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 father had an affair, left my mother and us as children, and went off and made a new family.

He completely abandoned us and refuses any relationship with him. Not that I want one.

First time poster, bit of advice needed please.... I have children with my ex and he has been dating a girl for a few months, now wanting to introduce her to them.
The issue is, he is a narcissist and serial cheater. He has cheated all of his life and cheated on me very badly over the whole of our relationship, including long term flings, casual hook ups and sex on nights out, even during lockdown and while I was pregnant (I left him the minute I found out!!)

He is adamant that he is 'fixed' and would never do this again, but this is exactly what he told me when we met and he told a very convoluted version of his past.

I'm scared of the impact on our children, getting attached and hurt when it falls apart.

This is also not the first girl he has wanted to introduce, the last 2 relationships fell apart before it actually happened. He says he has been with this girl for 6 months and it is serious, but the dates don't add up with the previous girl he dated.

Bottom line...every part of me wants to sit with her and tell her the truth of what he did to break our family up, as if I had know his true past I would have ran a mile. I know I will likely come across as a psychopath, but don't believe he will deny anything and it will mean she truly knows what she is getting into before our children are involved.

Sorry so long, there's so much I could have added, very Jeremy Kyle series of events I'm afraid x

This sums up beautifully the problem with the OPs position.
It's so toxic the extent to which in these situations the betrayed person (usually the woman though in OPs case the man) is judged and scrutinised for their reactions in the midst of trauma, shock and heartbreak. Accounts here where people laud the betrayed partner for putting up with the betrayal and shutting up. But if affairs are a fact of life, so too are the reactions to the affairs. If OP is only human and expects her children to understand one day the choices/mistakes she made, well her ex is human too, so her children will understand he was distressed.
Seems many posters here are very quick to shame and judge a person for being upset and use the example of the children to support the argument the only valid reaction is to stay silent and go along with things. But suggesting the responsibility for an amicable and easy co-parenting relationship always lies with the person who is betrayed and left is victim-blaming. There will likely be a direct correlation between the level of dishonesty and disrespect of the betrayer and the extreme anger and hurt in the betrayer's reaction. Often it's the betrayer's lack of accountability that causes the rage and bitterness.
I don't condone the OPs ex forcing the teens to choose but equally OP has no entitlement to expect her children should spend time with her AP. Her AP isn't the children's parent and was involved in a betrayal which has left her ex devastated. The younger ones have no choice and they're forced to live with the AP. But as someone points out up-post, they may have their own thoughts and feelings about it when they're old enough to understand.
It's ideal if the ex doesn't interfere but OP rushing children into blended family arrangements will naturally exacerbate the trauma and stress of ex. That in turn would have an indirect impact on the children even if he hadn't been so explicit with the teens.

Best thing OP can do is apologise to the kids for the betrayal and not try to force them to play happy families with the AP as clearly they're not keen.

I just adopted the attitude that it was their choice. I got on with it. I had great relationships with my parents partners

My father did this. Took off with his latest (who was an adult, for a change) in the 70s, when I was about nine. Bastard had me meet her and her bullying kid at my sister’s flat. Never saw her again, thank goodness. His minimal interest in me shrivelled to nothing until thirty years later when he had the utter insolence to write to my mother wanting her to arrange for him to get in contact with me! I wrote back saying he had the opportunity when I was a child and was never interested, did he really think Mum would go behind my back like that, oh and by the way did his wife know he was writing to Mum? Useless prick whined that he was so hurt by that. Good.

Not me but my mum. Her mum (my grandmother) had an affair and left her husband, and went on to have a happy marriage with the OM until his death many years later. My mum was a young adult when her mum left (very early 20s). She maintained a relationship with both her parents, who remained amicable, and got on well with her stepfather. Her father didn't remarry but did have a LTR. Even though she was an adult when it happened, my mum talks about how positive it was for her to see her mum and stepdad's relationship, which was a much happier one than her parents' had been.

One of my parents cheated on the other, they aren't still with the affair partner though but were for a while.

I will say, through experience, that I've come to think it's incredibly selfish of the betrayed parent to project any negativity onto the child. Mine did. I wasn't allowed to speak about the other parent, mention them at all or what I'd done with them, they would speak horribly about them in front of me, make me feel guilty for wanting a relationship with them still etc.. still to this day as an adult I feel like I'm the parent dealing with two squabbling children sometimes and not the child and quite honestly, as a grown woman with children of my own I am now more angry at the betrayed parent than I am with the one who left for putting me in a horrible position as a child and now.

It's not fair imo to seek comfort and support or sympathy from your young children when your spouse has an affair. It should not be placed on them and they certainly should never be made to feel guilty for wanting to continue a relationship with the other parent or yes even meet the affair partner. None of it should be put on your child's shoulders and my own experience has made me promise to myself that if I'm ever in that situation I will never deal with it how my betrayed parent did. It's selfish and honestly really poor parenting imo.