My mother's affair has tainted my view of women and relationships (long, sorry)

[kiddo1992]

Afternoon all.

I am a 20 year old male struggling to cope with life at the moment, and I believe it can all be traced back to when my mother and father divorced five years ago.

I consider myself to have had a happy enough childhood, although I was always aware of the lack of respect my mother had for my father. He would often be shouted at for no reason, and also I often felt like I was walking on egg shells around my mum too in case I was shouted out. I genuinely recall often being nervous and anxious around her no matter what mood she was in.

Despite all this, she was very loving aswell and don't get me wrong I love her very much, but I'm struggling to forgive and forget what happened five years ago.

I was only 15 at the time, and after a rocky period in my parents' marriage I subsequently discovered that my mum had been having an affair with my best friend's Dad. After they had been found out they set up home together, my little sister went to live with my Mam whilst I decided to stay with my Dad who was absolutely heartbroken and very bitter for a long time. He has sine moved on and let go and settled down again with another woman, who is lovely by the way and I really hope they make it last.

I find it hard to let go though, everytime I visit her (which is getting rarer and rarer, something she complains about) and I see her sat next to him and him cuddling her and kissing her etc... it makes me want to be sick, I sometimes feel like they do it in front of me just to wind me up. The problem is compounded because they have had a baby together since the affair was revealed, she's four and absolutely gorgeous, probably the only reason I go to my mum's house is to see her and play with her.

Seeing how hurt devastated my Dad was has affected how I am with women I don't know, I don't really know how to explain it but its like I am scared to get involved with a girl in case I get hurt. I've had relationships in the past, the last one being about 2 and a half years ago, which was the last time I slept with a girl too, which obviously means I am the butt of some pretty cool jokes from my friends but, to be honest I would do the same if one of my mates had been on a dry spell that lasted so long.

Since my mum and dad split I have suffered with severe anxiety on two occasions. One lasted about 8 months between February and October 2008, I recovered from that but sank into it again with some depression thrown in for good measure in December 2010 and I am yet to recover from it.

The problem I have is that I yearn for a relationship but I have this innate fear of getting hurt and betrayed, I can't think of anything more humiliating to go through.

How do I get past this?

I think a bad situation is made worse when the children are not the first concern. This was the case in my situation and might be the same for OP. They put their needs first without thinking of the damage. I'm not yet a parent but when I am the needs of my children will always be first.

You can't blame all women for what you see as your Mother's fault. That's as daft as blaming all red-headed people because one red-headed person did you an injury.

You also have to realise that there are two people in a marriage. Who knows what went on between your parents but the truth of a relationship is only known to the people involved in that relationship (and sometimes even they choose to ignore it).

If you ever come back to this thread OP then I'd say your feelings are understandable. You were 15 and you not only had the shock of your mum leaving for someone else, he was your best friend's Dad. The ripples this must have created at a time when you were studying for GCSEs and placing a lot of importance on friendships, must have been devastating. Because you stayed with your Dad, you were also the one who had to see his pain and hurt every day. I disagree that either your pain or that of your Father's would have been the same if your Mum had called time on the marriage without anyone else involved. When there is deception involved and it's with someone known and close to the family, it's very different to a marriage ending because of transparently obvious irreconcilable differences. Usually in those circumstances, a couple discusses the break-up, with eachother and with their children. In your case, you both had a shock and the realisation that there had been a presumably long period of deception and lies, from two people who were closely entwined in your lives.

Do you have any contact with your friend and if so, what has been his legacy in terms of his attitudes to relationships?

One of the things that might help you is to be scrupulously honest with yourself about whether you've felt differently about it because it was your mum and not your dad who did this. Is there anything you've absorbed that women and mothers should somehow behave better, or differently than men? This is why your friend's current feelings are relevant. Has he coped better because he had different standards about his father, than you had about your mother?

Secondly, I do think you deserve and would benefit from a conversation with your mother about this. She needs to know that you're still struggling with it and have been badly affected - and also to be given the opportunity to explain her actions. She might not regret the new relationship, but she might regret the way she went about exiting her marriage and especially the effect on you and possibly her other child. If she said sorry to you, it might really help. You might then be able to reflect that adults often manage situations very badly and don't always treat eachother well, but that doesn't make them wicked people and doesn't mean that they aren't regretful and wish they'd behaved differently.

On the positive side, try to use this experience as a framework for your own relationships with women. Lots of women you'll meet will share your own abhorrence for deception and if you decide to partner with one permanently, you will probably be better placed to discuss your feelings about fidelity and how important it is to you. In some ways you're better placed to do this than couples who blindly assume that they will always be faithful and will never have their heads turned by anyone else, despite what life throws at them.

hmm, well first.... sympathy and all that but I spent 8 years with an abusive man and I don't think he's representitive of all men. So, I would say that you need to understand that all people are different, some are good some are bad and women are people.

As you're only 20 you don't know what it's like to be trapped in a nightmarish marriage. It is simplistic to blame one person. There's a lack of compatability, values, etc.... as another poster has said, the marriage was rocky, do you understand that your mum was NOT obliged to stay in a marriage that made her unhappy. And I'm sure it made your father unhappy too. The affair wasn't the issue, they were unhappy before that.

I think that you need to treat women as you'd like to be treated yourself. I've no idea what you look like, but don't chase after the prettiest girl you can 'get' and then feel that all your worst fears about women have been confirmed.

And finally, you're only 20. You don't have to be fit for a serious relationship yet. I took a very long break from relationships after the abusive one. I walked on eggshells for years too so I know that it's hell.

If ever there was a thread to point out the damage that affairs can do this is it. For all those that have had affairs or are contemplating one then read this and see how much damage it can do to children.

I think it also highlights the damage that 'staying together for the children does.

oh fuck, just did a giant post and it's gone! CTRL fucking C!

Your mother told you they hadn't had sex for 4 years and you were 15? that's too much information in my opinon.

but it looks like I'm demonising your mum. People are complicated, relationships infinitely more so, but that's irrelevant to you at the mo. What's important at the mo is you , how all this awful shite affected you when you were technically a child and were thrown into this godawful mess at a very impressionable age. You lost your home (or the home you knew, needed and depended on) while the adults who you relied on for solid parenting played around.

You were 15 ffs. YOu didn't need to be dragged into this mess but dragged in you were. You did the decent thing, the adult thing (when the adults were behaving like children) and chose to stay with your dad - who had lost his wife and daughter; so you stayed. Your mum not only took off but she alluded to sex and you were at an age where the very thought of our parents having sex is horrifying, let alone with someone else, let alone with your friend's dad. ewwwwww. unbelievably tacky. A bomb went off in your home and you were left to step up. which you did. not that you wanted to see the sinners together either - you are probably still appalled at the sexual undertones of what they did and still continue to do in your presence. and that's not to even address the emotional undertones of what they did, how they broke up your home, how they left your dad in a mess. and you! you were left in a mess but had nowhere to address it because both your parents were looking the other way. It's not surprising this is still fresh for you, you haven't had the chance to process it at all.

At age 15 you were parenting your dad. when you needed him (and her) to parent you . Being parented was something you expected without thinking and, by rights, should have had. HOw much of your dad's devastation did you witness? Even if he did the adult thing and kept it from you to a large degree, you would have been marinaded in his grief, imbibed it. this is what happens. so you were a kid and you were breathing in your dad's agony, when you should have been blithely depending on the adults in your life to provide you with a solid base. yy said that before, but it bears repeating.

yes you need to forgive - eventually. but that doesn't happen overnight, you need to know what you're forgiving and that's a process (which many adults haven't mastered if the truth be told). This is still as fresh as the day it happened - of course it is, of course you're angry with your mum; it very much looked like she was the instigator of all this shit which was forced on you. Perhaps she was but what is clear is that your parents took their eye off the ball at a crucial stage in your development to adulthood and this foul business has got stamped on your soul. Of course is has, that's what happens.

Please, get along to a therapist to unpack this. They're qualified, know their stuff, know how to give you the space to unpack this wound in its various stages. YOu need to be incandescently angry, unbearably sad etc etc - eg, you need to grieve, to blame, to be the child you were when all this shit happened; to go through the stages that were denied you at the time, for whatever reason. Possibly, during this process (and it is a process, you can't hurry it up or decide to complete it overnight) you will confront your mum, maybe your dad, maybe your friend's dad - maybe?? you won't know until you start the process how it will go. At the moment you are going along with everything, playing happy families, when you feel very far from that. It is no wonder your view of women is giving you gyp: your 15yo self is howling with grief, anger, loss and indignation. Rightly so imo.

apologies for even gianter post than the one I lost.

Op, may be there is another issue here- maybe you are angry and hurt and upset that your mother abandoned you? You might feel that, because she is your own mother, then any woman could be like her and that there is nothing you could do about it. That maybe makes you feel powerless and vulnerable around women.

Also, although what your mother did was wrong and horrible, and selfish, I am also wondering how your father was in the marriage? You say they hadnt been intimate for years and she told you this- maybe that wasnt what she wanted, and he refused to discuss it? Clearly they didnt communicate well, and could have avoided many problems if they had done so. So that is also a good lesson for the future.

OP's just started a thread in Feminism. My sympathy is evaporating fairly fast.

Hmm

Usually they're more clever.

where are you OP? you have two pages of replies and I wrote something out twice! but where are you? you've found out that people can follow you around this board so, come on, sit down and answer the people who have taken the trouble to reply to your current dilemma re your mum/women in general. Your replies here suggest people care about your current distress. as for the feminist stuff, you have to get your hard hat on to join in over there. It's a good place for debate but fair bristles so watch out.

He's fucked off back to womanhatersRus.com