My mom tells me I should cut dad off for cheating on her, am I a bad person for not wanting to do so?
My mom tells me I should cut dad off for cheating on her, am I a bad person for not wanting to do so?
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
He is getting a divorce.
From the context it's clear he's getting divorced by his wife after getting caught.
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 .
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.
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.
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.
Things would change if there's manipulations, abusive behavior or harm is being done on purpose of course.
Cheating is inherently abusive. It's a betrayal of the consent their partner has given for an exclusive relationship.