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Do cheaters raise children who are more likely to marry cheaters? I've been wrestling with this question lately. There's a lot to unpack. It may take me a while to write out my thoughts on this issue.

My parents divorced when I was 7. I'm 50 now. For 43 years, I believed my parents' marriage failed because my dad was a boring/distant/abusive husband. That's the story my mom's sisters told me. But I've just recently learned that my mom had an affair and that's what ended my parents' marriage. When my dad found out about Mom's cheating, he became enraged – he screamed and cussed and broke some furniture.

While acknowledging that Dad never actually physically harmed her, Mom maintains that she was "scared of him". In the face of Dad's rage, Mom took the kids and filed for divorce. Soon after the divorce, my mom found Jesus. She's been a faithful churchgoer ever since.

I asked some questions about Dad's post-Dday rage. Mom said it scared her because he hit her with something once. I asked what Dad had hit her with. And Mom said: "Well, it was a pillow. But what if it had been a hammer?"

I wanted to roll my eyes but I didn't, because she's my mother and I respect her. Still, I am also a betrayed spouse. When I discovered my husband's affair (in 2016), I too had a hard time controlling my rage. That being the case, I don't find it hard to excuse my father for whacking his cheating wife with a pillow.

I pressed Mom with other questions about her infidelity. She expressed that she knows adultery is never justified. She also said something about how God forgave her and that's how she learned to forgive herself. I guess just a little talk with Jesus makes it right, huh? Pretty convenient, if you ask me.

I mean, maybe my mom was truly remorseful at one time but so many years have passed that it's no longer top of mind for her. It has been 43 years since her cheating, after all. Nonetheless... in this recent moment when Mom and I were talking, I really wanted her to express remorse and she didn't.

Mom is quick to condemn my xWH for what he did to me. She often says if she ever sees him again, she's gonna march up and ask him: "Hey asshole, what gave you the right to break my daughter's heart?"

I appreciate my mom sticking up for me and all, but I also want to ask her: "Hey Mom, what gave you the right to inflict that shit on my dad?" Mom knows her cheating was wrong, but she doesn't seem to understand that it puts her in the same category as my asshole xH.

The thing that's really sticking in my craw today is this: My behavior with my wayward mother is eerily similar to my behavior with my xWH. When Mom comes to visit, I give her my big comfy bedroom, while I go sleep in the cramped and windowless guest room. I give her the brand-new towels and keep the ratty old ones for myself. I'm always buying her groceries and loaning her money. When her washing machine went tits-up last year, I bought her a new one. Meanwhile, my own washing machine is busted and I'm going to the laundromat like a college student.

In my relationship with xWH, I also found myself giving much, getting little in return and always feeling guilty, for some unexplained reason. Of course xWH blamed me for his affair. He once told me I brought it on myself because I was always busy and I wasn't there for him when he needed me. Well. Yeah. I was gone a lot, because he was always out of work and so I was always holding down 2 jobs to support us. He was unemployed for a good stretch of time right after Dday too – and I kept right on going to work every day and paying the rent for both of us, even though I was so traumatized I could barely tie my own shoes. I was destroyed and yet I still felt obligated to provide for xWH. How fucked is that? I was out of my mind. One night during our IHS, I drank a frightening amount of whiskey and passed out with a loaded pistol in bed beside me. Next morning, I finally realized I had to end the madness. I told WH it was time for him to go. He didn't want to go, so I paid him off. I gave him enough cash to rent an apartment for 6 months. It was far more than he ever deserved from me, but I still consider it money well spent.

Right now, the obvious question is: Why did I put up with so much shit from xWH?

Why did I even marry xWH? There were red flags all over the place and I ignored them all. Why did I sabotage my own future like that?

Part of me thinks there might be a connection between my childhood experiences and my poor taste in husbands. Is it possible that being raised by someone with a demanding, self-focused, wayward personality conditioned me to be more tolerant of such awful qualities in my spouse? I'm uncomfortable asking these questions, but I can't help asking anyway.

So, what say you, SI? Am I grasping at straws? Am I failing to own my own shit? Or is there any validity to the theory that cheaters sometimes raise kids who are more susceptible to marrying cheaters?

Thank you for reading. I wish you all peace and happiness. Good night.

[This message edited by ashesofkali at 11:28 PM, August 8th (Saturday)]

My mom wasn't wayward. But she was am alcoholic. I was a codependent wreck with her before she got sober. And oddly enough, there were soooooo many parallels in dealing with an alcoholic and in dealing with my xdouche (people pleasing, allowing his wants & needs to subsume mine, not roving the boat, etc). So no, I don't think you're off base at all.

I think those formative relationships do model things for us for sure. The hard part is recognizing it and learning to be comfortable with your boundaries.

These are fantastic questions. I wish I could help you find answers.

I have similar questions. Did my sperm donor fathers proclivity for other women and what that did to my mom create the same deficiencies in me? The inability to see the red flags?

The sins of the father/ generational curses kind of thing?

I had to tackle this in a spiritual way. Now that I am aware, I take extra care and prayer as to not continue the cycle going forth with me and my children. For FWH as well. Imagined or not, its good to be aware of possible vulnerabilities.

I think it's easy to slide into a relationship with someone who shares similarities and behavior traits as our most difficult parent. Its pretty common if we think about our partner in that context. My wife's personality is eerily similar to my mother.

I don't think its necessarily the cheating part that is the commonality but their overall personality and character traits. Just my opinion.

Part of me thinks there might be a connection between my childhood experiences and my poor taste in husbands. Is it possible that being raised by someone with a demanding, self-focused, wayward personality conditioned me to be more tolerant of such awful qualities in my spouse?

It's more than possible.

In fact, in some sort of really odd "I can't believe how our subconscious works," I made the most progress in learning about boundaries and standing up for myself when I changed the way I handled my mother instead of the way I handled my husband. Once I drew better boundaries with her, I automatically put up with less crap from my H, my siblings, my work colleagues and my friends.

Ever consider doing less for your mother and learning to tolerate the discomfort of someone you love being upset with you?

Welp, I guess my family fits the pattern.

I married not 1 but 2 cheaters. My younger brother is a serial cheater. Mom cheated on Dad and caused their divorce (I was 5). She later had a relationship with a married man for 28 years. This was my entire childhood, Oh yay, mom's AP is with us today. Wonder what he told his family.

It wasn't until I was in MC with my xWH a few years ago that I realized how messed up that was. It would almost be funny if it weren't so tragic. I was in the middle of talking about my happy childhood and as I'm saying this shit out loud I'm like, wait. Full stop. Oh. My. God.

As we speak, my ExWW is conveniently rewriting history with my three kids, our mutual friends and her family in an attempt to save her reputation and justify her actions to everyone and herself-her conscience. She is trying to paint me as having a “victim mentality” and, ironically, being a Narcissist. We were married 25 years and this never came up prior to her A.

I have saved all of her incriminating post DD letters, timelines, confessions and explanations she wrote out in an attempt to convince me to R, to forgive and forget. I have it in her own writing that her A had “absolutely nothing to do with me or our marriage”, that I was a good husband and that she never stopped loving me. That it was a “terrible Isolated mistake that should be forgiven...that she never wanted out of the marriage.”

This why it is extremely important to document and get timelines and confessions and Why’s written down in their own hand immediately after DD-especially before the history rewrite phase begins, when they are initially repentant and desperately trying for R and forgiveness. Because when you D, the gloves come off and you will often get Vilified. It was amazing to see my regretful, sorry “remorseful” WW turn after the D was in progress and especially so after I started dating again. That’s when their purported endless unconditional love for you gets put to the test and goes right out window.

I’m not concerned my kids will become cheater magnets, I’m more concerned that they too will become cheaters themselves after they’ve witnessed their mother’s wreckless disregard of OUR marriage, like a disposable commodity, the indifference, and how there was virtually no visible consequences for her and how accepting everyone was with her actions. We did such a great job of insulating them from the pain and drama that I’m afraid it was mostly at my expense.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 2:20 PM, August 9th (Sunday)]

@Dkt3

I don't think its necessarily the cheating part that is the commonality but their overall personality and character traits.

Yup, I think you're on to something there. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention to xWH's worse qualities (the selfishness, ego, bending the truth) because it all seemed "normal" to me. I was used to that kind of shit. I didn't realize how screwy that behavior is until it was too late.

I hope somebody reads this and learns from my mistakes.

@RealityBlows:

I’m not concerned my kids will become cheater magnets, I’m more concerned that they too will become cheaters themselves after they’ve witnessed their mother’s wreckless disregard of OUR marriage, like a disposable commodity, the indifference, and how there was virtually no visible consequences for her and how accepting everyone was with her actions. We did such a great job of insulating them from the pain and drama that I’m afraid it was mostly at my expense.

I think it's dreadful that you have to live with that, knowing that you've insulated your children at your own expense. I think that happened to my father too – in all those years, he never said a word against my mother, even though she cheated on him, lobbed a bullshit DV accusation at him and then left him high & dry. There were no consequences for her. Now that Mom is seeing how much my xWH's infidelity has hurt me, I keep wondering if she'll wake up to the damage her own infidelity inflicted on my father, my brother and me. Hasn't happened yet, as far as I can tell. I hate that about her. I hope your children will absorb enough decency and honor from you that they'll be able to avoid becoming cheaters or marrying cheaters themselves as they grow up. Best wishes to you and your family.

Both wh and ow had cheating parents. It normalised it for them. Think ow still doesn't think its that bad a thing. I wonder if she would rather be the ow rather than the betrayed wife? And hence why she was so willing and OK with it. Wh still struggles to see himself like ow and his own cheating mum, as he has no respect or admiration for either and although was doing the same had some mental gymnastics to pretend he was exempt or different to them. When we all know thats simply not true.

From what you have said you only found out about the cheating later so I cant imagine it modelled you to be a betrayed wife later....however the dysfunctional relationship you probably did witness perhaps set the tone to accept less respect and mutual core values than perhaps you should've? Id imagine growing up with a cheater parent would mean you're more exposed and desensitised to some aspect so may well groom you to have cheating in future relationships. Both as the cheater or the betrayed.

@tentwinkletoes:

Id imagine growing up with a cheater parent would mean you're more exposed and desensitised to some aspect so may well groom you to have cheating in future relationships. Both as the cheater or the betrayed.

I think this is accurate. The sins of the parents get passed down to the children in a variety of ugly ways.

My cheaters dad was an alcoholic. So bad that they lost their house, his job everything. But, his dad was also emotional abusive to his mother. Fortunately for his mother his dad died of a massive heart attack at age 48. She lived the rest of her life to age 80, happy and peaceful. Though it did devastate her when her son went on to do to me what her late H did to her.

She was even in my corner for a while, but eventually she went to his side. Survival and all.

My cheater in the growing up years of my son, appeared to be a faithful husband on the surface (to me) He also, stopped drinking when we were very young marrieds. He said he didn't want to be like his dad.

Turns out he just substituted cheating and gambling for alcohol. His parting shot to me was that he had never loved me and he cheated on me our entire marriage. Did he? Likely, will I ever know for sure, no.

Part of me thinks there might be a connection between my childhood experiences and my poor taste in husbands. Is it possible that being raised by someone with a demanding, self-focused, wayward personality conditioned me to be more tolerant of such awful qualities in my spouse? I'm uncomfortable asking these questions, but I can't help asking anyway.

Are you wondering if parents fuck-up their kids? There's a part of me laughing inside because, to me, the answer is quite clear.

I was about 10 years old when something dramatically changed in my parents' relationship. I don't know for certain if infidelity was a part of that, but after going through what I went through with my own FWW, I'm more suspicious than ever.

We often talk about FOO (family of origin) issues on these boards. Children normalize just about everything in their little worlds, which are, especially in those most formative years, their parents' worlds. Children pick up those tendencies displayed by their parents, such as... conflict avoidance, wall-building, codependency, entitlement, selfishness, narcissism and so and so forth, right?

Some of those issues will lead to infidelity.

On the morning after d-day, when I finally picked my pathetic, weeping self up off the closet floor, I had something of an epiphany. My normal coping mechanisms have always been conflict avoidance and wall-building. When people hurt me, I tend to shut them out and, upon occasion, completely ghost them. It's far easier, on the surface.

That morning, however, I realized that those coping mechanism, those tendencies, would only lead me to a very dark and lonely place. Those final bricks in the wall were... unthinkable.

Looking back on the journey I've taken both as a betrayed husband and a member of SI, it seems rather obvious to me that one of the most difficult consequences we have to face is our own ability to cope with the profound shock and the severe emotional and psychological trauma we experience. All we have to work with are the coping mechanisms we've learned throughout our lives. Those tendencies aren't always sufficient.

What you're going through, questioning whether or not your parents had an influence on how you've chosen husbands and coped with life's challenges, is quite normal, I think.

I also think the journey will be worth it for you, just as it was for me. It took me a while and little therapy to work through it (well, most of it anyway), but I've learned quite a lot about myself and why on earth I married a cheater.

Are cheaters more likely to raise cheaters? Probably.

Are cheaters more likely to raise children who marry cheaters? Probably.

The trick, of course, is stop passing on our own issues on to our kids.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 10:42 AM, August 10th (Monday)]

My grandmother was a serial cheater. Married 7x. Divorced every H she had (or they D her).

Both her sons had long term marriages and no cheating. My parents hit 60+ years this year being married. Still happy. Still loving.

My parents were AP's when they met and both were M'd. They immediately left their spouses to be together then had me a year later. All my cousins came from broken families because my uncle cheated and remarried 3 times.

My BIGGEST fear was getting cheated on.

My STBX cheated on me. I cheated on him for revenge. STBX kept cheating...

Out of all my cousins only one didn't cheat. My sister hasn't cheated but is in a broken M.

Being raised by cheaters gave me immense fear about cheating and it also gave me permission to have my own dumb but I thought if STBX did it, mom did it, dad did it, uncle did it ugh really dumb on my part but I felt knowing that made it easier for me to have my RA.

Interesting point. I cheated on a BF in my early 20s. He cheated first and I was mad enough to do it to him.

I felt terrible about it and never did it again. I realized it was never going to be the answer to anything.

A year or so later I met a wonderful guy. Thought he was the one. Turns out he was a serial cheater and had 2-3 other women on the side while we were dating. I ended that relationship so fast and moved on.

That experience taught me that people are broken and use cheating to avoid their problems or issues. The serial cheater had some deep rooted issues that were never going to solved by having 2-4 girlfriends at once.

No one becomes a parent to raise a cheater or liar or thief etc. but I do believe something in life occurs that gives people the opportunity and mindset to think it’s ok. Nature vs nurture and all that, I do believe if you grow up in an environment where cheating has occurred, you can become immune and forget any sense of right and Wrong.

Like I said my dad grew up with a mom who had 7 husbands. Serial cheater is my guess. My dad is not like that at all. He treats my mom well.

It’s fairly acknowledged that kids base their vision of family and adult-behavior on their role models.

It’s been heavily researched that daughters in domestic-abuse households tend to seek out men that are abusive. Children of alcoholics seek out alcoholic spouses. I’m guessing that if your parents are verbally abusive to each other and/or openly disrespectful then you might accept and expect that pattern to be the norm.

However – I think there are other factors that impact and shape a child and young adult. We can have teachers, coaches, uncles and aunts, friends family… places where they learn other values. We also have sensibility – a young person contemplating how his parents interacted might simply be smart enough to realize that certain behaviors aren’t really acceptable.

I don’t think there is a direct and automatic correlation that if one of your parents cheated then you will cheat. I do think there is a correlation that IF one or both your parents cheated and the effects of that affair impacted your home and wasn’t dealt wiht then there is a higher chance of you thinking that’s normal, and be more willing to accept that in your future home.

Maybe the main reason I think it’s better for a child to be from a broken home rather than living in a broken home.

Do cheaters raise children who are more likely to marry cheaters?

I know there is a LOT of information regarding cheaters coming from a family with a history of cheating but IDK about marrying one if you came from that history - seems counter intuitive, but possible none the less. Here is my WH and MY family history:

My WH comes from a long line of cheaters on his paternal side:

His dad had a 5 year A, and left his mother and married the AP (still married)

His dad's brother had a LTA, got the AP pregnant, reconciled with his BS/wife, and the AP murdered the BS several years later (tragic story - was unsolved for quite awhile - was actually the subject of one of those real-crime tv shows)

His dad's father had an A when his father was young, left his wife dirt-poor with 5 kids, and returned to her 20 years later when he was ill (IDK if you call this R - she probably thought so) and lived with her until he died

His dad's father's father (WH's great grandfather) has a bunch of kids with different women all the while remaining married.

My WH makes the 4th generation on his paternal line, that we know of, to have been a cheater.

In relation to my own life:

My parents divorced because they were the most mis-matched people. Seriously, IDK how I got here. There was, however, no infidelity involved. But, my mother, as a divorced woman, had an A with a married man, she got pregnant, and he later divorced his wife the BS, and married my mother. They are still married today. That went down when I was a teenager. I don't know how much the "cheating" had an impact on me as I primarily lived with my dad so my mom's "cheating" behavior wasn't my biggest influence as I had no clue what she was doing when I wasn't with her.

So, my mom had an A.

My mother's father had and A and left her mother (the OBS) for another woman, whom he later married (they divorced 30 years later because of him burning through money - no clue if the D was A-related - he had a major gambling problem so who knows).

There is no other (known) cheating in my family's past. My Dad's parents were married after knowing each other for a week, and they still held hands and seemed very loving to the day my grandpa died. No history of cheating on my Dad's side at all that I know of.

I agree 100% with this:

I don't think its necessarily the cheating part that is the commonality but their overall personality and character traits.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 9:20 AM, August 12th (Wednesday)]