SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I haven’t posted why I’m on SI, so I thought it time.

A couple of years after my father passed away at a ripe old age, my sister and I were in my car along with our mom. If I remember correctly, the topic of discussion turned towards mortality and getting closer to death.

At that point our mom blurted out, "I had an affair for half of my married life to dad." Mind you, our parents were married for 60 years at the time of my fathers death. Although they argued a bit, it appeared that they had a solid marriage.

My response was immediate - what, how could you? My mom was giddy in answering. Your dad didn’t really like sex and I did. My A was with a French man who lived in the neighborhood but was unknown to your dad, or anyone else for that matter. Just me.

She went on - you know your Dad had an affair of his own. He would speak to our mutual friend _______ on the phone almost every day in the house right in front of me (well prior to cell phones). I told him that I thought it was inappropriate, but he continued. He may even have had sex with her, but I can’t confirm that. Her husband knew of all of these calls but didn’t care a bit.

As I expressed my disbelief to my mom, as my sister sat next to me in the car dumbfounded, my mom said she could tell us a lot more stuff if we wanted to know. I said absolutely not. I asked why are you telling us this now? My mom replied that she thought we would want to know, as she probably had only a few years left. I said I absolutely did not want to know any more, and it was left at that.

My sister later told me that she found some very old condoms in one of the suitcases my father used for his work travel (he travelled a lot for work). She thought little of it at the time, but in light of our mom’s unsolicited confession she wondered what kind of relationship our parents actually had.

This entire episode completely changed how I looked at my mom moving forward. I knew absolutely nothing about the subject infidelity, so I dove right in, first reading Esther Perel’s books and listening to her podcasts - I suppose we need to thank her at a minimum for being an entry point for many uninitiated into the world of infidelity. From there, I read papers, studies, read on Reditt snd the plethora of other infidelity websites, until I landed on SI.

Although I wasn’t directly touched by infidelity, I nevertheless feel that I was cheated on - my mother cheated on me snd my family. And, to make things worse, in the brief discussion in the car, there was not a hint of remorse or guilt, just blame shifting and entitlement. She was giddy about her cheating.

The entire episode caused me to reflect on my mother as a person. She was a SAHM. She was a good mom by all measures. But I also realized that my mom is a narcissistic, and has been her entire life. This fact totally helps put her cheating, and how she felt about it, in perspective.

So I read on Si snd elsewhere to help try to make sense of the trauma I have endured due to my mom’s infidelity. After having done all of this research, I truly believe that I have experienced trauma from this.

As for my sister, I don’t think she gives any of this a second thought. She shares some personality traits with my mom. This experience has so moved me, that I avoid talking to and seeing my mom as much as humanly possible.

Fortunately, my wife of 33 years (we’re both 56) recognizes this and has taken the reigns. She calls my mom once a week and arranges get togethers with both my mom and hers (both moms are literally ten minutes walk from where we live).

I’m blessed in that we have a marriage most are envious of. Our love and passion for each other has grown each year over the past 33 years, and for that I am extremely grateful. However, a great M takes a lot of work, and I put in the work. I do research about this work, and put it into practice. My wife recognizes this, and jokes that I research everything, which is true.

My wife also feels that she owes this to me - reaching out to my mom. Her father passed away from Alzheimer’s almost 8 years ago. She did not like her dad. I didn’t like him so much either. In his condition, he needed someone to take care of him in a 360 kind of way. I took that on, from hiring the home health care company, liaising with the aides, paying his bills, dealing with Medicare, buying his food, taking care of his estate, visiting with him in his home many times without my wife being present to keep him company and meet with the aides in person, etc.

I looked at this like my job. I was emotionally detached from my father in law, so I was able to dispassionately care for him, not only as a human being, but also as an an act of service to my wife. This is her love language, while mine is physical touch. We both pay attention to our love languages, and actively do these things as part of the work to make for a happy marriage. Despite not liking my father in law, I took on this role for six years, despite having a busy full time job, a child, and a social calendar. And now, my wife is paying that forward with my mom.

I don’t feel that I like my mom anymore due to infidelity. It’s sad. She complains that I don’t call her enough, but does express her appreciation for my wife’s outreach. I guarantee that my mom has no clue that her cheating and disclosure of same has irrevocably changed our relationship forever.

This is my infidelity story.

The kids....

They never think about the kids, do they? Actually, some of us BSs (myself included) forget the kids can suffer as much as we do.

I'm not going to comment on your mom - but I do see now where some of your blunt nature developed

I can't even imagine not seeing my mom for the queen I've always thought she is. That would absolutely destroy me, even at my age.

I hope that at least she was a good mother for you when you were growing up, whatever she may have been as a spouse to your dad.

Ha. I like to think that my nature is more direct than blunt.

Dude67

It was a child’s view of it, but my seemingly excellent childhood ended one night after a party when there was a lot of yelling and my Dad had a black eye in the morning. That’s when he revealed to my Mum that he had been having an affair with a colleagues wife whose kids had become close to us and who lived a block away.

My Mum turned to alcohol and if you’ve lived with an alcoholic, it’s bad. So after the divorced we lived with Dad whilst my mother tried to slowly kill herself. Then Dad decided to bring in and marry AP who had since divorced. So I had step siblings. My older brother and sister were muscled out of the home. OBS moved overseas. A grandmother with whom I was very close died. My mother’s moods would swing, and when bad, were colossally bad - neighbors calling the Police bad. I stayed with my Dad until I turned 17 and finished school and then moved out.

I managed. My mum’s mum was very good to me. I met my wife aged 24. She was 27. She is more stable than my Mum but will never stick with anything. She has never held down a paying job. Her family is as disastrous as mine, except that mine have tended to be high achievers, and hers definitely aren’t. We have enjoyed raising our two kids. It seemed like I had snatched an unlikely victory of sorts from a situation which did not have a lot going for it. I had also managed to love where I was once quite guarded.

So when my wife started to distance herself from the relationship my alarm bells started to ring. I had just hoped the bad stuff would pass me by if I kept my side of the road clean. Hers was an existential crises, which is something she has had often enough, but this time it involved infidelity, exploring the other side of bisexuality. I once talked a good game about being progressive, at least from a position a few steps removed, but I want my wife to be faithful.

The childhood trauma met head on with the new trauma. And I had to keep going with no sleep and as the sole breadwinner.

Dude, I completely get the betrayal of a parent’s infidelity. I was kind of my Dad’s ‘mini me’. Then I was just chronically disappointed. It was a foundational experience for me, for both good and bad. I know I am less fun than I would have been, but more reliable.

Are you familiar with a member here yearsofpain25? I don't think he posts here much these days, but your paths may have crossed here.

It stuck out as both of you are children of betrayal(albeit discovering at different ages) without infidelity in their own marriages, but how much affect it can have on a person at any age.

Not infidelity related, but my parents were awesome. A marriage I always hoped to aspire to. My mother passed relatively young(62), and my father waited patiently for 19 more years until he had his chance to see her again in the afterlife.

I say this because at his funeral services, a woman, most likely from AA(my father's sobriety date was in 1955, but he always paid it forward) was introducing herself to my siblings and myself, and mentioned that she was kind of his 'girlfriend'. She mentioned how he would always stop by with my then very young son(he was the only grandchild and they were almost attached at the hip back then), and was always a gentleman.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that my father's relationship was nothing more than a friend, but I can't tell you how much that simple word of 'girlfriend' bothered me. A grown man, with faithful, fantastic parents, and yet a person I never met before in my life could mess with my head with just the thought that his father could have been inappropriate with someone other than his wife. I could only imagine what you have felt like since that car ride. People in general do not like to have their reality altered.

I can understand your pain and your disgust in your mother’s behavior. Have you told your mother? (Just asking, not necessarily suggesting). Have you explored this in therapy? We see our parents from our child eyes, and that is in their roles as parents and not as men and women with a whole kaleidoscope of issues and flaws. They are on pedestals, and it is so hard to watch them fall from that place.

One of the many things I got out of therapy was looking at my parents, especially my mother who was very critical and not warm, and understanding that she did the best she could. In some areas, she excelled. In others, like nurturing, she fell short. But when I look at how she was raised and the dynamics of being in a military household, she really did do the best she knew how. It allows me to hold space for her with a little more kindness and understanding, even though it doesn’t erase the shortcomings. She passed 16 years ago, so I never had this conversation with her, and I don’t know if I would have or should have. But I am grateful for the understanding I now have and it helps me soften a lot of my strong feelings.

You don’t have to forgive your mother. Or your father. But it sounds like there was a lot more to the story than you knew, and maybe they were very dysfunctionally doing the best they could. And they were from a time/place where divorce was viewed differently. I guess I just want you to find peace with loving your mother while hating and being disgusted with what she did. And, frankly, her time on this earth is limited, and once she’s gone you cannot ask her any more questions and it may be harder to reconcile the mom you knew with the flawed woman that she is.

Good luck, and I am glad your wife is there supporting you and your family.

Thanks for sharing, you have been betrayed and just like BS we start to question what was real and what was a lie. It puts everything into question.

I thankful to read you haven’t had infidelity hit your M.

Thanks for the vulnerability. I’m sorry for how your life got turned upside down with news like that. My father’s affairs and drinking took what seemed like a perfect childhood and ripped it apart, much like what StraightUp described. I can only imagine what it would be like to have it torn apart so much later in life. Thanks for what you’ve done to help people along their infidelity journeys, me included.

Thank you for your responses.I did some CBT therapy when my father was still alive, after dimentia had truly set it.

My father paid the bills, did the taxes, handled the investments, pensions, etc. My mom knew none of this and I had to step in. I started to spend a lot more time with her pre my fathers death and post, as there was a lot of wrap up to do. It was spending all this time with her that I realized I didn’t like her so much. When my father was alive, it was simply short family get togethers and nothing immersive.

At CBT I told my IC that I realized my mom was a narcissist- I didn’t know about her A at the time. We developed a strategy that her critical, selfish ways needed to be treated like water off a ducks back. I just let it pass over me instead of through me, so I wouldn’t get angry at her. It was highly effective.

I think you’re right that therapy would be a good idea at this point since the disclosure of her A. CBT is good. I’m not the type for psychoanalysis - I like tangible, action oriented behavior. I do think I’m practicing CBT by "delegating" my mom to my wife, as I call it. Yes, it’s avoidance, but CBT is a process where you develop systems to cope with the situation you have at hand.

The therapist also had a phd in nutritional therapy. What a coincidence as I needed that as well, as I can be food obsessive - another lovely thing that my mom gave both me and my sister. I told my IC that I drink lot of caffeine free gingerale to keep me out of the refrigerator. I called it my crutch. She said it’s an appropriate crutch. I equate that to my wife handling my mom.

However, it is just a crutch and I agree that I should go to therapy to better process my mom’s betrayal.

It’s interesting that I read this today. My parents divorced after I moved away with my husband and children. My siblings also moved away and when they divorced they sold the family home. She left town with her new boyfriend, and he met a woman and moved out of town with her. From having a stable family and a home to go home to we had nothing. So we never had Christmas together as a family again. I had to start all over again with my husband and children in another town. I made up my mind that if possible I was never going to let my children see us divorce. And he cheated early enough in a marriage to scare the hell out of me because I was financially dependent on him. I just swept it under the rug and kept going. My kids grew up in a stable family because my husband and I grew up and moved on with our lives. He did not know for several years that I knew he had cheated, but I had been told he had. Confronted him he could not come up with an excuse fast enough, and he admitted it. I never said another word to him about it we just moved on. It has not stopped my children from having some issues, but they were resolved and seem to be doing well as adults in committed relationships. None of them have any idea their father cheated and if I have my way they never will.

Hi Dude, I'm sorry you're here because of your mom. Your wife sounds like a gem and it sounds like you guys have a M to be envied.

My dad was a narc too and had an A on my mom with a family friend when I was in elementary school. Took a lot of therapy to see the subtle and buried ways that affected me growing up. It wasn't his only A either. My mom was OW (he was S from his 1st wife- monkey branched there). He also is rumored to have had an A when I was a baby and had an OC from that as well. Kinda wondering if I should do a 23 and Me and find out.

My dad died about 20 years ago, relatively young, and this really didn't come out until a few years after his death. Made for some complicated grieving. And then my own A... yeah, I hated him for years, as I struggled with hating myself. Had to learn to forgive him and accept him for who he was - both good and bad. It's really only until recently that I had another "grief moment," the first one in years. When I actually missed his company. Been a long time since that's happened.

All that to say, forgiving your mom is more for you. I'm only now really feeling at peace with my whole childhood and family of origin and what it's done to me. I don't think I'd be here if I were still holding on to that anger.

My mother too is a narcissist and has said/done some deeply hurtful things that made me cut her out almost completely from my life. I've forgiven her. I've also not allowed her access to me, my kids or my life either. I'm debating opening up limited communication with her... but fielding that is exhausting. It's good you have your wife to help you. My H runs interference for me with my family too (sister was abusive, other sister was an enabler- we get along only with the enabler. He does NOT interact with my mother).

There was a lot to forgive growing up. If I haven't forgiven, they would be taking up WAY too much mental real estate and I wouldn't have been able to move on. I still have to keep forgiving them on occasion in my head (that whole 77x7 forgiveness thing comes up- it's not forgiving 77x7 individual incidents, but forgiving the person and situation each time it surfaces).

Keep working at it.

Thank you for telling your story.
I discovered this site in part also from being the child of a father who brazenly indulged in infidelity. Long story short, he openly cheated on my mother for what seems like the entirety of their marriage. As I got older, I learned that his siblings and my grandfather were also involved in extramarital affairs. It was everywhere.
In my particular case, my father got custody of me in both their divorces. Yep. My parents married and divorced twice. My mother had pretty serious psychological trauma and struggled with depression almost constantly, so I definitely preferred living with him. On weekends when I stayed with her, she would bring up the AP constantly. It's not a fun conversation to have as a 10-year-old. She eventually committed suicide, and he brought his AP with him to break the news to me. To help comfort me? No clue why she was there.
To this day, he casually discusses it as though his infidelity isn't a big deal and doesn't try to hide it at all. I just grew up with it, so it was always a part of our narrative. I never really questioned it.
It has always been in the back of my mind, however, that the real rub is that so many people who know him make little jokes about him being a "lady's man" almost admiringly. I usually don't react, but I want to try to impress on them the absolute chaos I endured as a kid in part due to his philandering. It's not quite so cute and "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" when you have to duck the fallout.
Myself, been married for nearly 30 years to a woman I proposed to within a month of meeting her. Our marriage is a good one, and we're working to reconnect as a couple--as opposed to just parents--now that we're about to be empty-nesters. She doesn't really understand my interest in this particular topic, and it's hard for me to explain it to her. I find a little comfort in stories like this one, if only because I realize I'm not alone in this particular struggle.