My mother had an affair with my father’s best friend

[Ivybutterfly]

When I was 11/12 my mother had an affair with my father’s best friend. I’m the only person in the family who knows. Two decades later I am still finding it hard to forgive her. We have never really talked about it or discussed it. She would take me with her to his house and disappear upstairs while I watched cartoons downstairs. Sometimes I wasn’t sent to school and we’d go round. She also let him kiss me on the mouth once, and would kiss him when my father was around. This has had a terrible effect on me and I find it hard to get over it.

You're not unreasonable. The least your mother could have done, if she was intent on having the affair, was to conduct it without you around. As for letting the man kiss you, that is gross!

You need to talk to your mother about this, calmly and quietly. If you don't it will just fester. I doubt she will want to talk, she probably feels guilty and acutely embarrassed but she needs to acknowledge what happened and listen to you. It's not unforgivable, she was and is only human and human beings do wrong things sometimes, but she does need to show genuine regret for the effect the affair had on you.

Good luck, Ivy.

Thank you for your kind words. That’s great advice.

I think you should talk to your mother about it. It might give some clarity to the situation. E.g. perhaps your parents had an open marriage. Not that her dragging you around/ involving you is ok, but it might help you make sense of what was going on.

Also, if you can, it might be helpful to talk to a therapist to help you process your memories and your feelings surrounding it.

Talk with a therapist before opening this up with your mother. She let the man be abusive towards you. She used you as 'cover' - no-one would suspect what she was up to if she was with you. It's not a small thing, and it's no wonder you aren't comfortable with it even decades later.

The affair isn’t great but she’s a grown woman.

however, taking you with her and letting the man touch you in a sexual manner is unforgivable

Have you had any counselling to process what happened? That's actually pretty abusive.

She put you in a position of keeping her secrets, made you aware of her sex life, allowed her boyfriend to kiss you- each of those is awful behaviour.

Don't rush to speak to her. Make sure you fully understand it yourself first.

She may well not understand how abusive her behaviour was- may have simply not considered it. It was awful though.

I don’t know that speaking with your mother about it is the best advice.

You’re unlikely to hear anything from her that will make you feel better. Indeed, anything she says (likely coming from a place of embarrassment / shame / defensiveness) will probably make you feel worse - let’s face it, she doesn’t have a good track record in how best to handle things.

I agree with other posters that getting some counselling would be a much more productive choice.

You can’t control your mother, and you can’t control her response to you so rightly being badly affected by this long term.

But you can control how you deal with it and try to move forward.

I can understand how this still affects you, and I would speak to her, you need her to apologise and show some remorse. Humans make mistakes and to move on.you were used as a cover like the above poster says that’s unforgivable. But by not speaking about it it will fester and that’s not something you should be carrying.

And if she doesn’t apologise or show any remorse?

Kiss as in song ? Or peck on the lips

if that was snog as in tongues etc that is abuse

My parents don’t have an open marriage. My mother is very controlling of my father’s whereabouts and never let him work overnight before he retired. My mother is also very unforgiving of people who have affairs. Someone in my husband’s family had one and she refused to speak to then because they were a ‘bad person.’ She’s a hypocrite.

not a snog but not a peck. A kiss on the lips of an 11year old girl.

Thank you everyone. These comments have helped me already. I have a terrible relationship with my mother and she blames me. This has given clarity.

Your mother is abusive and if I were you I would cut all ties with her.

Mentally and emotionally cut ties. She's not a nice woman.

This.

she sounds horrendous op, she blames you.well in that case I wouldn’t give her the time of day, I’d be cutting all ties you are worth so much more

This resonated with me. My mother also had an affair with my father’s best friend when I was a similar age and found it hard to deal with. It certainly affected my relationship with my mother as it broke up our family and he was very unkind to myself and my brother. I think it is always hard when you feel jettisoned as a child for a new sexual partner in a parent’s life. My best advice is to focus on yourself and the relationships which provide you with love and support. Counselling may help you as it can be hard to feel worthy of love but do take steps to try and stop this from blighting your life.

Both my parents had affairs when I was younger. My mum eventually left to be with her AP and my dad pretended his never happened so I became the family scapegoat one I told the truth about his affair as dad said I lied. Parents like this are toxic. I still have both in my life but at arms length. My heart goes out to you for having to keep this secret but I find it very worrying about a grown man kissing you too. I hope you are ok.

This changes things a bit. I suggested counselling to help you fully understand the implications before you considered talking to her. Under the circumstances, counselling would still be helpful, but as you don't have a relationship worth keeping or saving, then just emotionally detach and move on.

Aw gosh this is awful. Particularly the bit about her making you kiss him. That’s abuse. Hope you’re ok. Get some therapy if you can and as others have said this is understandably not forgivable. I would also be worried about contact she has with children as she cannot be trusted.

I have fallen out with my mother a few times and each time my dad and siblings took her side and cut all ties with me until I apologised. If I want any member of my family in my life then I need to stay neutral with her. It’s hard because she’s bad for my mental health and this is just the type of the iceberg.

She was a young child, he was an adult. Any kind of kiss is abuse. An 11 year old cannot consent to a kiss with a man.

She's pulled you into lying to your father and the kiss is unforgivable.

I would consider her abusive towards you.

I suggest you see a therapist, your feelings towards you mother are the right ones to have, but this broken trust by your main caregiver when you are a child does create problems that you might have to discuss with a therapist.

It was grim how they dragged you into knowing about their relationships....

All the rubbish with cutting people dead when they've had affairs...?? She's completely hypocritical... But then you know this already.