Was my mother emotionally abused? Father had long term affair.

[Crockofgold]

My mother and father had very much traditional roles when I was growing up but it came to light years later that my father (probably for about 10 years) didn't just go away for the weekend with his club, drinking and partying I think) but lived with another woman and had a child with her.

My parents never argued, but they also did not speak much to each other. I was totally unaware this silence was not 'normal'. My mother slept in a separate room but cooked and cleaned for my father, never being nasty or bad tempered. Growing up we never realised something was wrong. Mum just seemed to accept it but I am sure she resented it.

My father died at 50 and mum never talked about it or him and died a few years ago. My father was very calm and laid back, never temperamental or bad tempered. He gave her his wages every week. He never smacked or shouted at us. Neither did DM either.

Was my mother emotionally abused? I'm wondering if this is true it why I've put up with the load of shit my H has dished out over the years. Divorcing him as we speak but I wonder is seeing this passivity growing up has made me put up with bad temper, emotional abuse and some physical violence.

Others may have seen her as a sponger who was not willing to let go of the financial comforts your dad provided, even though she may have stopped loving him

You would have to be a special kind of asshole to think a woman who stayed with a man out of financial necessity was a "sponger".

Not many women left abusive philanderers in those days because their opportunities were severely limited.

As a matter of public policy.

Huge amount of speculation going on here.....

No one except the OP really knew the financial circumstances but women did leave marriages if they were dreadful, just as they are urged to now on MN!

The point was in case you missed it that no one really knows what was going on in the marriage. Staying with this man suited the mum in many ways or she'd not have done it. There are always ways out even if it's going to be tough. If you read my other post I described how my paternal gran brought up 3 kids under 8 when she was a) widowed in her 30s ( in the 1930s) and b) had to start all over for the 2nd time after their home was bombed to dust in WW2. There was no welfare state to help but she managed. They lived in near poverty but she managed.

Staying with this man suited the mum in many ways or she'd not have done it.

Right, so every woman who has ever stayed in an abusive relationship because she felt she had no genuine choice to leave was staying because it "suited her".

There are no eyes rolly enough to express how I feel about that comment.

Just because a woman stays doesn't mean it suits her to stay.

That's not how abuse works.

That's not how male privilege works.

But I'm guessing you're all about the menz and their overweening kindness in looking after all us terrible sponging dames they did everything they could to keep out of work.

And if you don't know the difference in status between a widow and a divorced woman, your ignorance of basic social realities in the last century is sadly lacking.

You sound very annoyed- why on earth are you going on like this?

Unless you have some contact with the dead then I fail to see what the 'eye rolls' are for. You have no idea what the truth was but at least I'm sticking to the points made by the OP that her mum chose not to leave for money-reasons.

I have said throughout my posts here that I don't see any evidence of EA- the OP asked that question. Maybe you do- I don't and we each have a right to our opinion.

I am very aware of the differences between the divorced and widowed so please cut the patronising comments.

The OP- if you had missed it- made the point her mother stayed because of financial difficulties had she left. I made the point about my family to show that there can be very difficult circumstances to divorce which throw a woman and her children into poverty but they can survive.

If that is hard for your to grasp then I can't help you further.

Of course I'm annoyed.

It's very annoying when people minimise and explain away women's abuse and subjugation by men as being something that "suited them".

All these sponging bitches staying with men who treated them like shit to stop themselves and their children from starving.

Nobody who genuinely felt they had any choice in the matter would stay in a marriage with a man who left his family every weekend to play housies with his girlfriend.

Women stayed in those situations, with the cruel bastards who put them through it, because they had no real power to do anything else with their lives and be sure they wouldn't end up utterly bollocksed.

It is mealy mouthed bullshit to wheedle on about how you don't know what went on inside marriages.

We do know - we know that women were exploited and abused and many of them stayed because being exploited and abused was all they could hope for in life.

Many still do.

You call that "suiting themselves" and that is so unbelievably shitty of you.

Yes, it's annoying.

It is mealy mouthed bullshit to wheedle on about how you don't know what went on inside marriages.

This is what is complete bollocks.

No one knows what goes on in a marriage. You cannot know. Every post on this thread tells the OP that no one but her parents knew what went on in the marriage. It is quite possible that the arrangement suited the Mum in some way- maybe she didn't love the father but decided to stay put for practical reasons.

You don't know. At least some of us on this thread are airing the possibilities of what might have been the reasons behind the situation whereas you appear to want to stand on a soapbox and talk about 'wimmin'.

And don't patronise me; I'm old enough to have actually lived through the changes and stigma attached to divorce - I don't need a lecture from some whippersnapper who's read about it.

Pink. I don't agree at all that my mother could easily divorce in the 1960s. She had 4 children to care for my sister and I both under 11. She had no job or training. She had grown up in the 1930s in total poverty as an illegitimate child and her fear of returning herself and her children to that overrode any personal hurt. We lived in rented accommodation and my father worked in a factory, so she didn't stay to live a life of luxury! She felt she had no choice I am sure.

You can't compare someone widowed with someone still married. A widow has no choice. I find it offensive to say she may have been a sponger, because that makes me one too. I put a stable life for my children above my own happiness too, because a lot of women do the same. It's a very common tightrope act and frankly one where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I think women of my mothers generation were very much subjugated and had little choice. I guess the only decent thing I can say about my H is that he has been faithful. If he hadn't I am sure I would have left sooner. Divorce then was very stigmatised and my mother didn't have the education or confidence to seek it.

I know my mother was deeply in love with my father for part of their marriage and I also know (from a few incidents that I didn't understand at the time) that she was deeply hurt and angry with his affair but she mentally distanced herself from it. I think dad did fall in love with this OW and out of love with my mother. This happens today and marriages end. My brother did tell me that dad stayed because of his children. I know he didn't hurt my mother deliberately but the fact that she was hurt and it affected her personality was a type of EA. Just a really sad situation all round but in those days men felt more entitled to behave like this.

I'm pretty sure my mothers situation and personality has been partly responsible for how I've reacted (or not reacted) but it's good to see the whole picture and have the strength at last to inch myself towards an inner peace.

crock- it was not my intention to upset you Your first post lacked much of the detail you have now included.

I do disagree with you though on how women could support themselves and I don't think in practical terms there was any difference between my gran who was widowed ( in the 1930s), who never owned a home in her life, who had to find a place to rent for her and her 3 children still under age 11 at the time, and find 3 jobs- including taking in washing and ironing, cleaning and whatever she could find, to support them. Maybe you have never come across women who lived like that but I have- my dad was her son. She had no choice- you are right- but neither did she had a husband who, in the event of a divorce, would perhaps have been made to pay maintenance for his children- or done so willingly.

You too made your own choice. Many on MNs would berate you for staying to give your kids a stable home but let them grow up in one where their parents did not have a happy marriage and possibly continue the poor role model of unhappy parents being the 'norm' - sow the seeds for their own marriages in time.

I don't know- I just don't think it's black and white- but I can't see what good it will do now to put the EA label on your mum.

Yes, it's not black and white that's why I think in one way it was EA but it wasn't a deliberate attempt to hurt. But again there was a total disregard for my mothers feeling and how hurt she was. Then again my dad didn't desert her and his children as he could easily have done!

I just wonder if I would have been stronger myself and kicked my H out sooner if I'd had a stronger role model? I know it's not made my marriage fail. That's all down to Hs behaviour. My siblings have all been ok and all Hs siblings have divorced!

There are too many variables and you will never know. I suppose you need to ask why it's that important to you to try to know!
You may be like your mum in terms of personality- and nothing to do with your dad's behaviour. On the other hand you could have turned out more like your dad- we don't automatically repeat the behaviour of the parent of the same sex. or you could have rebelled and been the complete opposite of your mum. What's not clear is how much you were aware of as a child- you seem to have been quite ignorant of what was going on and thought it normal- so if you didn't know what your dad was up to how could that have influenced your behaviour unless your mum was obviously long-suffering?

Your mum chose to 'put up and shut up' from what you wrote. I understand the reasons why and the social mores of her generation. But there were women who divorced at that time and they weren't all upper class or rich.

I think you need to stop looking for reasons from the past and focus on your own future from now on.

Not sure who said it, but you need to learn the lessons of the past not to repeat them in the future! That's what I am trying to do, learn from my whole past so that I can get some perspective.

I was unaware as a child of the affair but I grew up in an environment of no joking and affection between my parents, but no open hostility. Mum certainly put up and shut up and I'm sure that's what I have done in my own marriage. Whether it is nature of nurture I don't know, but I am sure if I had seen a happier relationship rather than a distant cold one I would have known sooner that my own circumstances weren't right, even though Hs type of abuse is quite different. I think my home life as a child set the bar very low for me as an adult.

I hope to have other relationships/friendships in the future and need to know why I made the mistakes I did and not repeat them.

The quote about learning lessons from the past is more about history ( sometimes) and the reason behind wars, politics, etc more than people's personal relationships.

You can't turn back time and you can't reverse what you lived through and yes- to a degree it has made you who you are. But you said your siblings are not affected in the same way as far as you know- so there is an element of 'you' in all of this.

You've never said how old you are now- I'm guessing 50+ if your mum was alive in the 1930s- so you must have had plenty of opportunity to see how other families lived and how husbands and wives related to each other- as an adult as well as perhaps a child. No?

At the heart of this though is your self-worth. It's not so much about the 'marriage model' in your childhood home that's the issue but your own perception of your self worth and how someone should behave towards you. If you have had a long marriage- which I expect you have- then regardless of whatever your mum endured, you should surely have had your antennae set so you could detect if someone was treating you badly?

I think- and this is why I still think you need counselling to explore this- it's not about the father-mother role model but more about the parent-daughter model. Regardless of the pain your mum endured in a loveless marriage if she had made YOU feel great, loved and able to have high expectations for yourself, then you'd not have put up with a marriage where you were treated badly.

A parent's role is to raise confident children with a high degree of self worth. I think your parents' marriage is partly to blame in so much as your mum felt battered and bruised ( metaphorically) but more to the point she (and your father) didn't bring you up to have high expectations and high self esteem. if they had, regardless of their own marriage issues, you'd have been able to end your own marriage much sooner-in my opinion.