If your parent had an affair

[ForThePurposeOfThisPost]

Name changed for this post. If your parent had an affair and left to be with the OW/OM (and went on to have a long and happy relationship/marriage) did you have a choice in meeting the new partner? Were you old enough to have a say? Did your betrayed parent prevent you from meeting them? Did your betrayed parent make you choose an allegiance? As an older teen/adult did your feelings change? I'm interested to know how other families navigated this and whether I'm being unrealistic in my expectations.

And if you care to vote....

YANBU= DCs should be able/encouraged to form a relationship with the new partner if they wish.

YABU= The betrayed parent has every right to prevent DCs from meeting the new partner.

My brother was 23 and I was 19 when our Dad left having had an affair. Mum was hurt and betrayed but never prevented us from being in touch with him. 15 years on and my brother has a relationship with him and to some extent his wife. I don’t have any thing to do with them, which is my choice. Was always grateful that Mum didn’t bad mouth him and was always fair. I think it’s important for young adults to feel they can do what feels ok to them without having to take on their parent’s stuff.

@SequinsandStilettos why is it "brainwashing?" A parent having an affair is very traumatic for a child. It's an added layer of hurt and betrayal on top of the family unit splitting up.

No Shit Sherlock winter Read all my other posts. Parents divorced when I was six. Dad had multiple affairs and a child out of wedlock with the OW while she was still married. Complete and utter shitshow.
Hence me asking how old OP's kids were and who had custody. At 13/15, old enough to make up their own mind but if receptive at the start to meeting her partner but then told over and over, rinse and repeat, that it would be disloyal, she's this, he's that etc of course there's some emotional blackmail/undue influence going on there.
I had that for years - not refusing to let me see my Dad - but literally decades of hearing about the "scarlet woman" even when my Mum was remarried. It almost becomes family folklore. You hear it enough times you assume one parent is the victim. As you get older and more aware, you realise that life is never as black/white as that - especially when neither party was without flaws.

My mum left my dad for someone else (who I already knew - family friend). She was very much like 'I'm going to marry him and there's nothing you can do about it'. She sort of blind sided me with all of it. I was 11 when they got married. He was an ogre (he still would be now if he wasn't so old and tired, people don't change), and I hated him. I think it would have made the transition easier if she had been a little more compassionate and considerate, but she very much took the view that children's opinions are worthless and they should just get on with it - 'well this is what's happening so if you don't like it tough'. My own dad never really had an opinion but I don't think he really knew what went on after she left him. If it were me I hope I'd take my child's feelings into consideration, especially I was the one who'd caused the divorce and all the ensuing drama.

The detail of why parents split up is between the parents and is not relevant to the parent child relationship.

I am well aware one of my parents (at least) had an affair and the other dragged me into it. The reality is their marriage was a mess and they shouldn't have been together. At the time i was late teens and had broken up with my childhood sweetheart and had to return to the family home. I left after a week. It was a toxic awful week and they were going through a lot obviously. In the end the parent I actually felt cross with was the one who manipulated me and dragged me into it-not the one who had the affair. Even then I felt like if you are going to sling toxic mud you should be balanced and everyone admit to their faults. And it not be one sided. Decades later they are still together and hate each other. So honesty, what was the point?

In my own marriage the children are not aware of the details of the break up. Everyone has put it behind them (takes a few years) and we can all attend important events etc. You have to let it go to move on with your life, it's not healthy to hold on to the bitterness.

My dad left to be with OW. We were eventually wheeled out to meet her. Before we left, my mum said she didn't want any of us kissing her. As my dad dropped us home afterwards, he made us all kiss her goodbye. Queue my mother screaming and crying at us as we came through the door about us kissing her. Yes, I have two delightful parents. They didn't get any better.

I was 3, I had no choice but to meet OW.
Mixed feelings throughout childhood, ultimately decided at 16 both father and step mother are total assholes, I couldn't respect them for being the type to have an affair and as we grew older we realised just how much it hurt our mother and haven't had contact with either of them since.
Younger sister reached the same conclusion at 18. We do have 2 younger half siblings but tbh they felt more like cousins and we don't have contact with them either.

My husband was 14 and it was his mother who had the affair. He still talks to her but he feels his few of her will always be affected, and feels like he can't fully trust/ rely on her and he is in his 40s! He was made to meet OM too. Hated him from the start but was polite.

I think we both went through a stage of fear based dependency on the parent who left. Am I enough, will he leave me too, please don't leave me etc, general fear of being inadequate. It wasn't until my early 20s I realised how much it affected me and was able to start working through the trauma it caused. Massively reinforced how I want feck all do to with them. 😂

@TeeBee I'm sorry, that sounds really tough.

Thanks. That was just the starter for ten. They got much, much worse. NC now but we're the baddies for doing that, obviously.

@Catsandzcocktails I couldn't respect them for being the type to have an affair
Whilst I do understand this, I'm not convinced there is 'a type'. Affairs happen for different reasons and the people involved aren't always bad people on the whole. Ultimately there is always deceit, granted. Do you think your Dad and SM were just 'assholes' anyway or was their affair the biggest factor?

You're wrong, people like to convince themselves otherwise, but it does take a certain type of person to do that. No integrity, trustworthiness/honesty, respect or discipline. I don't respect that, I can't. Those values are important to me. If you want to leave, leave. Don't have an affair. Yes the affair is the primary reason. Both the actions of doing it and realising how much it affected my mother.

@Catsandzcocktails No integrity, trustworthiness/honesty, respect or discipline These are all qualities that I possess and demonstrate in every other aspect of my life. They are indeed essential for the line of work I am in. I would probably be the last person you'd think capable of an affair. I expect to be judged for it but I don't think it's fair to define me by it.

My parents divorced when I was 4, because my dad had an affair. It was objectively probably a good thing as he was abusive to my mum, and I’m not sure how long it would have taken her to leave. His AP was very young at the time- about 21, I think- and they moved in together and later got married. I saw them every other weekend.

My mum honestly gave me a lot of mixed messages about my dad- she never tried to stop me seeing him (even though I didn’t want to a lot of the time) and would tell me how much he loved me and that I should maintain a relationship with him, but she also would tell me lots of details of the abuse when I was too young to hear it. Nobody really said anything bad about my stepmum, I think honestly most of the family felt a bit sorry for her because she was young and they all knew my dad wasn’t very nice. I used to hear her crying a lot when I went round there.

Dad and stepmum are still married, two kids. I don’t really have a relationship with them any more but that’s because of my dad- I don’t harbour any ill will towards my stepmum or blame her for anything. My mum STILL insists I will have regrets if I cut my dad off completely- she has a lot of her own issues about being abandoned by HER dad. Am hoping to break the cycle with my DD and DH who have a lovely relationship xD

@riotlady Gosh that sounds difficult. I'm glad your own family is a lot less complicated!

It shouldn't be up to the betrayed parent to decide. Let the DC meet their parent's partner and let them decide for themselves how they want their relationship to be. Of course, this doesn't often get 'allowed' because too many parents like to influence their children's feelings and behaviours. Which is truly unhealthy.

I was 15 when my mum had an affair and moved in with the OM. I stayed with my dad. My dad didn’t try and prevent me from meeting the OM, but I didn’t want to. Had no interest in meeting him whatsoever. My mum then coerced me into meeting him by guilt tripping me and telling me I needed to make an effort for her sake, so I did, against my will. My dad never said a bad word against him, but I figured out he was an arsehole all by myself 😏.

@CornishGem1975 See this is how feel too.

And sadly, although I have a good relationship with my mum now, I lost all respect for her when she had an affair and left her children. If she wasn’t happy in the marriage she should have done the decent thing and told my dad, so that they could split properly.

Did she leave her children, or did she leave the marriage?

@WaddleAway I wonder why your Dad never said a bad word against him or tried to prevent you from meeting him? And why some men feel so differently. Exh has basically said 'over my dead body'.
I'm sorry you were coerced into meeting OM, I don't want to make my teens feel like this but pretending I don't have a (long-term) partner isn't sustainable either.

CornishGem1975 · Today 09:47
WaddleAway · Today 09:45
And sadly, although I have a good relationship with my mum now, I lost all respect for her when she had an affair and left her children. If she wasn’t happy in the marriage she should have done the decent thing and told my dad, so that they could split properly.
Did she leave her children, or did she leave the marriage?

See my exh presents it to my teens that I left them when in reality I had no choice if I was to leave the marriage, whichever way it ended. He made sure I was financially trapped/screwed in marriage or divorce.

It amounted to the same thing. She left and didn’t invite us to go with her. She could have left the marriage without having an affair, she could have left the marriage without leaving her children, but she chose the affair and no children route 🤷🏻‍♀️.

The only answer I’ve got to that is that my dad was (and is) a thoroughly decent man. However much he was hurting, whenever I ranted to him about her leaving he’d just say ‘she’s your mum and she loves you’.
I never wanted to pretend my mum wasn’t in a long term relationship with the OM, and I never wanted her to pretend that either. I just didn’t want a relationship with him myself.

The phrase the proof is in the pudding comes to mind. It's true - you never really know what sort of person someone is, on the outside it may seem like not the sort of thing they'd do. Obviously when it suits you, you are very capable of casting aside those qualities. Don't judge a book by its cover and all that.
Well, you having an affair probably doesn't seem very fair to your ex husband and children. Or continuing the relationship built on the sturdy foundations of lies and deceit. Ultimately, if you do something like that, it is possible your sons will eventually decide to go no contact with you. If they stay in touch, I very much doubt your relationship with them will ever be the same. Certainly not in my husbands experience and he was very close to his mum before. That's just something you're going to have to accept as a consequence of your actions. Not really much you can do now.