Reply to Son won't talk to me after affair

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I can understand it.  An affair is something you inflict on your whole family, which includes the powerless kids.  Once a kid leaves home, the affair isn't about them.  I fully understand that "parents are people" but we have obligations to our children to maintain a healthy environment for them.[b] Kids flip out because the affair ruins their home life and a) they are powerless and b) the "wandering parent" often doesn't get that it is about the explosion at home that they caused, but think it is just about "adult stuff." [/b] They don't flip out because of the immmorality of infidelity.  Lived through it.

My dad had a thousand ways to get out of his marriage without making our home a battle ground and ruining every family event for the next bunch of years.

If you want out of a marriage, get out, but in the meanwhile, keep your willy in your pants.[/quote]

The PP is right about the teen feeling powerless.  The sense of security of the family unit is sort of pulled from under you as a result of a decision a parent made to betray his/her marriage vows.  For me, as much as it was "adult stuff" about the specifics of the marriage my parent was lying to me about where he was.  Clearly he isn't going to say he is at the AP house.  Instead there is a lie about being at John's house to watch the game and times he wasn't reachable.  As someone said, it wasn't the immorality of infidelity, this may sound weird but I think it was between my mom and dad how that would be handled.  It was that as the child, I was not put first.  Being able to have an affair and not be caught meant my dad was not around when he should of been, lied about where he was, and straight out potentially would not be available if there was an emergency if he was with AP.

OP mentioned how he is home for dinner now, doesn't work as late, is more present etc, as actions to show his wife he is serious about the marriage.  Not to be snarky but he should have been doing those things all along.  This means that OP could have been doing these things all along but choose not to because he didn't prioritize these things.  If you said that you always had to be at work and missed out on being around for the kids but managed to have time to have an affair at work ..what does that say?

I think first, if you were otherwise an involved and good dad, eventually your son will forgive you in time if you show with actions and admit to being wrong.  I'm sorry in a way is a knee jerk response , like when you hit your sibling as a kid and your parents tell you to apologize.  Yes. You are sorry for getting caught, saying sorry to get out of further trouble, but are you really sorry and wouldn't do it again if your sibling snatches the tv remote from you ...probably not.  But saying you are wrong, that your response to a given situation was wrong and not the right way to handle something. To say that you are working on yourself on how you handle something so you don't handle it that way again ...heck of a lot different than saying sorry and demanding forgiveness.  Right now you are making everything about someone else being the bigger person ...why won't the wife forgive me, why won't my son forgive me. Well why can't you work on you and learn how to handle things the right way even if that doesn't result in forgiveness?  Be the person worthy of forgiveness whether or not it happens.  That is what real regret and remorse is about.  Fwiw, I did forgive my dad but it took a long time.  He didn't try to blame anyone else, he didn't give me some bs excuse, he admitted he was wrong and he was ashamed of what he was doing.  He admitted that he didn't know how to handle what was going on at the time and instead of working harder and looking into counseling he made mistakes in his marriage.

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