My dad has recently been caught having an affair with his young personal assistant. Huge scandal; mom was very angry. Now they’re in the middle of divorce proceedings. Mom moved out, the other woman moved in and I chose to stay with him because we’re super close; he’s like my best friend. Now mom’s telling me to go and live with her and go no contact with him cause he’s a bad person and by continuing having a relationship with him I’m condoning his actions and “ignoring her suffering”. My relationship with my dad hasn’t changed, I don’t see why I should end it.
Okay so… your dad is unequivocally a piece of shit. You said he’s like your best friend, but are you okay with your best friend being a piece of shit? There need to be social consequences for being an unapologetic piece of shit (which one would need to be to have an affair with their personal assistant and then move in with her). Just business as usual isn’t gonna cut it (think if instead of cheating he’d come out as a Nazi) and you would be condoning his actions if there aren’t negative consequences of some form for this fiasco, though how much you escalate is up to you.
Edit: I have to say, the attitudes some of y’all have about parent-child relationships range from ungrateful to absolutely deplorable. Like, seriously if I heard “it’s the parent’s job to emotionally support their children, not the other way around” from someone in real life I wouldn’t let that person within five miles within anyone I care about.
Exactly, everyone is giving this piece of shit a pass and going after the mom for being manipulative?
The fuck Lemmy.
Honestly from what we know, which is next to nothing, both parents here are in the wrong partially.
But as someone else already said here, humans and their relationships are super complex and from just a little paragraph we shouldn’t judge either of them too harshly.
For example, my mom cheated on my dad, but we children stayed with her and understood her actions, because our dad was an emotionally unavailable alcoholic at that time. He turned himself around in the years following, becoming a better father. Both my parents made grave mistakes during their marriage and both shared blame in the breaking apart of our family and both, over time, accepted their part in it.
Life is not that easy, for none of us, everybody makes mistakes.
Man fucked his assistant behind his wife’s back and he’s just “partially” wrong
It’s not that hard of a concept to understand. In the described scenario both did something wrong, which is why I said, that both are partially wrong (regarding the described problem).
He is wrong for betraying his family and she is wrong for trying to pull the child into their dispute by making them choose sides.
So OP posted this, not only because his dad cheated and not only because his mom is trying to make them choose, but because of BOTH those things happening.
Hey, that person isn’t a good role model and did something absolutly deplorable. For whats best for you, you shouldnt talk to them again or else I fear your going to look up to them and also consider doing that in the future. And thats the last thing I want for you. That person needs to understand there are consequences for their actions.
Seems like a reasonable to say to your child
Maybe add in a maybe if they really clean up their actions you can talk to them later, but the divorce is literally still happening as well as the side chick having already moved in
These actions now do have consequences, which is why I am divorcing him. I hope you will understand that I can not reconcile the betrayal and that actions like this will always hurt people and have harsh consequences.
But I understand that this person is your father and your relationship to him is important to you so I will try to make peace with that, in order to not hurt you any more than has already been done.
Seems also like a reasonable thing to say to your child. You know, not instrumentalizing your child to hurt the partner that betrayed you. Seems selfish to me, but what do I know.
But I should’ve know better than to expect healthy nuance from an online discussion anyways.Edit: I got a little combative there, which was unnecessary
Maybe I just care for my mother more. Idk
Can’t imagine living with the side chick during the divorce
I did, but it was my mom who betrayed my dad, we lived with her boyfriend for some time. But like I mentioned, my dad was an emotionally distant, almost cold alcoholic, who spent his time drinking alone or working instead of caring for his family. So I get that she had needs that weren’t fulfilled. Of course I was mad with her for some time but after some time I understood what moved her, as a child I didn’t really realize how our dad left us alone in that time.
Could my mom have made better decisions? Absolutely, she could’ve just divorced him.
Does my dad share blame for distancing himself from his family, years before the infidelity? Also yes.
Did I like living with my mom’s side piece? Hell no, I didn’t like that guy.
In the end it turned out alright, my dad got sober and through therapy learned to have meaningful relationships with his children and partners. My mom is married to another man, who I love dearly, even my father had an okay relationship with him.
All I’m trying to say is that human relationships are complicated, things like this betrayal don’t always happen in a vacuum. I mean sometimes they do, but we don’t know that here.
You gotta read between the lines. OP is close to father, not mother. Mother demands OP cut off all contact with father because he cheated.
It’s clear to me that mom is just trying to drive a wedge between OP and dad in order to hurt him. She doesn’t care how that will affect OP!
Maybe dad started cheating because mom was cold and unavailable? Maybe he fell in love with someone who reciprocated and was available emotionally because his wife wasn’t? He invited this woman to move in, so obviously it wasn’t just a fling.
life is complex. You really cannot assume he is a piece of shit just based on the information we have.
Was their marriage good? Was he happy with his life? If not, is he a piece of shit for wanting to live a happy life in the little time we have on this world? Is other person entitled to chain you to an unhappy life?
He may or may not be a piece of shit, I wouldn’t know.
As I said in another reply, there was a way for him to live a happy life in the little time he has on this world (or get his peen wet, whichever it is): Get a divorce. As long as he could do that, which is clearly the case given that he is getting a divorce and his mistress is moving in with him, he had absolutely no excuse to have an affair behind his wife’s back. Hence, piece of shit.
He is getting a divorce.
You need to put yourself in both perspectives. It’s not so easy to make such a big change in life without being sure first, that’s why people tend to already have met other one to love before leaving their current partner .
Anyway, it would not be easier for the leaved part to accept it. Normally the pain tends to come for the fact that someone who you loves, and that you think they love you back, no longer loves you. The temporal fact that their new relationship overlaps a little with the time before leaving you does not ease much the pain.
Because, let’s be real, is not like people don’t want to be cheated, it’s that people, reasonably, don’t want their partner to leave them. Cheating is just the realization of this leaving. But you cannot force love on someone, of they don’t love you, they just don’t.
If a relationship is broken, I don’t really see cheating as a cause, more like a symptom.
Ideally people will be more brave and just end things as soon as they feel no love. But that’s a little too utopic in my humble opinion. And being so harsh on people who didn’t manage to be as brave as to end something to be alone instead of ending things when they have sure they are not going to be alone is not that justified from my point of view.
Yeah it is unfair for the other part who has “lost” time in a failed relationship and could be have been looking for other partners sooner, as their SO is doing. But a failed relationship is usually evident from both sides equally, so at some point is also their own fault for clinging themselves to a death relationship.
Things would change if there’s manipulations, abusive behavior or harm is being done on purpose of course. But there’s no evidence that it is the case here. In fact the only harm tried to do in purpose here comes from the mother asking the son to break relationships with his father just to make him suffer.
From the context it’s clear he’s getting divorced by his wife after getting caught.
Okay then meet with the side chick and then get a divorce. He didn’t do that; he waited until he was caught. That’s the most piece of shit development possible.
The fuck? You do realize that people commonly leave their spouses due to cheating right? As in from their own side divorce/break up after finding out. Clearly cheating as an act, irrespective of the context, is hurtful. If you can’t get that simple fact then frankly you need to do less armchair psychology and more talking to people.
Cheating is inherently abusive. It’s a betrayal of the consent their partner has given for an exclusive relationship.
You have no idea why that happened though. Are you absolutely 100% sure he’s the only bad actor in the relationship? Maybe it wasn’t “just an affair”.
Don’t draw conclusions from limited information.
I don’t know, but also don’t care. There is no good reason to have an affair (outside of maybe being coerced to enter/stay in the relationship). If he wanted to fuck the assistant, he should’ve (and, given that she’s moving in, clearly could have) gotten a divorce first. Ergo, piece of shit.
Dude had an affair with his young secretary and she is now moving in. That’s a tale as old as time, and tells me a fair bit about the dad. Maybe he does have a good relationship with OP, but the mother is in the process of losing everything to her scumbag husband.
OP is old enough to make their own decisions, but Dad’s relationship with his mistress is going to fall apart in 6-12 months when the novelty wears off.
Says the one drawing conclusions to make the dad seem better
“Maybe she was actually a piece of shit, you never know”
Congrats on blaming the victim!