It’s weird not to hate cheating father?

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

Someone close to me has been with a serial cheater that she has forgiven a few times because he begged for forgiveness. The wife is a lovely, soft hearted and trusting person and he’s taken advantage of that for years. She’s had enough now after finding out that he’s been involved with prostitutes (their son found nude images on his fathers computer) so she is starting divorce proceedings. The thing I find very strange is that her son (early 20s) is perfectly fine with his father and acting as if nothing has happened. The son has a very good relationship with his mother So that’s not the issue. Am I being unreasonable to think that it’s strange not to be angry with your father if he did something like this?

Well, yes, I agree.

However I’d hazard a guess that having been brought up in a home where fidelity was optional and forgiven frequently his moral compass may be skewed.

I would imagine it's got a lot to do with the family he has been bought up in. If the father has been a serial cheat who has always been forgiven, then the child has probably come to believe that this is an acceptable way for a man to behave. Children will often model behaviour they have learned from their parents.

It would not surprise me if this young man, despite having an obvious love for his mother, still goes on to have non-monogamous relationships himself. He has been shown both by his fathers behaviour and his mothers acceptance that this is 'allowed' for men.

Does the son know about the prostitutes?

My dad cheated on my mum and they stayed together. We were shocked but it didn’t really affect our relationship with our dad. We didn’t like what dad did but we were aware that the two relationships (dad with mum and dad with kids) were separate. Kids can rationalise these things I guess.

I'd want my girls to stay close to their dad. You divorce spouses, not children. My dh had an emotional affair a couple of years ago, whilst we reconciled, we did take some time apart and I would never have put my dd in the middle.

It could be either as PPs have said, because he has normalised this behaviour so sees nothing to be angry about. Or - hopefully - that his parents have drawn very clear boundaries and been very clear that their issues are between them and they both still love their son and value a relationship with him very much. Divorce is always better if children, regardless of age, are not drawn in to their parents relationship and expected to pick sides.

The father is a nasty piece of work. He’s threatening his wife’s brother with a made up accusation in order to manipulate her into staying with him. He’s not just a nice guy who happened to make a mistake.

I didn’t think about how her acceptance may have normalised this for him :(

The mum will have rigidly enforced the family sweeping bad behaviour under the carpet. That's what enablers do. They create a whole narrative of lies, dreams and half-truths to excuse the inexcusable. That boy will have been told repeatedly that it isn't his dad's fault / nothing happened / it wasn't so bad really / he is a poor troubled man.

People like to see the enabler as lovely, soft hearted and trusting but really they are enabling the abuse to persist. They will use anyone as a human shield, even their kids. Her son is 20. She made him live with a nasty piece of work for his whole childhood. That's not my definition of lovely. Not soft-hearted towards her children is she? They could be sacrificed so she could keep her man.

@TorkTorkBam I don’t like how you’ve laid all the blame at the wife’s door, rather than the appalling behaviour of the cheating husband...

People have this narrative of the abuser is bad and the enabler is good. Yes the abuser is bad, very bad. The enabler is not a saint for going along with it.

As a child of a bad marriage I can tell you it is at horrific then liberating when you twig that the enabler is not "too nice."

OP has come on here to moan about the child being cold hearted for being immune to the parents' incessant nonsense while telling us that the mum is saintly. I'm pointing out how that's clearly not fair or true.

As a child I used to witness domestic violence on a daily basis; I don't hate my dad. I don't hate my mum either, I dont like what he did, and I don't trust him. He should have gotten the help he needed for his anger management and substance abuse issues, but I don't hate him. I also don't put my mum on a pedastool - yes it is extremely difficult to get out of that situation but she two children who were suffering because she kept forgiving him. My mum is now in another abusive relationship, one that she did get out of and then went back to him. I can't allow myself to feel much about it now because I'm numb to it, I love her but I can't deal with constantly seeing her hurting.

Not everyone models their parents behaviours - I wouldn't dream of being violent and I certainly wouldn't put up with staying. It's not exactly the same but cheating is abuse too in my eyes.

I judged my dad big time! Don't like him one little bit!

My view is that infidelity in relationships is nothing to do with the children, adult or otherwise.

His relationship with his Dad is entirely separate to his mother's relationship with his Dad.

The father has wronged her, not him.

Imo it is entirely wrong for parents to try and put their children against the other parent when a break up happens. It's good to see that hasn't happened in this case.

If their mother had an affair, so you think the child should automatically hate her? What if both parents had affairs?

I think if your father is repeatedly cheating on your mother and threatening her family if she leaves him it’s very hard to feel any sympathy for him. Pretty much everyone I know that knows them hates him because he is also openly emotionally abusive towards her eg in my presence has said that she’s unattractive without make up and so lucky to have him.
I know there are times when good people make mistakes and in those cases I would understand children having a more forgiving attitude.

Who has suggested that people should have sympathy for him?

Maybe the son knows more about what actually goes on in the household than people outwith the household, and maybe its not as one - sided as everyone thinks.

Maybe the son has a skewed version of what is acceptable due to the upbringing that he had, which is down to both parents.

Maybe he has been a really good father, despite being a shitty husband.

Maybe the son needs some time to process everything that is going on. It's a big deal.

It is never as simple as it appears from the outside.

My father wasn’t faithful to my mother. He didn’t lie about it though. Obviously he shouldn’t have done it but equally she shouldn’t have accepted it if she didn’t want a marriage like that. I don’t hold a grudge against my father on that score (although I do judge him). I treat people according to how they have treated me. Whatever horrible things my parents did to each other (there was a lot of bad behaviour on both sides) were between them and not a reflection on their feelings towards me so didn’t take it personally. You have no way of knowing what went on in their family and no right to judge really.