AIBU to not tell my mum about cheating dad?

[Cutie18327]

Very very long story short...

Suspicious that my dad is cheating on my mum for a period of two years. My partner has tried talking to my dad but he hasn't stopped visiting said woman. I am planning on confronting him directly (I am his daughter, so it's a very delicate situation and conversation), but my husband is under the impression that I should go straight to my mum. I worry for her health following the fall out of a potential affair.

Am I being unreasonable in wanting to confront my dad without her knowledge in the hope that he will stop? Of course if he continues past this conversation then I will tell her.

So you have no basis for claiming most women know about affairs and turn a blind eye to them, but youre more than happy to push that narrative anyway, and by doing so, encouraging women to keep cheating mens secrets for them, on a website for women to support women. Amazing.

Giving my point of view
isn't that what a forums for getting a wide range of experience,info and opinions

you don’t have to agree or disagree just be adult enough to respect and recognise other people have different views and opinions

I wouldn’t tell your mum straight away, no. I’d spend time with her. But I’d pretty much always keep my nose out of other people’s relationships.

There is a thing called Wilful Ignorance. It means you keep your head in the sand. Don't ask, don't tell. Maybe your mum has adopted that attitude. If you do tell her, what is she actually going to DO with that information? Divorce & start again in her 60's? Telling her might not change the outcome, she may stay married, but it will hurt her!

It's not about what I'd rather. You come across as very noble, which is no bad thing, but very short-sighted. Much like I was when I stepped, nobly, into a similar situation and it blew up in my face and caused a huge problem for the whole family.

I would do what I did again but I'd do it with caution as I suggest the OP does because they have feelings, too. Cheating hurts everyone. Coming here for advice helps the OP go into it as open as they can after considering all possible scenarios.

So you don't even know if he is cheating and if you sensed it do you think his wife of so many years who lives with him doesn't know or suspect? Would you and your husband be willing to financially and emotionally support your mother with this? Potentially for the next 20 years of her life? Even if there is an affair the more people involved the harder it is to reconciliate because you will all be pressuring her to react a certain way.

No one is going to like this reply but he's an adult man and she's an adult woman and you should just stay out of it.

I agree with this. I would say unless the couple has maintained an excellent sex life the higher libido partner probably has affairs in like 80% of cases.

If OP's dad is having sex with another woman, he is putting her mum's sexual health at risk. It is unlikely that a couple in their 60s use condoms as they no longer need to prevent a pregnancy and if he just started using them now, his wife would obviously ask questions.

If it all comes out some other way, which often happens, and OP's mum finds out that OP knew about the cheating but decided not to tell her, I'm sure she would be very upset. What if OP's dad decides to leave her mum for the other woman and, at that point, tells OP's mum that she knew?

It's not about 'turning a blind eye'. It's about letting adults live their own lives and deal with their own relationships.

Nope, it's not the duty of the adult child to help their adult parents to run their marriage or navigate their lives. It's the parents marriage and their business to deal with.

I am being serious. I'm an adult with an adult husband and we have adult children. I wouldn't expect them to involve themselves in any aspect of my marriage, it's not their problem.

You may well think that but I don't. My husband and I are adults and our children are adults. I absolutely would not want them to get involved if either of us was cheating. It's not their problem, we are both perfectly capable of managing our lives and our marriage by ourselves.

Tell your mum. I told my mum when I found out - turns out she already knew. What they did/do within their marriage after that was up to them - I did my duty. They are still together now.

Sorry but not when it’s your own mother being cheated on. Can’t believe that people are saying they’d just pretend they didn’t know and get on with their life. Fair enough if its another mum from the school gates, but you’d ignore if it was your own mother? I find that astounding.

I wouldn’t tell either.
You have zero certainty of what this friendship is.
Your mum has had heart issues.
Your dad shows no sign of leaving her.

She doesn’t need to know this.
She just needs him there.

My strong opinion is: leave them to it.

This.

A lovely friend of mine discovered her husband of 25 years had been having an ongoing affair/mistress for years (in the country where he regularly travelled for work). My friend had no idea.

What added profoundly to her hurt, was unbeknownst to her, when they were teenagers, their daughters had seen messages on their Dad’s phone. This was five years before my friend discovered it. The daughters had confronted him. He admitted it to them, but told them to maintain his secret otherwise blowing the family apart would be attributable to them.
My friend said as well as dealing with the betrayal of trust from her now exH, she found the trust issues with her daughters so hard to deal with. Whilst she understood the position they had been placed in, she still felt triply betrayed. It has affected her relationship with both daughters and they have had depression type issues, attributable to carrying his secret for so long.

Tell your Mum.

You can't deal with your own relationship when you don't know that your partner is shagging around behind your back.

It is if they know about infidelity and are expected to ‘keep the secret’. It’s totally unacceptable.

Astounding? Really? 😏 Like I said, they're both adults and it's their relationship not yours.

Nope, it's still not up to your children to 'carry' any aspect of your marriage. It's not their problem and it's not their 'secret' it belongs to the adult who is cheating.

Why not? If you don't know then there's nothing to deal with. If you find out then it's up to you as an adult to deal with it. If you have a good relationship with your adult children, they may want to support you in dealing with it but ultimately it's not their marriage and not their burden.

I’m so sorry you are in this position OP.

I don’t know what to advise as people and their relationships are all so very different.

Not everyone is just going to LTB, take half his pension and then go on to live their best life. A lot of people do turn a blind eye to this sort of thing for many reasons - financial, no longer interested in a sexual relationship etc.

There is a very real possibility that your mum will not leave your father and you could also easily become the bad guy. This happened to a friend of mine.

It’s a really fucking shit situation for you. There is no good option. You either keep this to yourself forever, or you tell your mum and let the chips fall where they may.

Ultimately though, I think I would need to tell my mum. I wouldn’t be able to keep this to myself for what could realistically be decades and still show up at Christmas as if everything was okay. And I wouldn’t be doing it for my mum’s benefit. It would selfishly be for my own peace.