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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Dad had a complete separate family. I learned in 3rd grade. It did taint how I looked at him, but the real loser in my eyes is my mom who flipped out and didn't try to save her marriage. As a result, my full sibling and I grew up in poverty while the halfs got a pretty cushy upbringing AND our dad. My mom also has spent the last three decades trashing my dad and his mistress.[/quote]

Um, you do realize that your Dad is the a-hole here, right.  Please tell me you haven't blamed/vilified your mother for this.  [/quote]

My dad has apologized to us again and again. [b]My mother takes no responsibility for her role in how things ended up.[/b] To this day, my mother ruins nearly every family occasion by trying to pick a fight with my dad. I glad that at least he got some peace from her when he left. Wish he'd taken us, too. Growing up in the ghetto is hard. Growing up in the ghetto with a depressed, bitter mother is so much worse. [/quote]

That's because she has *no* responsibility in it. She didn't put a gun to your dad's head and order him to have a parallel secret family. He's the one who made the choice to lie, scheme, conceal, betray. He did not act the way a good man, a good husband, a good dad does. Apologies are very cheap. He should not have let the situation arise in the first place. You need therapy.[/quote]

NP. And she's the one who chose to emotionally abandon her children who had already lost their intact family because her own broken hear was more important than being a mother. Both parental fails in my book. Dad attempted to make it up to the children. Mom did not because her own broken heart was always more important to her even years later. Can people really not see why she would be inclined to have one close parent instead of none and why it would be the parent who at least tried.. [/quote]

I can see why this poster would not want to cut ties with both parents.  I tried to dig deep to figure out why this story bothered me so much.  I think one question I ask myself is would the PP's mom have been the same person if the dad did not have a secret family?  We can be shaped by other people either in a positive or negative way. I wonder if the dad's secret family just amplified a selfish nature in the mom or she is she was given a situation she just didn't have the tools to deal with. It is a bitter pill to swallow that life isn't fair and harder still if you don't have the confidence to believe you can do better whether it be a better job or a better significant other.

I think the other thing that bothered me is that we don't know if the shoe was on the other foot how dad would have handled it.  If he was heavily involved with the kids and had this picture perfect dream and  found out that his wife had another family and then left him for the other man and he had to support the kids solely etc. how humble and graceful would he have been in accepting money from ex-wife and seeing her happiness with the new husband and new kids while he was raising the kids by himself/not remarrying till the kids were out of high school?  I guess that is the third thing is that I feel there is a double standard.  If the mom was the one that left the kids and had another family while dad had sole custody and was bitter, I truly believe no amount of apologies in the world would suddenly break down the mistrust and abandonment to allow the kids to have a close relationship with the mom.  But coming from the standard where dad being involved is a bonus, like how my DH used to get complimented when he took the kids out to the mall when they were toddlers while no one stops the mom to compliment her ... it's easier for the dad to get forgiveness.

So anyway, I didn't want to jump on the poster that shared because I think it was a crappy situation all around.  I was just trying to examine why I was so upset at an anonymous poster's forgiveness of dad but not the mom and put a mirror up to my own emotions to see if I was doing the same in my parent's infidelity situation.[/quote]

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