what am i supposed to do

[pan2080]

i have suspected for a while, but just found out for sure, that my mom is cheating on my dad with another woman. she has also been using me to lie to my dad about where she has been. i feel so stupid.

i want to leave.. i want to move out as soon as possible, but another part of me does not want to leave my dad, because i freaking love him and i do not want him to be hurt. he is getting pretty old and has no clue about this.

my 3 other siblings also still live at home, and they do not know.. i have no idea what to do. i am not the type who would confront her about it.

i am sorry this post is all over the place but i am kind of freaking out right now

[robowarrior]

The answer what you should do is always evident, every choice that you make in life is in fact nothing more then a escape from pain. But its something you have to look on towards in a general picture. What will cause the least amount of pain for all of you?

 

Imagine that you say to your mom that when she asks you to lie 'no you go tell him, you've been cheating on him' im not crazy im not going to back up your lies. Worse comes to worst your dad finds out, your parents separate they move out, you move out your siblings will get dispersed.

 

So basically your mothers actions has put people's lives at stake. Im not going to defend what your mother is doing, but i can assure you that if your dad knows the truth it might get very ugly. That you have to uphold this lie is not your fault, its your mothers fault. For the sake of your siblings future who are in need of a stable life, the distabilization of the family is an immediate threat to their lives.

 

Its like this, that your dad will get hurt is imminent. However you are upholding this lie for the sake of your siblings, the longer it will take , the more time they have to mature. Your dad is old, its not a good idea to give him an heart attack by telling him this. If you have to live in a lie for the security of your siblings so be it. Don't tell your dad, and the whole affair between her and that woman will fall apart, there's no way she'd get away with this.

 

In the case that your dad DOES find out, make arrangements that the siblings can stay with your dad, and secure your and their future. Lets say another nightmare happens and your dad would pass away from his elderdom, then its most likely that your mom would take this woman into her home, but that would hopefully mean that you and your siblings could still stay at home.

[itsallgrand]

Hi.

 

Well, first off, I'm sorry to hear your mom did that to you. It wasn't right of her to include you in her lies without your knowledge and consent.

You aren't stupid at all. What she did was wrong, there.

 

That said, she has obvious (and probably a lot of not so obivious reasons) for keeping this to herself and not telling you. As hard as it is, try to keep some compassion for her and not let the anger etc. run you into quick decisions that you may regret. (I'm super glad you can come here and let it out).

 

There is no way to tell here what is really going on. To your knowledge, no one else knows...but you just never know! Perhaps your dad, one or several of your sibs do know and are keeping silent for some of the same reasons as you or others. Oy.

 

I think you should talk to your mom. Others may disagree with me, but that's my opinion.

 

You can talk about the relationship between the two of you: for example, how you have felt stupid because you have been doped into 'being part' of her lies when you didn't necessarily want to.

I doubt her intention is to hurt you or anyone else for that matter, but she has, and the potential for a lot of hurt to explode here and cause a real mess is real latent.

 

If you think you can handle speaking to your mom without attempting to dictate what her actions are - or bashing her out of anger - I definetly do think you should talk to her.

She's losing credibility and trust with her daughter, and I think she deserves to hear that from you....she may not know or understand that right now, being so involved in her own mind...and you deserve to hear from her that she does care, and to see if she is willing to listen to your feelings.

 

I don't think silence is the answer, but I think you need to be super careful with your steps right now.

 

good luck.

[BeStrongBeHappy]

I am sorry to hear this because it puts you in a terrible position between your parents when you haven't done anything wrong.

 

How old is your dad, and what is that state of his health? I would not tell him if you think this kind of news would be such that it would negatively impact his health... if he is a relatively normal 65-75 year old man, he could overcome this, but if he is frail or fighting a major illness, then i would think about his health first and not tell him. he may find out on his own anyway, and if he does, and finds out you know too, you can tell him you did not tell him becuase you were worried about his health and were trying to protect him.

 

I think the person you should talk to is your mother. You should tell her that you know, and that you do not appreciate being used as an excuse to deceive your father when she goes off to cheat on him. She may be highly embarrassed and apologise, or enraged. depending on how she behaves, you can decide whether you want to continue to live there or move out.

 

She will continue the affair or not based on her own decisions, but frequently when an affair is found out by a third party, she will either stop seeing the guy, or confess you father. then she may or may not leave, which is probably based on how the affair is going and whether she sees the person as a permanent partner or just a 'fling' to reduce boredom.

 

marriages are very complex emotionally and none of us can guess why this affair is happening, but there are so many different outcomes that can happen when the affair is exposed. sometimes the person being cheated on even has the attitude, i wish i had never found out about this, because they just want their 'normal' life to go on uninterrupted. so telling you father too could burst some psychological bubble or protection he wants mentally, where if an affair was happening, he would prefer not to know.

 

so if you feel you must tell, talk to your mother and tell her what you know, that you do not want to be used as an excuse, and whether she intends to break up the marriage over this or not... it might be a little easier on you 'not telling' if you know she intends to stay in the marriage and try not to hurt your father, but if it is going to break up anyway, then maybe you could be there to help your father after she tells him...

[charley]

I'm very sorry that you are in this situation. I don't have any advice because I don't know what you should do, if anything.

 

I can only offer my sympathy.