My dad has recently been caught having an affair with his young personal assistant. Huge scandal; mom was very angry. Now they’re in the middle of divorce proceedings. Mom moved out, the other woman moved in and I chose to stay with him because we’re super close; he’s like my best friend. Now mom’s telling me to go and live with her and go no contact with him cause he’s a bad person and by continuing having a relationship with him I’m condoning his actions and “ignoring her suffering”. My relationship with my dad hasn’t changed, I don’t see why I should end it.
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Your dad cheated on your mum, not on you.
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Everything involving humans is more complex and complicated than it might seem at first glance.
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Everybody makes mistakes, even your loved ones.
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You only have one dad, so it’s better to forgive them. (I didn’t forgive mine for other mistakes, and that was my mistake. Now I’m old and he is dead and that’s that.)
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Your mum is being selfish and manipulative because she is afraid and hurting. It’s not right what she is doing, but see the points above for her as well.
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Life is hard and unfair and difficult for everybody. For your dad, for your mum and also for you. It sucks when you’re stuck in the middle of other people’s problems, but remember all of this will pass. And remember to take care of yourself.
Hugs my dude. You’ll get through this and so will they.
Edit: 7. Time. Let things take time. Don’t rush what you feel or what you should feel. Don’t go overthinking everything. Things that are complicated need time to settle.
I agree with almost everything you said except 4. is only true for past mistakes. I don’t think you should excuse ongoing, genuinely harmful behaviours just because that person will be gone one day. Not that I necessarily think that’s what you meant but I wanted to emphasise it.
Absolutely. That post was not a list of commandments. It was intended as support for OP in this very moment that they are having a crisis.
I mostly agree with this comment. I want to emphasize two things:
- Your mom is now alone, and probably feels like you are choosing him instead of her. She must feel very rejected as a person, betrayal is not something you easily recover from, the more time they spent together, the harder it is to separate yourself from the situation. She will eventually get better, but take into consideration that she is desperate now.
- Depending on how old are you, I would suggest leaving your house, either to go with your mom (see above) or living alone/with roomates if you are an adult. Your dad bringing the woman to your house raises some big red flags to me. Something is not right there, I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.
That said, don’t cut your dad out of your life, but your mom is alone and betrayed, and your dad isn’t. If I were to support someone here, would be her, without cutting anyone from your life.
Honestly, I’m very happy that your post has the highest score.
All other people are spewing vitriol over either parent and not even trying to be understanding. Life is about making and learning from mistakes, and mistakes can be oh-so-horrible at times. Character value is measured by how well you navigate the stormy waves, and there’s almost never a single correct choice.
Thanks. Yeah, anything relationship oriented tends to become completely and binary moral high ground burn all bridges and salt the earth from people that have no stake in it except to have a short moment of hormones pumping before they scroll to the next bit of entertainment.
This is a wise response.
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Mate, first off he’s not your best friend.
Could anyone here imagine if their friends did something so horrible to their mother that they caused her to break down upset? I wouldn’t fucking go hang out with them afterwards, like fuck he’s your friend.
He is your father, and apparently a terrible one if this is the life lessons he wants to impart on his son that it’s okay to be an immature fuck and cheat over get a divorce.
Cutting him off 100% doesn’t sound right, but you have clearly chosen his side and to stand by him despite how wrong it is — you’re going to have to work hard to make up for your poor choice.
You can’t immediately call dad a horrible person. We only know one side of the story. Maybe mom was cheating too? Maybe mom was abusive? Maybe this marriage was over years ago and they stayed together for the kid?
He needs to tell each parent he’s not taking sides and loves them both. People make mistakes and can be forgiven.
Why are you suddenly deciding that being with his father is a bad choice? We literally know nothing about whether he’s a good dad- it is possible to be a good parent and provider and a bad husband. No matter what happens in his parents relationship, both will still be his parents and it’s the parents’ job to sort it out. What we do know here is that his mom is absolutely a red flag- you do NOT manipulate your children into taking sides in a divorce. The parents should be there to support their children and not the other way around.
OP you have given us way little information. How was your parents marriage before this blow up? Were you not close with your mother before? You mention you are close with your father but nothing about mother. Also were you upset or angry by the actions of your father? From the information you have shared (that you are staying with your dad and his mistress), it seems that you are not bothered by what is happening.
Now based on the limited information you have given, your father is clearly the guilty party here. He did something that is morally wrong. Hopefully you understand that. Your mom is very hurt and must feeling betrayed (slightly even by you because you chose to stay with your dad and his mistress). In that emotional state, she is making a unreasonable request to you (to go no contact with your dad). If you want a good relationship with mom, you will have sit down with her and reach an understanding and compromise with her. Maybe you can go to therapy with her like some other commenters suggested. One thing I am sure about is that if you side with father on everything, you will end up estranged from your mom.
Their marriage was always hot and cold. I never had a great relationship with my mom. She’s a very judgemental/cold person. She hated my feminine behaviour/preferences growing up and still does and used to berate me for that. She didn’t support me when I came out as gay. My dad always supported me. In a way, I’m glad their marriage finally broke down. Life at home is so nice and peaceful now without her around.
Stick to your guns OP. People here are judging your Dad for cheating, but it sounds like your Mom has been actively alienating everyone around her for years. People who make life difficult for those around them will eventually find themselves alone. People eventually stop dealing with their bullshit, and move on in life. It sounds like you and your Dad decided to move in a less stressful, more fulfilling direction. He found love, and you found peace, while your Mom wants to continue sowing discord, drama, and chaos in your lives. I don’t blame you for rejecting her efforts, and choosing peace.
She hated my feminine behaviour/preferences growing up and still does and used to berate me for that. She didn’t support me when I came out as gay.
So she never accepted you as you are and didn’t support you when you needed her most? Your dad’s no saint, but if I were in your position, I’d sooner end contact with my mother than my father.
Sounds like this is a no brainer to me. I’m a step parent to a brilliant kid who’s father is a complete narcissist, and I’ll tell you this, if a parent tells you to dislike the other parent, don’t trust them without evidence. Make your own decision, and listen to the parent that let’s you make it. A caveat is that a better parent probably won’t tell you all of the bad things they’ve had to deal with, and it’s important to remember that everyone is human and makes mistakes.
It’s ok to have a relationship with both parents, and it sounds like you know which parent to trust. That doesn’t mean you need to cut your mom out of your life, you just get to have a different kind of relationship with her. I’m a fan of honesty, if either parent does something you don’t like, tell them so and ask them to stop. If they won’t, you’ve got a real good answer as to who you want to spend your time with.
Well if the that is case, there is no reason to compromise to have a relationship with your mom. Being with your dad is the way better option for you (since he loves you and you love him) and maybe it is the best option for everybody involved.
Still I hope you understand that at some level what your dad did was morally wrong. Irrespective how crappy things were, the correct order would have been to seek divorce before hooking up/dating somebody else. Learn from the mistake he made.
I’m very sorry to hear you’re going through this. I’m glad you have a father who accepts you for who you are.
What I realized way too late is that my parents are human and humans are inherently stupid. They got their fucked up understanding of how relationships should work from their fucked up parents. You are an adult and you can make your own independent decisions, don’t let anyone power play you into feeling like an obedient child.
Some people are only meant to be together for so long and if the outcome of that relationship is you then it was worth it? Now move on and do something you like
Your mom needs therapy
Your choices, as you’ve presented them, are so extreme. Cut your dad off forever and move out, or… do nothing?
Let’s set your mom’s demands aside for a second. Do you have any reaction to him cheating on his wife? How do you feel about that?
You should act based on how you feel about it. And if your mom is incredibly wounded by it, that can absolutely be a factor in how you feel. “Wow dad you really hurt mom. That sucks.”
I’d think that cheating on your mom should have SOME effect on you. You say your relationship with Dad hasn’t changed. Is that true? Or is it only true in comparison to your mom’s extreme demands?
Basically, stop playing this like it’s all black or all white and realize that you have a million ways to react to this situation that are in the middle somewhere.
You’re not a bad person for not moving out immediately. You actually might be a bad person if you have absolutely no problem with the cheating. But you can disapprove of the cheating and still have a good relationship with your dad.
I’ll tell you right now that your Dad has rediscovered sex after aging a bunch and perhaps feeling like he’d never experience it again. That is a powerful experience for him and he won’t easily cast it aside. If you value your relationship with him, I wouldn’t try to take that away from him. He’ll react like a dog when you try to take away the steak it’s eating.
But you can disapprove of the cheating and still have a good relationship with your dad. That seemed worth saying twice. He should listen to you if you think it was wrong. He should listen to you if you are upset that he hurt your mom.
If you really just absolutely don’t care about your mother or the cheating… I don’t know what to say about that. It seems pretty cold and inhuman.
My dad tried this same trick and wanted to influence my relationship with my mom (who had an affair). I told him I understand his feelings but that he could never talk that way to me again or I would cut him out of my life immediately. This is my mom you’re talking about.
I can’t have other folks then myself decide who I interact with. It’s not like I’m taking sides or feel great about her actions, but I wasn’t gonna stop seeing her because it hurts someone else.
I never was that direct with my parents before, but it felt like if that line would be crossed it would all come crumbling down.
No. Your mom is hurt, and probably feeling betrayed from multiple fronts. First from her husband having the affair, and now from you choosing to stay with him. But that doesn’t make her words accurate, nor does it make them acceptable.
She actually needs to be really careful in how she brooches the subject going forward, because this is a clear cut attempt at parental alienation. It’s a big issue in divorce proceedings; If one parent tries to alienate the child(ren) from the other, then the courts can step in and use that against the offending parent in the divorce.
Basically, courts recognize that divorce brings out the worst in people, and they don’t want children being caught in the middle or used as weapons/leverage. If it gets too bad, the court will even appoint a lawyer specifically for you/any siblings, whose entire focus is on your wellbeing. Because the court basically recognizes that during divorce, chances are very good that the parents will act out of spite instead of the child(ren)’s best interest. So to protect the kids, the court essentially appoints a lawyer to represent the kids.
That lawyer isn’t focused on which parent gets the bigger slice of the assets, or who pays alimony, except to determine how that would affect your living conditions. All that lawyer does is fight for your best interest. And when it comes time to decide who you stay with, your opinion does factor into it. They’ll weigh your opinion more heavily if you’re older, but it does play a large part in who ends up being your primary guardian.
Your dad had an affair, and torched the relationship your parents had. That sucks. But you’re not a bad person for wanting to stay with him regardless. Your mom needs to do some soul searching, and rethink how she talks about your dad in front of you in the future.
My dad was an addict and had multiple affairs. My mom never even told me about them until I was much older, and she did everything in her power to avoid talking shit, because she wanted to keep him in my life. The court wanted to totally end his custody, but she fought for supervised visits instead. Because she recognized that if I wanted to end my relationship with him, it should be my choice, not hers. And I respect the hell out of her for that. Because it meant that when I finally decided to cut contact, it was for my own reasons.
I think you should consider your mom is very hurt right now and my be overreacting by pulling you into the fight because of that. However, a cheater isn’t a good role model and neither is the destroyer of marriages. She got that right.
IMO you should suggest a compromise, like staying with him, but berating him and his mistress from time to time and should also be transparent about it, so they know it’s due punishment and a compromise for not leaving him.
You’re fine. Your mom has legitimate pain but she’s no right to pressure you to end your relationship with your dad.
Okay so… your dad is unequivocally a piece of shit. You said he’s like your best friend, but are you okay with your best friend being a piece of shit? There need to be social consequences for being an unapologetic piece of shit (which one would need to be to have an affair with their personal assistant and then move in with her). Just business as usual isn’t gonna cut it (think if instead of cheating he’d come out as a Nazi) and you would be condoning his actions if there aren’t negative consequences of some form for this fiasco, though how much you escalate is up to you.
Edit: I have to say, the attitudes some of y’all have about parent-child relationships range from ungrateful to absolutely deplorable. Like, seriously if I heard “it’s the parent’s job to emotionally support their children, not the other way around” from someone in real life I wouldn’t let that person within five miles within anyone I care about.
Exactly, everyone is giving this piece of shit a pass and going after the mom for being manipulative?
The fuck Lemmy.
Honestly from what we know, which is next to nothing, both parents here are in the wrong partially.
But as someone else already said here, humans and their relationships are super complex and from just a little paragraph we shouldn’t judge either of them too harshly.
For example, my mom cheated on my dad, but we children stayed with her and understood her actions, because our dad was an emotionally unavailable alcoholic at that time. He turned himself around in the years following, becoming a better father. Both my parents made grave mistakes during their marriage and both shared blame in the breaking apart of our family and both, over time, accepted their part in it.
Life is not that easy, for none of us, everybody makes mistakes.
You gotta read between the lines. OP is close to father, not mother. Mother demands OP cut off all contact with father because he cheated.
It’s clear to me that mom is just trying to drive a wedge between OP and dad in order to hurt him. She doesn’t care how that will affect OP!
Maybe dad started cheating because mom was cold and unavailable? Maybe he fell in love with someone who reciprocated and was available emotionally because his wife wasn’t? He invited this woman to move in, so obviously it wasn’t just a fling.
You have no idea why that happened though. Are you absolutely 100% sure he’s the only bad actor in the relationship? Maybe it wasn’t “just an affair”.
Don’t draw conclusions from limited information.
I don’t know, but also don’t care. There is no good reason to have an affair (outside of maybe being coerced to enter/stay in the relationship). If he wanted to fuck the assistant, he should’ve (and, given that she’s moving in, clearly could have) gotten a divorce first. Ergo, piece of shit.
Dude had an affair with his young secretary and she is now moving in. That’s a tale as old as time, and tells me a fair bit about the dad. Maybe he does have a good relationship with OP, but the mother is in the process of losing everything to her scumbag husband.
OP is old enough to make their own decisions, but Dad’s relationship with his mistress is going to fall apart in 6-12 months when the novelty wears off.
life is complex. You really cannot assume he is a piece of shit just based on the information we have.
Was their marriage good? Was he happy with his life? If not, is he a piece of shit for wanting to live a happy life in the little time we have on this world? Is other person entitled to chain you to an unhappy life?
He may or may not be a piece of shit, I wouldn’t know.
Was their marriage good? Was he happy with his life? If not, is he a piece of shit for wanting to live a happy life in the little time we have on this world? Is other person entitled to chain you to an unhappy life?
As I said in another reply, there was a way for him to live a happy life in the little time he has on this world (or get his peen wet, whichever it is): Get a divorce. As long as he could do that, which is clearly the case given that he is getting a divorce and his mistress is moving in with him, he had absolutely no excuse to have an affair behind his wife’s back. Hence, piece of shit.
He is getting a divorce.
You need to put yourself in both perspectives. It’s not so easy to make such a big change in life without being sure first, that’s why people tend to already have met other one to love before leaving their current partner .
Anyway, it would not be easier for the leaved part to accept it. Normally the pain tends to come for the fact that someone who you loves, and that you think they love you back, no longer loves you. The temporal fact that their new relationship overlaps a little with the time before leaving you does not ease much the pain.
Because, let’s be real, is not like people don’t want to be cheated, it’s that people, reasonably, don’t want their partner to leave them. Cheating is just the realization of this leaving. But you cannot force love on someone, of they don’t love you, they just don’t.
If a relationship is broken, I don’t really see cheating as a cause, more like a symptom.
Ideally people will be more brave and just end things as soon as they feel no love. But that’s a little too utopic in my humble opinion. And being so harsh on people who didn’t manage to be as brave as to end something to be alone instead of ending things when they have sure they are not going to be alone is not that justified from my point of view.
Yeah it is unfair for the other part who has “lost” time in a failed relationship and could be have been looking for other partners sooner, as their SO is doing. But a failed relationship is usually evident from both sides equally, so at some point is also their own fault for clinging themselves to a death relationship.
Things would change if there’s manipulations, abusive behavior or harm is being done on purpose of course. But there’s no evidence that it is the case here. In fact the only harm tried to do in purpose here comes from the mother asking the son to break relationships with his father just to make him suffer.
He is getting a divorce.
From the context it’s clear he’s getting divorced by his wife after getting caught.
It’s not so easy to make such a big change in life without being sure first, that’s why people tend to already have met other one to love before leaving their current partner .
Okay then meet with the side chick and then get a divorce. He didn’t do that; he waited until he was caught. That’s the most piece of shit development possible.
Anyway, it would not be easier for the leaved part to accept it. Normally the pain tends to come for the fact that someone who you loves, and that you think they love you back, no longer loves you. The temporal fact that their new relationship overlaps a little with the time before leaving you does not ease much the pain.
The fuck? You do realize that people commonly leave their spouses due to cheating right? As in from their own side divorce/break up after finding out. Clearly cheating as an act, irrespective of the context, is hurtful. If you can’t get that simple fact then frankly you need to do less armchair psychology and more talking to people.
Things would change if there’s manipulations, abusive behavior or harm is being done on purpose of course.
Cheating is inherently abusive. It’s a betrayal of the consent their partner has given for an exclusive relationship.
A good mother will prioritize the wellbeing of her children over winning a conflict with her (ex) partner. It is completely unfair of her to ask you to pick a side or go no contact with your father. Hopefully she’ll realize this once she’s had some time to process her (understandable) emotions. In the mean time, best of luck to you!
NGL, IMO your dad sounds like kind of a piece of shit (based on the limited information available to me). However, at the end of the day he is still your father and it’s not your job to punish him for that. That’s your mother’s lawyer’s job.
Be there for your mother if you feel up to it (and you love her), but keep in mind that it’s a parent’s job to emotionally support their children, not the other way around.
And what would a good father do champ?
Tell his son or daughter that he made a mistake, apologize for setting a bad example, and tell them the right thing to do, assuming the relationship was untenable, would’ve been to end things with his wife before pursuing someone else.
Edit: A bad husband doesn’t necessarily make a bad father, though.
Edit 2: Come to think of it, a good father would probably also have waited a little longer before having his girlfriend move in.
My bad advice for this situation would be for you to start planning on pursuing the mindset for independent living.
I feel you. I went through a similar ordeal 30 years ago with my dad. You should not be in the middle. It’s your parents business about their marriage. Therapy is good suggestion from others.
I get that she is hurt. To make you end your relationship with your dad is still toxic.
I get the feeling it’s less about you then her wanting to hurt him as well.
I am not a therapist. I’m guessing most people on Lemmy are not. Take anyone’s advice with a grain of salt… including this.
People make mistakes. It’s human nature for men to seek younger women because they are supposed to be more fertile. It’s human nature for women to seek older men because they are supposed to be more mature and protective.
However, that’s just thousands of years of basic instincts. We’re more educated now. We are supposed to behave like advanced creatures, go beyond our primal thinking.
That said, if you have a good relationship with your dad, don’t break ties simply because of his infidelity. Learn from his mistakes. Maybe help him understand what he did wrong. Your mom is angry because he broke a promise, a vow. She wants you on her side because she is angry with him and wants to punish him for it.
I don’t know your mom or dad or their relationship. Maybe she was a perfect saint or maybe she was cold and manipulative. Either way, he shouldn’t have chosen someone else before their relationship ended. It’s just not right to hide something like that.
Typically, a man choosing a younger woman over their wife tends not to think with their brain, but with their lust. He could very well do it again in five ten years with someone younger.
Your mom shouldn’t force you to choose, but you should definitely have some empathy for her on how their bond was broken. She is in pain. She trusted him and he failed her.
Hopefully, you will find some sort of compromise and balance. It may take time for her to understand. A long, honest talk might help the two of you get to that point.
Best of luck.
I have very very little respect for people who cheat in a marriage instead of getting out; but it is clearly not your mom’s choice to make.
If you’re closer to your dad, then stay with him. Explain to your mom that you’re not trying to attack her, but choosing your own well-being first (as you should).
