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[quote=Anonymous]My dad married his AP. My parents had a horrible marriage and--with distance-- I don't blame my dad for leaving, because my mom is incredibly depressive, neurotic, negative and all of those traits were magnified with my dad, who shuts down emotionally with "needy" women (including his daughter) and is basically pretty self-centered. He had an affair, and they were together starting, I'm guessing, around 2 years before my mom found out (and I suspected, in fact, something was going on). I was 14 when the shit hit the fan. The split was no surprise, the affair was--I guess my dad had been wanting to leave for a long time, my mom insisted on waiting until both kids in college. She raged a lot after he left and did all the things you're not supposed to do--especially in engaging in character destroying. 30 years later, she still is vituperative about him and his wife, and its just sad.

Did it end happily? Its complicated.

My dad remarried his AP and while its not perfect, they've been together 25 years. My mom met someone MUCH better suited to her, and they eventually got married but he died a few years ago and my mom is lonely and neurotic again.

The split was devasting on us kids. Not the divorce itself, but the horrendous way they handled it (or not). my dad essentially took off with his girlfriend and never gave us a change to adjust--I went from a fucked up but intact family one week to my dad living with his AP the next and not understanding why I didn't want to come over for dinner. Stepmom, who did't have kids of her own, was very insecure, particularly about my dad's attachment to me and did her best to separate us. She's still a difficult person.  My brother's reaction was to withdraw and to never have a good model of what it means to be a man. Between my dad's selfish/cluelessness and my mom's character assassination, and the fact that neither parent ever considered how the kids were dealign with this, he got kind of lost and entered into a terrible marriage with a neurotic, depressive woman a lot like my mom, I think because he feels "protective" of her the way he does with his mom and doesn't want to be like his dad.

The whole thing made me very untrusting of me and I got into a string of bad relationships, although now I'm happily married with kids, but I was very late in doing so.

Bottom line: a clean, calm divorce would have been far better than what happened. Not sure my mom would have been able to participate in a calm divorce, but the affair gave her ammo for her emotional issues. At the same time, I get why people have affairs--I truly do. I would just think that a separation that could be done with as little drama as possible, and as much space for the kids to adjust as possible before thrusting them into a new configuration is best.

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