Knowledge of my dead parent's long-term affair is incredibly painful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Etc me guess you were always a bit smug about having the perfect family and parents with the perfect relationship.
And now you have to be an adult and realize perfect doesn't exist.
Time to grow the hell up.
This really doesn't concern you at all.
Yet you've decided to make it your personal tragedy that suggests a degree of narcissism and inappropriate levels of codependency.

I wouldn't have been so harsh, but this is true. There's enough emoting and hand-wringing about posters' own betrayals by their spouses that seem completely over the top on this board, but feeling that way about parental affairs? This isn't the end of the world. Your surviving parent may have been fine with it. There might have been reasons for this situation. You can start hating your deceased parent's guts now, but I think you should accept that you will never know the full picture, and therefore cannot judge.

+1

And affair has nothing to do with parent’s love for you. Your reaction is over the top.

An affair actually has a lot to do with how much you love your children. If you love your children, you’re not selfish and do things that can hurt them deeply, which include addiction, abuse, and affairs.

The reality is this parent cared more about themselves than they did anybody else in the family, including the children.

Yeah, can someone please think of adult children!

It's not about you. Not everything in this world is about you.

Touched a nerve, eh?

Exactly, there are some cheaters on here trying to gaslight OP. It's so natural for them to lie and gaslight.

It's pathetic.

No. We are giving tough love so that OP doesn't wallow in her own pain to the detriment of her long-term mental health.

The only person OP is hurting right now is herself.

Once you understand this, you can learn to manage your suffering so that it has an end point.

This is true for any betrayal, any trauma. The perps have long-since decamped. The victim, or third party witness, or whoever stays with lingering feelings, must do the work to become functional again.

Nobody is wallowing in pain, OP literally just found out. What you want is for OP to stuff her feelings. There is no honor in never feeling feelings and calling a spade a spade.

OP is right, her parent was not who they pretended to be and they had so little honor that they let the bean spill post death, that is cowardice.

OP has the knowledge, will work through the feelings in a way that will help them grow instead of just pretending it never happened and moving on.

? None of this has anything to do with "honor" or "cowardice". OP is not owed information about someone else's romantic entanglements, unless it's her spouse's.

You're weird.

OP has the right to know when somebody lies to them. I get it, you are a cheater, and you want to believe your actions do not have consequences. But they do. I'm sorry that your deviant world views have led you to live a life in hiding and full of lies.

People with honor are truthful and only cowards do leave their children, no matter their age, left to find out about their horrible secrets once they have passed... whether it's financial, romantic, or legal.

This is OP.

To be fair to my dead parent (DP), I'm sure they never meant for me to discover the truth. I discovered the affair after my living parent (LP) asked me to go through some of my DP's correspondence for a certain time period and I found a bunch of raunchy/flirty notes that spanned years. I was beyond shocked. And my anger and confusion are distorting the grieving process.

I think my LP knows about only a small portion of the affair and doesn't realize that it went on for years. But I don't know for sure what my LP knows. And I haven't brought up the topic because I don't want to be intrusive or, even worse, reveal something that would seriously emotionally harm my LP.

I think you need to reconcile the bolded parts above. Do you think someone is trying not be discovered when they hold onto hard copies of AP’s love letters?

I posted earlier that where is the anger for the LP? If the LP knew, why did LP ask OP to go through the stuff. Could it be because LP would know what was there? (I wouldn't ever ask my kids to go through DH's stuff when he died -- that's weird. I'm also into protecting my kids, and not burdening them while they're grieving.) Also, that means that LP lied as well, but there's not a lot of anger there.

OP here.

Without getting into too much detail, my LP asked me to review certain of my DP's business files. While reviewing the business files, I came across the AP correspondence. I'm certain my LP did not expect the AP correspondence to be mixed in with the business files. I have zero anger toward my LP, who is completely blameless in this situation and I believe was in the dark about the affair's longevity.

My LP is not burdening me at all to ask for help. We are there for each other and I'm happy to do as much as I can during this difficult time.

OP, I had an affair. I am a parent. Here is my understanding about it:

1. I never stopped loving my kids or my spouse. It was my own unhealthy way to cope with marriage problems I should have dealt with directly.

2. I did love AP and my spouse at the same time. It’s weird but I do think you can love two people in that way at the same time.

3. Nothing else about our family life was a “lie.” Everything that happened actually happened.

1. Yes you did, life is not a feeling it’s an action. People who hit their kids and spouse say they love them too, you are no different.

2. Not at the same time. When you were with your AP you were hurting your children and spouse. What you did was not love, if you loved your AP you would move mountains for them not use them to sooth your broken soul

3. No , when you said you were at X you were not you were with AP. You could’ve used that time for therapy, or some other activity that would make your family life better.. but you didn’t you lied to your family and you lied to yourself. You are not who you pretend to be.

How is this helpful to OP? I get it, you hate “cheaters,” (probably because you were cheated on and are lashing out) but OP is trying to reconcile the parent she knew and loves with these actions. People are not just their worst transgressions and I’m glad my spouse didn’t have your attitude and was able to forgive and love me. OP’s parent may have been an unrepentant narcissist but may also just have been a person who made a mistake for whatever reason.

I understand, since you are a cheater, the deep need to put all those behaviors in a box and pretend they are not a part of who you are, but they are. I never said her DP is his worst transgression but they are not the person OP thought they are. That is a valid feeling and making her feel like her feeling are invalid is gaslighting. How is gaslighting her helping her. Perhaps you are not done with therapy for your own behavior and don't understand that yet.

I do not hate cheaters I love quite a few. I have many friends that have blown up their lives due to cheating, addiction and abuse. I don't say hey alcoholic, it's fine let's get a drink, your kids will understand if you go on another bender.

When my best friend was cheating I got her help, I didn't just say...oh well that doesn't define you.

OP has feelings about her DP who is someone that she doesn't recognize, and you are trying to invalidate her feeling because you are a cheater, and you hope that your children would just overlook all your toxic traits. That is not healthy, healthy adults face these facts head on, admit their faults and work on them to become a better person. OP was robbed of that opportunity because her selfish DP is gone and she can't build a relationship with the person her parent really is. She now needs to do that difficult work without her parent here.

There is a whole "branch" of therapy that deals with mourning a death and discovering family secrets after a death. It's not healthy to just say "oh well" my feeling are immature I just need to suck it up. That's terribly unhealthy and actually repeating the pattern of her DP.

I doubt your H would forgive you if he knew you were still cheating.

I'm sorry that terrible things in your life led you to a life of cheating and I hope and pray that you didn't just receive forgiveness, but that you did the hard work to understand the root cause to your destructive behavior. Your H loves you not a fake persona of who you are. OP was never given that opportunity.

You might very well take the prize for the most judgemental DCUM poster ever. That’s saying a lot! Congratulations.

Hello man in the mirror.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Etc me guess you were always a bit smug about having the perfect family and parents with the perfect relationship.
And now you have to be an adult and realize perfect doesn't exist.
Time to grow the hell up.
This really doesn't concern you at all.
Yet you've decided to make it your personal tragedy that suggests a degree of narcissism and inappropriate levels of codependency.

I wouldn't have been so harsh, but this is true. There's enough emoting and hand-wringing about posters' own betrayals by their spouses that seem completely over the top on this board, but feeling that way about parental affairs? This isn't the end of the world. Your surviving parent may have been fine with it. There might have been reasons for this situation. You can start hating your deceased parent's guts now, but I think you should accept that you will never know the full picture, and therefore cannot judge.

+1

And affair has nothing to do with parent’s love for you. Your reaction is over the top.

An affair actually has a lot to do with how much you love your children. If you love your children, you’re not selfish and do things that can hurt them deeply, which include addiction, abuse, and affairs.

The reality is this parent cared more about themselves than they did anybody else in the family, including the children.

Yeah, can someone please think of adult children!

It's not about you. Not everything in this world is about you.

Touched a nerve, eh?

Exactly, there are some cheaters on here trying to gaslight OP. It's so natural for them to lie and gaslight.

It's pathetic.

I’m not sure all the posters trying to gaslight and attack OP are cheaters. Some of them, probably yes, because they have a narcissistic need to believe that nobody is hurt by their actions.

But I actually think most of the posters attacking OP are the same group of DCUM posters who attack anyone who shows they have a close family. DCUM has a group of posters who have familial relationships that are very distanced and lonely-sounding. They interact with each other as if their family members were as important to them as the mailman. They are pleasant to each other and they nod in passing in the morning as they go to the kitchen to breakfast. They may eat dinner together, as they do with a work colleague. But they aren’t close, and while they don’t have the self-awareness to understand why, they do dimly understand that they are missing something.

This group attacks any posters on DCUM who show signs of having a close familial relationship. It is of course perfectly normal in a close family to go what OP is going through. But to the attackers, this is a sign of what they don’t have, the depth of relationship they never had with their parents. So they attack.

It’s the same group of people who attack posters who say they miss their kids at college, or who attack posters who miss siblings who move across the country. The pattern is similar: someone posts something heartfelt and these posters descend on the thread to gaslight them OP. OP should ignore them, but the fact her thread attracted them is a sign to OP that she is right to be upset. Her response is that of a normal person.

Youre right. So much dysfunction … reading how healthy people relate to each other must sound like a foreign language to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Etc me guess you were always a bit smug about having the perfect family and parents with the perfect relationship.
And now you have to be an adult and realize perfect doesn't exist.
Time to grow the hell up.
This really doesn't concern you at all.
Yet you've decided to make it your personal tragedy that suggests a degree of narcissism and inappropriate levels of codependency.

I wouldn't have been so harsh, but this is true. There's enough emoting and hand-wringing about posters' own betrayals by their spouses that seem completely over the top on this board, but feeling that way about parental affairs? This isn't the end of the world. Your surviving parent may have been fine with it. There might have been reasons for this situation. You can start hating your deceased parent's guts now, but I think you should accept that you will never know the full picture, and therefore cannot judge.

+1

And affair has nothing to do with parent’s love for you. Your reaction is over the top.

An affair actually has a lot to do with how much you love your children. If you love your children, you’re not selfish and do things that can hurt them deeply, which include addiction, abuse, and affairs.

The reality is this parent cared more about themselves than they did anybody else in the family, including the children.

Yeah, can someone please think of adult children!

It's not about you. Not everything in this world is about you.

Touched a nerve, eh?

Exactly, there are some cheaters on here trying to gaslight OP. It's so natural for them to lie and gaslight.

It's pathetic.

No. We are giving tough love so that OP doesn't wallow in her own pain to the detriment of her long-term mental health.

The only person OP is hurting right now is herself.

Once you understand this, you can learn to manage your suffering so that it has an end point.

This is true for any betrayal, any trauma. The perps have long-since decamped. The victim, or third party witness, or whoever stays with lingering feelings, must do the work to become functional again.

Nobody is wallowing in pain, OP literally just found out. What you want is for OP to stuff her feelings. There is no honor in never feeling feelings and calling a spade a spade.

OP is right, her parent was not who they pretended to be and they had so little honor that they let the bean spill post death, that is cowardice.

OP has the knowledge, will work through the feelings in a way that will help them grow instead of just pretending it never happened and moving on.

? None of this has anything to do with "honor" or "cowardice". OP is not owed information about someone else's romantic entanglements, unless it's her spouse's.

You're weird.

OP has the right to know when somebody lies to them. I get it, you are a cheater, and you want to believe your actions do not have consequences. But they do. I'm sorry that your deviant world views have led you to live a life in hiding and full of lies.

People with honor are truthful and only cowards do leave their children, no matter their age, left to find out about their horrible secrets once they have passed... whether it's financial, romantic, or legal.

This is OP.

To be fair to my dead parent (DP), I'm sure they never meant for me to discover the truth. I discovered the affair after my living parent (LP) asked me to go through some of my DP's correspondence for a certain time period and I found a bunch of raunchy/flirty notes that spanned years. I was beyond shocked. And my anger and confusion are distorting the grieving process.

I think my LP knows about only a small portion of the affair and doesn't realize that it went on for years. But I don't know for sure what my LP knows. And I haven't brought up the topic because I don't want to be intrusive or, even worse, reveal something that would seriously emotionally harm my LP.

I think you need to reconcile the bolded parts above. Do you think someone is trying not be discovered when they hold onto hard copies of AP’s love letters?

I posted earlier that where is the anger for the LP? If the LP knew, why did LP ask OP to go through the stuff. Could it be because LP would know what was there? (I wouldn't ever ask my kids to go through DH's stuff when he died -- that's weird. I'm also into protecting my kids, and not burdening them while they're grieving.) Also, that means that LP lied as well, but there's not a lot of anger there.

OP here.

Without getting into too much detail, my LP asked me to review certain of my DP's business files. While reviewing the business files, I came across the AP correspondence. I'm certain my LP did not expect the AP correspondence to be mixed in with the business files. I have zero anger toward my LP, who is completely blameless in this situation and I believe was in the dark about the affair's longevity.

My LP is not burdening me at all to ask for help. We are there for each other and I'm happy to do as much as I can during this difficult time.

OP, I had an affair. I am a parent. Here is my understanding about it:

1. I never stopped loving my kids or my spouse. It was my own unhealthy way to cope with marriage problems I should have dealt with directly.

2. I did love AP and my spouse at the same time. It’s weird but I do think you can love two people in that way at the same time.

3. Nothing else about our family life was a “lie.” Everything that happened actually happened.

1. Yes you did, life is not a feeling it’s an action. People who hit their kids and spouse say they love them too, you are no different.

2. Not at the same time. When you were with your AP you were hurting your children and spouse. What you did was not love, if you loved your AP you would move mountains for them not use them to sooth your broken soul

3. No , when you said you were at X you were not you were with AP. You could’ve used that time for therapy, or some other activity that would make your family life better.. but you didn’t you lied to your family and you lied to yourself. You are not who you pretend to be.

How is this helpful to OP? I get it, you hate “cheaters,” (probably because you were cheated on and are lashing out) but OP is trying to reconcile the parent she knew and loves with these actions. People are not just their worst transgressions and I’m glad my spouse didn’t have your attitude and was able to forgive and love me. OP’s parent may have been an unrepentant narcissist but may also just have been a person who made a mistake for whatever reason.

I understand, since you are a cheater, the deep need to put all those behaviors in a box and pretend they are not a part of who you are, but they are. I never said her DP is his worst transgression but they are not the person OP thought they are. That is a valid feeling and making her feel like her feeling are invalid is gaslighting. How is gaslighting her helping her. Perhaps you are not done with therapy for your own behavior and don't understand that yet.

I do not hate cheaters I love quite a few. I have many friends that have blown up their lives due to cheating, addiction and abuse. I don't say hey alcoholic, it's fine let's get a drink, your kids will understand if you go on another bender.

When my best friend was cheating I got her help, I didn't just say...oh well that doesn't define you.

OP has feelings about her DP who is someone that she doesn't recognize, and you are trying to invalidate her feeling because you are a cheater, and you hope that your children would just overlook all your toxic traits. That is not healthy, healthy adults face these facts head on, admit their faults and work on them to become a better person. OP was robbed of that opportunity because her selfish DP is gone and she can't build a relationship with the person her parent really is. She now needs to do that difficult work without her parent here.

There is a whole "branch" of therapy that deals with mourning a death and discovering family secrets after a death. It's not healthy to just say "oh well" my feeling are immature I just need to suck it up. That's terribly unhealthy and actually repeating the pattern of her DP.

I doubt your H would forgive you if he knew you were still cheating.

I'm sorry that terrible things in your life led you to a life of cheating and I hope and pray that you didn't just receive forgiveness, but that you did the hard work to understand the root cause to your destructive behavior. Your H loves you not a fake persona of who you are. OP was never given that opportunity.

You might very well take the prize for the most judgemental DCUM poster ever. That’s saying a lot! Congratulations.

Heh Heh I don't think you've been here very long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Etc me guess you were always a bit smug about having the perfect family and parents with the perfect relationship.
And now you have to be an adult and realize perfect doesn't exist.
Time to grow the hell up.
This really doesn't concern you at all.
Yet you've decided to make it your personal tragedy that suggests a degree of narcissism and inappropriate levels of codependency.

I wouldn't have been so harsh, but this is true. There's enough emoting and hand-wringing about posters' own betrayals by their spouses that seem completely over the top on this board, but feeling that way about parental affairs? This isn't the end of the world. Your surviving parent may have been fine with it. There might have been reasons for this situation. You can start hating your deceased parent's guts now, but I think you should accept that you will never know the full picture, and therefore cannot judge.

+1

And affair has nothing to do with parent’s love for you. Your reaction is over the top.

An affair actually has a lot to do with how much you love your children. If you love your children, you’re not selfish and do things that can hurt them deeply, which include addiction, abuse, and affairs.

The reality is this parent cared more about themselves than they did anybody else in the family, including the children.

Yeah, can someone please think of adult children!

It's not about you. Not everything in this world is about you.

Touched a nerve, eh?

Exactly, there are some cheaters on here trying to gaslight OP. It's so natural for them to lie and gaslight.

It's pathetic.

No. We are giving tough love so that OP doesn't wallow in her own pain to the detriment of her long-term mental health.

The only person OP is hurting right now is herself.

Once you understand this, you can learn to manage your suffering so that it has an end point.

This is true for any betrayal, any trauma. The perps have long-since decamped. The victim, or third party witness, or whoever stays with lingering feelings, must do the work to become functional again.

Nobody is wallowing in pain, OP literally just found out. What you want is for OP to stuff her feelings. There is no honor in never feeling feelings and calling a spade a spade.

OP is right, her parent was not who they pretended to be and they had so little honor that they let the bean spill post death, that is cowardice.

OP has the knowledge, will work through the feelings in a way that will help them grow instead of just pretending it never happened and moving on.

? None of this has anything to do with "honor" or "cowardice". OP is not owed information about someone else's romantic entanglements, unless it's her spouse's.

You're weird.

OP has the right to know when somebody lies to them. I get it, you are a cheater, and you want to believe your actions do not have consequences. But they do. I'm sorry that your deviant world views have led you to live a life in hiding and full of lies.

People with honor are truthful and only cowards do leave their children, no matter their age, left to find out about their horrible secrets once they have passed... whether it's financial, romantic, or legal.

This is OP.

To be fair to my dead parent (DP), I'm sure they never meant for me to discover the truth. I discovered the affair after my living parent (LP) asked me to go through some of my DP's correspondence for a certain time period and I found a bunch of raunchy/flirty notes that spanned years. I was beyond shocked. And my anger and confusion are distorting the grieving process.

I think my LP knows about only a small portion of the affair and doesn't realize that it went on for years. But I don't know for sure what my LP knows. And I haven't brought up the topic because I don't want to be intrusive or, even worse, reveal something that would seriously emotionally harm my LP.

I think you need to reconcile the bolded parts above. Do you think someone is trying not be discovered when they hold onto hard copies of AP’s love letters?

I posted earlier that where is the anger for the LP? If the LP knew, why did LP ask OP to go through the stuff. Could it be because LP would know what was there? (I wouldn't ever ask my kids to go through DH's stuff when he died -- that's weird. I'm also into protecting my kids, and not burdening them while they're grieving.) Also, that means that LP lied as well, but there's not a lot of anger there.

OP here.

Without getting into too much detail, my LP asked me to review certain of my DP's business files. While reviewing the business files, I came across the AP correspondence. I'm certain my LP did not expect the AP correspondence to be mixed in with the business files. I have zero anger toward my LP, who is completely blameless in this situation and I believe was in the dark about the affair's longevity.

My LP is not burdening me at all to ask for help. We are there for each other and I'm happy to do as much as I can during this difficult time.

OP, I had an affair. I am a parent. Here is my understanding about it:

1. I never stopped loving my kids or my spouse. It was my own unhealthy way to cope with marriage problems I should have dealt with directly.

2. I did love AP and my spouse at the same time. It’s weird but I do think you can love two people in that way at the same time.

3. Nothing else about our family life was a “lie.” Everything that happened actually happened.

1. Yes you did, life is not a feeling it’s an action. People who hit their kids and spouse say they love them too, you are no different.

2. Not at the same time. When you were with your AP you were hurting your children and spouse. What you did was not love, if you loved your AP you would move mountains for them not use them to sooth your broken soul

3. No , when you said you were at X you were not you were with AP. You could’ve used that time for therapy, or some other activity that would make your family life better.. but you didn’t you lied to your family and you lied to yourself. You are not who you pretend to be.

How is this helpful to OP? I get it, you hate “cheaters,” (probably because you were cheated on and are lashing out) but OP is trying to reconcile the parent she knew and loves with these actions. People are not just their worst transgressions and I’m glad my spouse didn’t have your attitude and was able to forgive and love me. OP’s parent may have been an unrepentant narcissist but may also just have been a person who made a mistake for whatever reason.

I understand, since you are a cheater, the deep need to put all those behaviors in a box and pretend they are not a part of who you are, but they are. I never said her DP is his worst transgression but they are not the person OP thought they are. That is a valid feeling and making her feel like her feeling are invalid is gaslighting. How is gaslighting her helping her. Perhaps you are not done with therapy for your own behavior and don't understand that yet.

I do not hate cheaters I love quite a few. I have many friends that have blown up their lives due to cheating, addiction and abuse. I don't say hey alcoholic, it's fine let's get a drink, your kids will understand if you go on another bender.

When my best friend was cheating I got her help, I didn't just say...oh well that doesn't define you.

OP has feelings about her DP who is someone that she doesn't recognize, and you are trying to invalidate her feeling because you are a cheater, and you hope that your children would just overlook all your toxic traits. That is not healthy, healthy adults face these facts head on, admit their faults and work on them to become a better person. OP was robbed of that opportunity because her selfish DP is gone and she can't build a relationship with the person her parent really is. She now needs to do that difficult work without her parent here.

There is a whole "branch" of therapy that deals with mourning a death and discovering family secrets after a death. It's not healthy to just say "oh well" my feeling are immature I just need to suck it up. That's terribly unhealthy and actually repeating the pattern of her DP.

I doubt your H would forgive you if he knew you were still cheating.

I'm sorry that terrible things in your life led you to a life of cheating and I hope and pray that you didn't just receive forgiveness, but that you did the hard work to understand the root cause to your destructive behavior. Your H loves you not a fake persona of who you are. OP was never given that opportunity.

You might very well take the prize for the most judgemental DCUM poster ever. That’s saying a lot! Congratulations.

Heh Heh I don't think you've been here very long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Etc me guess you were always a bit smug about having the perfect family and parents with the perfect relationship.
And now you have to be an adult and realize perfect doesn't exist.
Time to grow the hell up.
This really doesn't concern you at all.
Yet you've decided to make it your personal tragedy that suggests a degree of narcissism and inappropriate levels of codependency.

I wouldn't have been so harsh, but this is true. There's enough emoting and hand-wringing about posters' own betrayals by their spouses that seem completely over the top on this board, but feeling that way about parental affairs? This isn't the end of the world. Your surviving parent may have been fine with it. There might have been reasons for this situation. You can start hating your deceased parent's guts now, but I think you should accept that you will never know the full picture, and therefore cannot judge.

+1

And affair has nothing to do with parent’s love for you. Your reaction is over the top.

An affair actually has a lot to do with how much you love your children. If you love your children, you’re not selfish and do things that can hurt them deeply, which include addiction, abuse, and affairs.

The reality is this parent cared more about themselves than they did anybody else in the family, including the children.

Yeah, can someone please think of adult children!

It's not about you. Not everything in this world is about you.

Touched a nerve, eh?

Exactly, there are some cheaters on here trying to gaslight OP. It's so natural for them to lie and gaslight.

It's pathetic.

I’m not sure all the posters trying to gaslight and attack OP are cheaters. Some of them, probably yes, because they have a narcissistic need to believe that nobody is hurt by their actions.

But I actually think most of the posters attacking OP are the same group of DCUM posters who attack anyone who shows they have a close family. DCUM has a group of posters who have familial relationships that are very distanced and lonely-sounding. They interact with each other as if their family members were as important to them as the mailman. They are pleasant to each other and they nod in passing in the morning as they go to the kitchen to breakfast. They may eat dinner together, as they do with a work colleague. But they aren’t close, and while they don’t have the self-awareness to understand why, they do dimly understand that they are missing something.

This group attacks any posters on DCUM who show signs of having a close familial relationship. It is of course perfectly normal in a close family to go what OP is going through. But to the attackers, this is a sign of what they don’t have, the depth of relationship they never had with their parents. So they attack.

It’s the same group of people who attack posters who say they miss their kids at college, or who attack posters who miss siblings who move across the country. The pattern is similar: someone posts something heartfelt and these posters descend on the thread to gaslight them OP. OP should ignore them, but the fact her thread attracted them is a sign to OP that she is right to be upset. Her response is that of a normal person.

Youre right. So much dysfunction … reading how healthy people relate to each other must sound like a foreign language to them.

Yes. That’s exactly it. It sounds like an unfamiliar, foreign language to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^^ "cheater", "abuse", "transgression", "invalidate", "toxic", "therapy", "pattern", "destructive", "root cause", "persona"

nutcase red flags.

Those words would not cut like a knife if you dealt with your internal conflict and stopped seeking validation externally.

^ nutcase lashing out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Etc me guess you were always a bit smug about having the perfect family and parents with the perfect relationship.
And now you have to be an adult and realize perfect doesn't exist.
Time to grow the hell up.
This really doesn't concern you at all.
Yet you've decided to make it your personal tragedy that suggests a degree of narcissism and inappropriate levels of codependency.

I wouldn't have been so harsh, but this is true. There's enough emoting and hand-wringing about posters' own betrayals by their spouses that seem completely over the top on this board, but feeling that way about parental affairs? This isn't the end of the world. Your surviving parent may have been fine with it. There might have been reasons for this situation. You can start hating your deceased parent's guts now, but I think you should accept that you will never know the full picture, and therefore cannot judge.

+1

And affair has nothing to do with parent’s love for you. Your reaction is over the top.

An affair actually has a lot to do with how much you love your children. If you love your children, you’re not selfish and do things that can hurt them deeply, which include addiction, abuse, and affairs.

The reality is this parent cared more about themselves than they did anybody else in the family, including the children.

Yeah, can someone please think of adult children!

It's not about you. Not everything in this world is about you.

Touched a nerve, eh?

Exactly, there are some cheaters on here trying to gaslight OP. It's so natural for them to lie and gaslight.

It's pathetic.

I’m not sure all the posters trying to gaslight and attack OP are cheaters. Some of them, probably yes, because they have a narcissistic need to believe that nobody is hurt by their actions.

But I actually think most of the posters attacking OP are the same group of DCUM posters who attack anyone who shows they have a close family. DCUM has a group of posters who have familial relationships that are very distanced and lonely-sounding. They interact with each other as if their family members were as important to them as the mailman. They are pleasant to each other and they nod in passing in the morning as they go to the kitchen to breakfast. They may eat dinner together, as they do with a work colleague. But they aren’t close, and while they don’t have the self-awareness to understand why, they do dimly understand that they are missing something.

This group attacks any posters on DCUM who show signs of having a close familial relationship. It is of course perfectly normal in a close family to go what OP is going through. But to the attackers, this is a sign of what they don’t have, the depth of relationship they never had with their parents. So they attack.

It’s the same group of people who attack posters who say they miss their kids at college, or who attack posters who miss siblings who move across the country. The pattern is similar: someone posts something heartfelt and these posters descend on the thread to gaslight them OP. OP should ignore them, but the fact her thread attracted them is a sign to OP that she is right to be upset. Her response is that of a normal person.

Youre right. So much dysfunction … reading how healthy people relate to each other must sound like a foreign language to them.

Yes. That’s exactly it. It sounds like an unfamiliar, foreign language to them.

^ nutcase sockpuppeting.

[Anonymous]

The crazies have shown up, I see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^^ "cheater", "abuse", "transgression", "invalidate", "toxic", "therapy", "pattern", "destructive", "root cause", "persona"

nutcase red flags.

Those words would not cut like a knife if you dealt with your internal conflict and stopped seeking validation externally.

^ nutcase lashing out.

It bizarre. how much you need and crave attention it’s so indicative of how cheater acts. You love to think that you’re different than everybody else but you follow the same boring destructive pattern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The crazies have shown up, I see.

Cheaters, especially women, really lash out on this forum during the holidays because they know in one week their affair partner is going to be with their family instead of with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry you feel pain, OP.

However it's hard for me to relate to the degree of agonizing that goes on in certain posters' minds regarding cheating/affairs/APs. Some people don't believe in monogamy, and try to live lives that don't hurt others too much while still living something that is closer to their beliefs. Some people don't mind their partners' affairs too much, given the rest of the package deal, so to speak. There are so many things in life that can hurt a marriage - I would put physical abuse, financial duress and physical and mental health disorders on that list.

But my parent having a long-term affair? No, I wouldn't be bothered for a second. That's my parents' business, not mine. I will not judge or lose sleep over it.

Being lied to for years on end is certainly a huge trauma.

For some people. Others process it in a healthier way. And a lot of people suspect, and choose to let it go. I agree with the poster saying that possibly the marriage was as good as it was because of the long-term off-side, not despite it.

If you think it’s healthier to blow off years of deceit and denial yourself into thinking your parent is the same person you thought they were when in fact they were clearly not, you are the unhealthy person. Denial, minimization, deflection, self deceit. Not healthy coping mechanisms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The crazies have shown up, I see.

Cheaters, especially women, really lash out on this forum during the holidays because they know in one week their affair partner is going to be with their family instead of with them.

So are the harpies who know their husbands really want to be somewhere else, but instead are gulping drinks and trying to grin and bear it through the holiday gatherings. His body is there, but his mind is not and you know it. Your family is a sham.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:pp back to say...of course your parent loved you. This wouldn't change. Grieve, but stay focused.

Wrong. True love does not involve doing things that hurt the person you love.

FFS you're over the top. Besides, you're really $hitty to tell the OP her parent didn't love her when s/he can't tell her.

My marital actions have no bearing on my love for my kids. Neither do my husband's. My parents got divorced, does that mean they don't love me?

Besides, you and OP have a thought that causes your feeling. If my parent cheated I wouldn't blink an eye. So, it's not the action, it's the thought that causes your suffering. Fix your toxic thoughts.

I believe you when you say the bolded. However from this post and what I believe are your others you betray a distanced familial relationship that I would not want to experience. I certainly believe you wouldn’t care if your parents cheated or your spouse. That is indeed clear.

You can believe what you want. I'm not distanced, but I try very hard not to hold people up to perfectionist standards, so I would venture I'm much closer to my family and inlaws then the majority here. I guess it wasn't fair to say I wouldn't blink, but it definitely wouldn't rattle me in the same way it's rattled OP. Based on this board, you would call my mom and MIL monsters for things they've done. I'm certainly hurt sometimes, but I think my attitude toward them goes a long way. That's what this board doesn't do well -- nuance or gray spaces.

People piling on for OP to hate her father makes me sad, and intimating that her mother is blameless (not for the cheating, for her own actions in the marriage, since she did say although she knew) is not helpful or healthy for OP, IMO. My parents divorced and neither one has solely blamed the other, and both still try 40+ years later to position the other in a good light.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The crazies have shown up, I see.

Cheaters, especially women, really lash out on this forum during the holidays because they know in one week their affair partner is going to be with their family instead of with them.

So are the harpies who know their husbands really want to be somewhere else, but instead are gulping drinks and trying to grin and bear it through the holiday gatherings. His body is there, but his mind is not and you know it. Your family is a sham.

^^ war of the nutcases. All of this angst over 1 simple unchanging reality.. all men are pigs and all women are insane. Whats with this war in Mother Nature? Mother Nature always wins in the end.

[Anonymous]

I so wish all the cheaters in the Relationships Forum would read this post. They always insist that the cheating is only between adults, they don't talk to kids about their sex lives and so the cheating has no impact on kids.