mum also stayed for financial reason, and I believe because ahe actually wasn't strong enough to leave. Not for one second do I think it was for mine or my brothers interests because the house was a turbulent, angry and volatile mess for a long time after it happened.

However, I can objectively see it was very out of character for my Dad to have an affair. And, I watched my Mum give my Dad (and me) an awful lot of emotional abuse for years in the build up to it happening so I can kind of understand why it happened. So in that way, yes I have forgiven him.

That said, like you I also feel very insecure in a happy relationship waiting for it all to go wrong. I got really scared the other day when my husband picked up the phone at work with a giggling female in the background. My Dad had an affair at work, so I feel like I am waiting for this to happen to me.

@fortygin no you should definitely not have stayed together for your children. I witnessed my parents insecurity with each other for years and got drawn into their volatile, bitter arguments and it was awful

Both my parents had affairs and separated when I was young, but they got back together and are still together decades later. I've discussed it with my mum but never with my dad because although we get on, we don't have deep conversations. I don't hold it against either of them as I understand marriage is complicated and they both loved me - and each other ultimately - but they did what they had to do at the time. Perhaps because of this, it thankfully hasn't fucked me up and I wouldn't hold it against them unless I felt there was something very unloving or malicious in their actions, or something I really couldn't understand.

There must be more to it, in how he treated you or how you felt you had to take sides with your mother against him maybe? Not saying YABU at all, these are your feelings, but it seems like the affair has become a focal point for your issues with him and it's probably more that you need to unpick and address those rather than forgive the affair per se?

fortygin suggest you start your own thread, but sounds like you made the right decision LTB! Your friend is talking bollocks.

disagree with PP saying it’s not OP’s business. She was directly harmed by her father’s actions.

It does seem U to be angry on your mother’s behalf: she was an adult and made, and continues to make, her own choices.

But not at all U to be angry/hurt on your own account. If he’s never apologised for that and won’t discuss it can understand why it’s hard to move on.

Someone close to me experienced parents splitting up in their late teens and at that time finding out lots that had gone on and been hidden from the DC: they felt and still feel that they were lied to by both parents throughout their childhood -“my childhood was a lie”.

The relationship between a man and a woman is between them.
But the hurt and damage caused by an affair also affects the children, and their relationship with their parents. Especially when they get their kids involved with their affair and the other person.
Wanting to talk about that is not unreasonable.

My mum had an affair in the 1960s. She used to take me round his house and I played in the garden with his son while they disappeared inside. I was too young to understand what was going on.
When i was older she told me about it. She loved him and they considered leaving their marriages but it ended when my dad found out. My dad had affairs too.

I've never judged her. I'm glad she had that happiness in a life touched by tragedy. She died age 57 and the om came to her funeral - I invited him and my dad's face was a picture when he turned up.
Try to forgive your dad before it's too late.

"To err is human, to forgive is divine."

Thank you for all your advice and I will start my own thread ☺️

What utter bollocks saying it's none of the OP's business, of course it is.

My Dad is currently shacked up with my mother's former best friend. They've been together six years. Put it this way, neither of them are coming to my wedding next month.

I don't know, op. I recently discovered my dad had an affair when were young, I'm now in my late 30s). It explains so much; we moved to a different area, my mum was very closed off and quite fragile through my teens, which resulted in me having a very difficult time. I'm considering now whether to tell my sister (who also had a bad time in her teens). She idolises my dad and has not yet found a partner that lives up to his example (in her eyes).

bananamanfan very similar situation here. Found out recently that my dad had an affair (of several years) more than 30 years ago.

Very shocking given how he is viewed by everyone - the most fine and upstanding man possible - inside and outside the family.

My sibling and I were both very shocked to find out (and astonished that our Mum hadn’t let on before). But oddly, after the first few weeks of weirdness, it hasn’t really changed anything. My parents are still together and my mum seems to consider it ancient history. It has made me a lot more sympathetic to and understanding of my mum and some of the ways she has behaved over the years (not always easy), because she was suffering a great deal, and nobody knew. But she doesn’t want anything to change in terms of our family relationships and so there doesn’t seem anything to gain in our context by doing anything other than sweeping the information back under the carpet!

I would never, ever accept anything similar from my husband. But the context is different - different time and they were fairly young and naive when they got married. Doesn’t excuse it - and I will never see my dad in quite the same way again. But he’s not a terrible person, and so life carries on as normal for us.

Really hard information to have to deal with though OP, and I know your situation is different to mine. You have my sympathies, and I hope you find a way to deal with it all that gives you peace of mind. x

My Dad had a number of affairs when I was growing up, then buggered off abroad for a year while I was in uni, had another one then and when my Mum found out they split up. I've since found out that one of the affairs was with my Mums sister.

We get on OK for the most part. He comes to stay a few times a year, and he probably thinks we have a good Father - Son relationship following a few rocky years.

But I don't trust him, I wouldn't go to him with a problem, and I look at every decision he makes about his life through the lens of "Who's pants is he trying to get into now". Essentially I don't feel I have a father, he's more like a mate who you haven't got on with for a long time, but you're still civil to because it makes life easier for everyone else.

My younger brother took it a lot harder than me. He was always a lot closer to my Dad and he's struggled for years to reconcile that hero-worship with the knowledge that he's an utter shitweasel, and as a result they barely speak now.