SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

One idea I have had since this whole infidelity thing happened (the event 10 years ago and finding out 3 years ago) is that I now feel that I have limited stores of certain emotions to give out. It probably isn’t true, it is a sort of metaphor in my mind. I may stop thinking this way if I become more healed, but the healing trajectory seems to have flattened out. I’m not making much progress.

Finding out that my mother (in her 80s, a widow after my dad died last year) has been having an affair for 6-8 years and she has now allowed this man to move into our childhood home has kind of gutted me. They live about five minutes away from me. I am supposed to see them xmas eve, morning and xmas day night for various family events. We have a small family so its just a few people. I am trying to find a way to tell her i dont want her to bring this man to my house xmas morning. Its too intimate, we are always in our pajamas and I barely know this guy.

Every time my husband and I try to discuss I find myself at a loss for words. I can’t even explain the feelings though the whole thing feels like a huge setback. My mother hasn’t fully admitted this guys was her AP but its 100% obvious as they were bridge partners for 8 years, and going on trips just the two of them the whole time. My son found texts on her phone a few years. She dropped off the planet when they started being bridge partners. Just like with my husband’s affair it is like I knew but I didn’t let myself know. Until of course the guy moved into her house two months ago and at that point…

So back to the « limited stores of certain feelings ». I don’t feel that I have forgiveness for her. Even if she were to apologize which I doubt she would do anyway. I feel that I have used all the forgiveness I had available to me on my husband and there is none left for anyone else. I don’t want to forgive anyone else.

I’m mad. I’m not a nice person anymore (except maybe to my kids). I’m angry that I’m dealing with this. I’m just very stuck again.

I have found it difficult to talk to my sister for many years.

About 20 years ago, my sister had an affair with her oldest daughter’s husband. My sister had been living with them at the time. My niece kicked her out, and she went to live with the one daughter who "took her side".

It destroyed her oldest daughter. They ended up divorced.

Her three other daughters were split on whose "side" they would take. One chose the mom, another one chose her side, and one wanted to remain "neutral" (which in my mind was favoring her mom).

Then over the years, my sister made a mess of her relationship with two more of her four daughters. She lived with each of the other three daughters over the years following the affair. Oddly enough, in BOTH cases of alienation, her daughters’ husbands are the ones who kicked her out. She hasn’t had her own place to live since 1983.

At this point, she has one daughter who associates with her, and now she lives with my father.

Yes, there is a mooching aspect to her, no doubt.

Christmas used to consist of all of us getting together as a huge family.

Not anymore. Daughter #1, the betrayed. has her new husband and family. #2 stays home about 400 miles away (neutral party). #3 lives nearby, and she has Christmas at her house "in support", but her husband hates my sister and the day is strained, to say the least. #4 lives 70 miles away, and make sure Christmas is distant and with her kids only.

The affair destroyed that family. It caused me to be alienated from all of them, because I could not tolerate anyone "accepting" any of what my sister said, which was a huge lie and destroyed my niece’s first husband emotionally. While he was the wayward husband, the things my sister said of him were devastating, untrue, and he has retreated from most friends and his own family.

I empathize with you.

I am still angry about this, so I get how you feel.

Affairs suck.