As a somebody who’s parent had an affair…

[TroublesComing32]

I read a post in here that contained a letter written by a child to their parent who’d had an affair. It was taken down, because it was too outing I think, but it really resonated with me. You could hear the child’s (who is now an adult’s) pain and I just wanted to say if they happen to be reading this, I feel the same. While I don’t want to be victim I think it’s shaped me and the person I am today. It rocked my foundation, left me feeling like I didn’t matter. I struggle to trust anyone and those feelings have never left me and it’s been over 20 years since it all came out. Worse still my parents stayed together so however I feel, we all just play happy families.

I’ve thought about it a lot since I had my own kids, my marriage isn’t always easy but I could never, ever put my husband or kids through that kind of pain. Don’t really know why I’m posting this, I suppose I’m looking for empathy or maybe for somebody to tell me to get over myself, any thoughts anyone?

I genuinely don’t understand how you can end up with a lifetime of distrust because a parent had an affair. Do you mean the parent asked you to lie or you knew about it and had to hide it from the other parent? I live my parents deeply but I’ve never considered them infallible, surely doing that is setting yourself up for disappointment and a lifetime of blaming things on choices your parents made?

My parents made some hideous decisions when I was a child - affairs, my dad pissed off to sail round the world for 2 years without contact, we were very often broke because my mum had spent £500 on a hat or something ridiculous. But I love them deeply, as do my siblings. I can see the mistakes they made and think that I don’t want to make those same ones for my kids. I can understand things like neglect, abuse or abandonment causing issues for you that might need help resolving but you’re parents just making some stupid or selfish decisions? No, life’s too short.

One of my parents had an affair….they got caught quite spectacularly and the shit hit the fan. I was quite young at the time. I don’t actually think the affair was the main problem…it was how they both behaved afterwards. One fucked off with the affair partner and wanted very little to do with me. One initially couldn’t cope, was suicidal etc which is difficult to deal with as a child. Then they met a “new family” and fucked off too. I was housed, fed and clothed but it was made very clear to me I was an annoyance and in the way. It was a shit childhood but I’ve had years of therapy to unravel it. I am nothing like either of those selfish fuckers and I wouldn’t dream of treating a child, or any person like that.

My parents split after my dad had an affair, starting when I was about 18.
My mother blamed everyone else for her marriage failing.
My brothers' fault for their drug problems.
My fault for not shaming my father enough, he would have worked harder on the marriage if I told him to.
My dad's siblings' faults for not shaming & condemning him.
My mother drove old friends & my dad's family away. Only one of their old friends managed to stay truly mutual (a lady whose (by then ex) husband probably also cheated, but she had the nerve to tell my mother she should move on).

Then my mother obsessed over my dad after the divorce, never stopped hating & condemning him & telling me about that. She was deeply hurt that I had any relationship with him, would binge drink if I spent time with him.

I found my mother hard to get along with before the affair came out.
Took a while to organise, but my mother soon had full time work, healthy finances, owned her own home. She was still getting alimony when she died (I'm the youngest & was 35yo then).

I reject attitude people who have affairs are bad people who should be punished forever. Sod that shit. My mother is one who tried hard to put me & everyone else into centre of her marital (& can't recover from divorce) difficulties. My dad screwed up but my mom screwed up hugely more.

He was responsible for his behaviour. She was responsible for hers. He was mostly absent after that. She wasn't. Her behaviour had a much bigger impact on my childhood. Children are the real victims in all this. They have no power over their lives. They are at the mercy of the adults around them.

The reason it can lead to a lifetime of mistrust is that your parents growing up are the ones you trust the most. They are your care givers. Witnessing then trust being broken between them both and essentially you now trying to come to terms with they are not the person you understood them to be is long lasting

i was in this situation as a child, parents started together and I can say it’s had a huge impact on how I trust in relationships

I didn't see the post. My own father had an affair and left. I remember the fall out and my mother's heartache. As an adult, being left in the same way is my biggest fear and although I am not unreasonably mistrustful of my dh, in the back on my mind I always have a fear he'll have an affair and i'll suffer the same heartache. He knows this would break my heart.

I know affairs aren't black and white and although i think they're wrong, I can accept that someone can be a poor spouse or partner (and cheat) but still be a devoted parent and that an affair doesn't have to be the end of a loving and strong relationship between a child and parent. Unfortunately my dad failed at being a good husband and father. When he left my mother, he turned his back on me too and that's the part I find hard to fathom (especially since having my own kids). It's been hard to get over but I have. I genuinely don't dwell on it any more. Instead of looking at what I lost, I focus on what I have and that's love in abundance now I have my own children and a loving dh.

@Junepa that makes sense. I guess I was sheltered from that as I knew to never trust my parents 😂

I didn't see the post but just wanted to say I'm so sorry for you @TroublesComing32 While I can't identify myself (parents being married through the good, bad & ugly for more than 50 years) I see the pain & trust issues you allude to in my daughter.

Her Father had an affair when she was a baby, he threw us out to move in & marry his mistress when she was 2. He didn't see her for months on end then produced a ''new family'' - comprised of mistress + her kids. Everything she knew disappeared overnight along with her little world collapsing. She's a teenager now, and struggles with he belief she has no control over her life, life is just ''happening'' to her, she does not matter, trusts no one and perceives the world as unsafe and that she is alone. It's impacted every aspect of her life and development from her youngest age - from sleep, friendships, academics to her mental health. While she's never been told her that he'd had an affair, as she's got older, she's worked out that the only plausible scenario is that he did have an affair. While this realization didn't improve matters, it didn't cause the issues she has either. She's had a lot of issues over the years, social workers trying to help have explained to me that all that passed when she was tiny caused her severe trauma which impacted her development and the way she perceives the world. What you and I may see as pedestrian - scares the living day lights out of her. I wanted to believe that if I prioritized her, was always there, never let her down, it wouldn't matter what he did and she'd be ok. I was sadly wrong, as you say it ''rocked her foundation''.

How you feel is understandable, but I suppose my point is that it is not the affair per se that causes problems. Children learn they are safe and to trust through attachment with their primary carers (i.e. parents), this leads to a child to grow up knowing the world is safe and being able to trust, explore & develop. While I know many will disagree with me on this, separation (for any reason) can often lead to the loss of this trust, nurturing, sense of safety & stability and causes this type of impact to children involved. Some will blame their fathers, others will blame their mothers - some both - but at the core - it is the loss of 'family' and all that represents.

@Pinkyxx I'm so sorry for your DD. That is an excellently illustrative post but extremely sad for you and your daughter ti have lived through that and experienced the consequences of it. You sound like an amazing mother.

this makes me wonder if the issue isn’t the affair as such but how parents decide to deal with it iyswim

Absolutely this @AsterixInEngland

I absolutely believe this is true of many negative circumstances kids are faced with. I think it is the gaslighting of playing happy families that is one of the main challenges kids are left to deal with while they are going through very difficult emotional experiences.

Agree @BudgetBlast it is so damaging.

When I was going through my divorce my ex kept delaying me telling our children. There was always a "reason" not to like DD was going away on a school trip and didn't want her to be upset. So for weeks/months we had to carry on a facade when in reality we didn't want to be in the same room let alone be going on jolly breaks together.

When we did tell DD - she already knew, and she had gone away on that trip terrified that she would come home to find one of us gone. If I'd been able to be honest, I could have reassured her of things instead of leaving an 11 year old to deal with their feelings on their own.

I think you’ve just very eloquently expressed something I’ve never been able to pin down into coherent words.

My locus of control shunted to entirely external, very external, like I had to hunker down because you didn’t know when somebody else would launch an asteroid into your life. And because it was very external I was terrified. Might as well have walked about with a sandwich board saying Please Victimise Me I was so obviously easy prey. Which certainly helped set the locus ever firmly more external. And I genuinely could not see how I was contributing to my own repeated downfalls. Or I didn’t want to, because maybe if asteroids kept falling I would never allow myself to feel safe again. Safe was dangerous because it leaves you vulnerable to surprise attack. Safe is dangerous because you have to keep living. Safe meant you couldn’t rely on an accident, or manslaughter to set you free from not wanting to be alive.

Thank you. I think you’ve helped me put on of the last few pieces back into my complicated puzzle. All my love to your girl. Wishing her nothing but a speedy and softened route through to the other side.

Thanks everyone, this has been a really helpful conversation with loads of really good points.

For anyone worrying about their own kids I would say there is life beyond all this. I am a functioning adult with a family and a career. I have managed to trust, I just find it hard. I am married to someone who for his own reasons feels as strongly about infidelity as I do. I have a small circle of friends and colleagues who support me more than they know and I hold dear the people I do choose to let in. I’ve maintained a relationship with my parents but I’ll never forget what my dad did and how it felt, he’s ruined it for himself too and I know he regrets that.

@BudgetBlast Thank you very much, that's very kind of you.

@AlienatedChildGrown I'm so sorry you've struggled with the same things my daughter is. Your comment around being unaware of the part you played in continuing the pattern is both interesting and important. My DD is also entirely oblivious to her role in perpetuating her own pain, which serves to reaffirm her beliefs but also a more important role: protection. Life leads us to craft our own narratives & mechanisms to protect ourselves from that we fear the most... For my daughter she needs to focus on that fear, that unsafe feeling. It's abstract, unquantifiable and serves the ultimate purpose: to consumes her and obfuscate the harsh, intolerable reality that she needs to avoid as she cannot tolerate it: her own father willingly abandoned her and as if that was not enough continuously rejects her at every given opportunity. Girls particularly I think are prone to internalizing such things.

My Dad had an affair, my parents were together for 20 yesrs.
I was glad when they divorced. My mum deserved someone who truly loved her, whidh she found. My dad deserved to be happy too and I understand his struggle to leave the family unit and not wanting to leave and have time without his kids.

I was the other woman, and am now the wife. My husband's children were 16 and 18 at the time and are 22 and 24 now. The younger is fine and came to our wedding last year, but the older still refuses to have anything to do with us. This has devastated her father. I find her actions selfish and as someone alluded to earlier, controlling. She probably expected that if she stop talking to her father he would walk away from me and return home. She had not bargained for the fact that we genuinely love each other and he was genuinely unhappy at home. That never meant that he did not love his children.

The ideal would of course be that affairs never happen and for one relationship to end before another starts. But that is not reality. My husband was desperately unhappy and had stayed for years in the hope that things would work. Whether he had met me or not, his marriage was doomed.

I find it astonishing that an adult's wellbeing hinges so much on the actions of one man when they were younger. What you seem to suggest is that if your own father had been faithful you would not have these issues. Is that honestly the case? The actions of your father would not change the likelihood of your own partners cheating on you.

My ex said that i should just tell the kids he cheated and that is why we aren't together, but my dad cheated and moved out to be with OW for a bit and it changed how i viewed him forever, so i keep the secret for their sake.

@Windswept1

Do you not think your own and her dad's actions were selfish?

@lljkk Your story is almost identical to my own, especially regarding how my mother reacted after my father left. Only difference is my mother blames only me, the only girl...as far as I know she's never attributed any blame for my father's exit affair on my two brothers.

It was my fault because I'd dared marry my boyfriend and 'made my father feel old'...he was early 40s.

It was also my fault because I'd 'made' them pay for my wedding...a wedding that I'd not actually wanted in the first place, I felt I was far too young...I was only 21. My boyfriend and I had bought a house, I wanted to live with him first. I was threatened with being disowned if I lived with him (my mother is Catholic). Stupidly I still valued the whole concept of 'family' back then...

Then my mother obsessed over my dad after the divorce, never stopped hating & condemning him & telling me about that ... yes, I had that too. Difference is my mother emotionally blackmailed me and my two brothers into cutting all contact with our father.

After he left she refused to work (even though she was only 48 when he left). Went back to our home country and found a doctor who was willing to help her get a disability pension, that's she been on ever since. That was over 30 years ago. She's alienated all of her family, all of my father's and most of her friends. She's now 80 and lives in a tiny housing association flat and is still blaming my father for everything 'wrong' that has happened in her adult life.

Even before my father left they were both terrible, selfish parents that made some very bad, serious decisions - that put them first over us - that made my brothers and my childhood an utter misery. And my mother still wonders why none of us have given her grandchildren...

I have always been affected by one of parents having an affair (no one else would know, I have internalised everything). But there's been some really helpful posts on this thread which have helped me understand myself.

It's close to 15 years since it happened and I still feel like the girl who found out her Mum was having an affair, keeping the secret until it came out, the blackmail. I think this is the most my feelings have ever been validated! It's not the worst thing that could ever happen to a person, but it has certainly had an affect on me, probably even more so since having my own children.

Glad it wasn't just me who thought that! Unbelievable!

@lljkk I'd like to add that your last paragraph resonated with me very strongly,...

I reject the attitude that people who have affairs are bad people who should be punished forever. Sod that shit. My mother is one who tried hard to put me & everyone else into centre of her marital (& can't recover from divorce) difficulties. My dad screwed up but my mom screwed up hugely more.

This 100%. My father did screw up, but my mother is the one who used myself and my two brothers to 'punish' him. Her marital woes were nothing to do with us, we were all over the age of 18. She loved my father enough at one point to have 3 children with him, she should have loved us enough to want us to still have our father in our lives after the divorce.

Hmm interesting. I held a lot of resentment for my dad in my early adulthood, but as I've matured, I've realised (in my parents' marriage at least) that the fault was not all with my dad. It takes 2 to make a marriage work, not saying my mum "deserved" it, of course not, but I understand how it occurred and do not think that one poor decision makes him a bad person or in any way defines him, or our relationship.

People seem very confused between having an affair and being with someone you don't love. You can leave someone you don't love without having to shag someone else first. When a parent has an affair and leaves I would imagine as a child it feels like they've chosen their AP over you, I just think it's completely and utterly selfish.