Have cheating parents affected your realationships?

[happycat]

My Dad left my mum for an 18 year old girl when I was 13 my mum knew her and she had flirted around my dad for some time and creeped around my mum.My mum just never saw it comming.Before they split up as a child I could see how much he flirted with other women and was uncorfortable with it.I can only trust my husband 99% because of this although he really is nothing like my dad.The other night he did sort of flirt with a friend and we were all having a good laugh, but I can't help feeling a little threatned by it.Am I the only one still affected by a cheating dad.I think a dad and daughter realationship is special they are the first man you ever love and he not only cheated on my mum he cheated on me that's why I couldn't totally trust anyone.I am over the mum dad thing it is just this feeling I get sometimes

my parents split up when i was 17, my mom left my dad for a man who even on a good day would only ever be half the man my dad is, so i cant say that im worried about my partner going with other women cuz my dad was a wonderful father to me and a good husband to my mother, she just got bored, thought the grass was greener on the other side and now regrets her actions 8 years later.
however, my boyfriends mother messed around with loads of blokes behind his dads back whilst he was in the army, had blokes round at the house while his dad was away and cuz of this my boyfriend finds it really hard to trust me 100% ( i would never/could never cheat on him ) but its really hard for him to fully trust me because of his mothers actions.
i can see your point though, girls are closer to thier fathers and i think if my dad had behaved the way that my mom did i would of been devastated.

Funny enough, my dad also left my mom for another woman, and because I didn't hate him & reject him completely my mother was furious with me... reckoning that it was unfair I always took his side, I should be trying to keep our family together, etc., when actually I had never gotten on with my mom so while it was wrong what my dad did it was between him & my mom, not my problem or duty to try to change, and not a surprise to me that he had fallen out of love with her. If I was closer to my dad I think it had more to do with compatible personality types than anything else.

I have a similar issue, in a way, though... and NOT because of anything my dad ever did, but I was molested by other males and so were most of the women, and even some women I have known. Because on one level I have trouble believing that most men aren't child molestors. Great leap of faith to believe otherwise of my DH or most men.

Oh, this is interesting. My dad is dead but I had a long heart to heart about our family dynamics with an old friend of his recently and she said: "don't underestimate the effect of having had a womaniser for a father." I hadn't ever considered this before really but I suppose, if I think about it, it probably did affect my attitude towards men. For example, I used to believe that most men would be unfaithful given half a chance and if they thought they wouldn't get caught. I still do believe this to an extent, although I trust my dp and I trusted ex dh. I was unfaithful to many of my partners before getting married and before meeting dp and I think somewhere in there I was thinking that if I did it to them before they did it to me then if I found out they'd been unfaithful it wouldn't hurt so much. Or I'd have at least hurt them back. Or something. I do think I'm over it now and am completely capable of being faithful and trusting but I do think it affected the relationships I had in my late teens and early to mid twenties. So yes, happycat, I do think these relationships are important and I do think they affect us for an awfully long time.

thanks for your posts I guess I am not the only one then.I had a word with D.H and told him what he was doing did make me feel uncomfortable and that it just brings up old issues for me.Wickedwaterwitch I can see what you are saying too about your cheating my D.H is the only man I have never cheated on.I do feel even more determined not to cheat or break up my marrage though because of my dad.By the way he is so unhappy now and regrets leaving my mum.The 18 year old left him 5 years later.He is now married to a right cow who hits him sometimes and is jealous of me so I can't see him much anymore.