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

[Anonymous]

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.

You sound like quite the manipulative little gaslighter. Guess what? You don't get to tell other people how to feel about things.

[Anonymous]

OP, your parents are (or were) adults. They made adult bargains in their relationships, including with one another, that aren’t really yours to understand.

If this parent was in fact a raging narcissist and habitual liar across many categories of action, there is likely plenty of material other than this reflecting it for you to reflect upon today.

But it’s also possible that this is just what happened and you’re never going to understand it any better than you do now. People—even people without personality disorders—dissociate themselves from actions that are ego-dystonic, and this parent may have been doing that, relentlessly, for decades.

[Anonymous]

Unless you've gone through something like this, you don't realize how it shakes the foundation of your life and memories. Everything you thought you knew you see through a new prism. It makes you question everything.

Rationally you know it's not about you, but that doesn't stop you from questioning or looking at past events and rethinking what you believed.

I'd encourage you to find a therapist to help you reframe your new reality and it does get better (and easier) with time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Consider that maybe having the affair fulfilled something that wasn't being fulfilled within the marriage, and having the affair allowed the marriage to be as good as it was.

+1

[Anonymous]

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.

You sound like quite the manipulative little gaslighter. Guess what? You don't get to tell other people how to feel about things.

Attacks don't make you look good. I said she could start hating her father, but in my opinion it's not the right thing to do. But she makes the decision!
She has the power to do whatever!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you've gone through something like this, you don't realize how it shakes the foundation of your life and memories. Everything you thought you knew you see through a new prism. It makes you question everything.

Rationally you know it's not about you, but that doesn't stop you from questioning or looking at past events and rethinking what you believed.

I'd encourage you to find a therapist to help you reframe your new reality and it does get better (and easier) with time.

This is correct, though I'd also add that it's not necessarily better or easier if the knowledge all comes to light while the parent who had affair (yes, narcissistic) is still alive and unwilling to acknowledge the effect of their actions on you/the family. Sorry, OP. Therapy is a good first step.

[Anonymous]

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.

Yikes, aren't you charming?

OP it is a normal human thing to feel the way you do. You've been disillusioned about a person who you thought you knew well, and you now know that person intentionally lied to you and everyone else. It's hard to reconcile the person you loved with the person's deeds.

If you can't work through this on your own, of course a therapist could help.

Also, it IS true that part of growing up is accepting that our parents aren't perfect people. Of course, it's one thing to be less-than-perfect and another thing to be a liar and cheater and then mix sex up in there and you've got a real emotional crisis on your hands, I get it.

You just have to love your parent for the good person they were and try to separate out that their sexual activites don't relate to you. Lots of people are sexually immoral, they just keep it secret. Your parent is not that unusual. And it doesn't mean they didn't love you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After my parent died, I discovered their long-term affair and I'm questioning so much. I thought my parents had an unusually happy and satisfying marriage. They both certainly behaved that way -- in words and deeds -- in front of me, the rest of the family and friends. Was my deceased parent acting the whole time? Wouldn't one need to be nuts to be living a double life and to lie so convincingly over a long time period?

My deceased parent lied so much: lied to the AP about big and little things and lied to my still-living parent. I know that my still-living parent found out about the affair, but didn't realize that it went on for many years.

I thought that I had been very close to my deceased parent. But given the volume of their lies, how do I know that they actually loved me? Is someone who tells so many lies and lives a double life actually capable of love? And did my deceased parent love my still-living parent? At least once a week, my deceased parent would talk to me about how much they loved my still-living parent. Was that all a lie?

Can you for God's sake at least use correct pronouns? What do you hope to gain by concealing whether it was your mother or father was the cheater?

Actually I think OP is wise because people DO have biased feelings based on the gender of the "offender". OP is seeking unbaised feedback.

[Anonymous]

I understand feeling shattered by this, OP. I made a similar discovery about my dad a couple of years ago and it was extremely jarring and upsetting.

In time, I came to accept that relationships are hard, people are flawed, and I will never know what was truly at the root of what he did, but it doesn't change the positive memories of my family or the influence he had on my life. Hopefully, you can too.

[Anonymous]

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.

OK Cheater.

[Anonymous]

Dang!

[Anonymous]

I’m so sorry, OP. We found out about an AP on the grandparent’s deathbed. No one talked about the situation much. It’s all I could think about as I fed the now-deceased drops of water from a sponge.

I think the suggestion to work with a therapist is a wise one.

[Anonymous]

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.

Complete bullish!t

[Anonymous]

I think that's pretty $hitty for your non-deceased parent to spill this on you, so you aren't able to hear the deceased's side.

Also, if your living parent knew about it, why aren't you also mad at them for lying to you all this time. They were complicit in presenting a happy facade.

[Anonymous]

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