SurvivingInfidelity.com Forum Archives

painfulpast posted 6/2/2014 15:19 PM

I want to be clear - I'm not carrying any other posts from any other forums into this thread. The topic of Family issues (FOO - family of origin, etc) comes up quite a bit, generally as something that may be the cause of a WS being a WS. Here's my question:

I don't know anyone that doesn't have family issues. My list is a mile long - abusive father (to mother, not me or sis), alcoholics, infidelity (father and mom's sis), serious mental illness (grandmother), etc. I could write a book on what can go wrong in a person's family. Yet I didn't cheat.

As I said, I don't know anyone that doesn't have family issues, but I know lots of people that didn't cheat. I really don't know how I feel when I read about a 'troubled childhood' from a WS. I think, and this is my opinion, that this is an excuse. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I think that. A person does something wrong - well, blame it on mom and dad. Sorry, but if a person does something wrong, the blame is with the person. People know when they're about to do wrong. It's not someone else's fault.

If I wrote the details of my childhood, there would be people wondering why I wasn't a prostitute. I also see people in the WS forum that have no family issues at all.

It's frustrating, as a person so negatively affected by infidelity, to see the buck passed to some form of negative childhood.

Please understand - there are instances in life that can truly wreak havoc with a person's sense of right and wrong, such as CSA, but barring that or something that horrific, I don't see a correlation - I see an excuse.

I've had to deal with my shitty childhood without scarring those around me. If I do something bad, I own it, because I'm an adult, and I know right from wrong. I don't blame my drunk father or my mother who, after her divorce, went out night after night after night, leaving me alone night after night after night. I blame me.

I wish others would do the same. Thoughts?

steadfast1973 posted 6/2/2014 15:39 PM

I think it's more an issue of how they deal with their foo issues, not the foo issues themselves. My fwh and I had very similar childhoods. He's a WS, and I am not. I dealt with my shit. He didn't. He used sex and porn to avoid feelings... I used drug and alcohol to avoid mine. i had good relationships in my life. My husband did not. Every marriage but his grandparents were terrible abuse fests rifled with infidelity. (And his mother kept them away from him...) i had consequences, his mom was more concerned with being the cool parent, than actually being a parent... He did what he wanted when he wanted...

Some people have all of the hardships, but none of the positive role models.