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I want to gripe about people who not only have affairs and cheat on their spouses, but the ones that do it in the cruellest ways they possibly can.
I've been with my girlfriend many years and in that time I became part of her family. Out of all of them, her step dad was perhaps the hardest man to get to know, but eventually I came to respect him and enjoy his company a lot. I considered him a friend. Having lost my own dad some years ago, it seemed I had a new male figure to look up to. All of that respect was wiped out suddenly, when one weekend, out of the blue, we get a call from my girlfriend's mum announcing that he'd been having an affair with someone, and had left her to go and live with the other woman.
Needless to say news of this affair devastated the poor lady, after 20 years of happy marriage, suddenly it's destroyed in the blink of an eye - but what people don't realise is that infidelity causes devastation far beyond the spouse being left.
It was like a bomb going off in our lives. The next two moths were taken up entirely trying to look after my girlfriend's shattered mother, hearing her cry herself to sleep in our spare room, rushing her to the doctors, the bank, the solicitors office.... Meanwhile her husband made life as difficult as possible, refusing to even acknowledge her pain or explain his actions at all, and refusing point blank to talk about practical / financial matters. Like a coward, he simply snuck back in their house one day and ransacked it, taking whatever he could grab without having to talk it over.
He refused all attempts at mediation, and left her alone and penniless without so much as a short conversation about what he'd done. On the day he left, he promised to pay maintenance, but of course it was an empty promise, and no money ever surfaced. He knew that she couldn't afford an expensive solicitor to pursue him, and made the most of it. He cut of all contact. He refused to assist or explain himself in any way at all.
My girlfriend had already gone through one family breakup as a child, and this was the second separation she's had to endure. Being an adult didn't make it any easier, believe me. It affected her health, mentally and physically, and she had to take months off work due to ill health. She had to start getting counselling, and spend every waking moment looking after her distraught mother. As a helpless onlooker, I found it immensely frustrating and difficult to watch.
It affected our relationship in many ways, and almost broke us up due to the stress of it all. My girlfriend's brother was devastated too; he went off the rails, started drinking and even got arrested at one point. (Again I should point out that the step father broke off ALL contact with his step kids).
I mentioned my girlfriend's first family breakdown, as a child. That was her father. The difference between her father and stepfather is that her father was (and still is) civil and polite, and is man enough to maintain contact with his family despite what happened.
The adulterous stepfather, however, buries his head in the sand and pretends that none of us exist. On the few occasions anyone tried to approach him for an explanation, he bleated that he was being harassed and would take us all to court if we dared contact him again.
Meanwhile my girlfriends mum had another problem: Her elderly parents, heartbroken and confused by what happened to their daughter, died within weeks of each other. This double blow caused extra damage to her well-being, and along came anti depressants, counselling and sleeping tablets. Her adulterous husband, on hearing the news of his in-laws' deaths, did.... you guessed it, absolutely nothing! There were no words of condolence, no sympathy card, nothing at all.
What he *did* do, however, was insult their memory by flaunting his mistress in the pub where all the mourners were gathered on the day of the funeral.
The final insult came when his mistress phoned up my girlfriend's mum at 6.30 one morning and took great pleasure in telling her the various positions in which she had her husband the night before. (During this phone call, HE could be heard talking and giggling in the background).
It is just inexplicably cruel.
Meanwhile the rest of us struggle to support my girlfriend's mother at the expense of our own lives and relationships.
You might think, why not just sit down and talk to him. But that is impossible. All contact is OFF the agenda. Nobody can contact him.
This man, who I used to respect, has had a complete personality transplant. Everything that was good in him, is gone forever, replaced by cruel, cold hearted behaviour that I can barely understand.
My point however is this: People assume that marital separation, divorce, affairs etc. only affects young families with children. In fact, it can happen to families with grown up children, and can be even more devastating - because it affects the grown-up children's relationships, work, health, etc. even more.
By:Onlooker
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In the beginning of this year we were planning a large birthday celebration for his 60th birthday. He freaked out and said he did not want it and if we did that he would not show up. We thought he was having a mid-life crisis. We coddled him. We supported him. We gave him his space. We loved him.
When it came time for his birthday in July we decided to have all the kids (4+spouses) to the beach house for the weekend. It was the first time in almost a year that we had all been together. Everyone was in a celebratory mood.
My (step)brother and his wife were planning to stay and extra day. They are teachers and did not have rush back home for work. My stepfather, who is retired, said curtly that he had to get home on Sunday and could not spend the extra time with his son.
This and the events in the months leading up struck me and my sister as strange. A week later my sister grabbed his cellphone after he went to bed. She scrolled through the 200+ texts from his mistress that he SAVED- the idiot! She showed our mom who promptly through him out in the middle of the night.
Since then my husband and I have been spending our time comforting, consoling, caring and supporting my mom. Someone who after all of the lies was willing to work it out; like the vows say 'for better OR worse.' He told her 3 months later that he just couldn't do it.
The only upside to this whole mess is that my (step)brothers and my sister and I are closer than ever and my mom has the chance to meet someone who is going to be a part of her beautiful life and not take her for granted.
and even the friends she has just can't figure how someone after years of first abuse, then ilness and then recently family breakdown can't just wave a magic wand and get on with it.I feel like dying every single day because I am so alone.
I grew up going to a private school. The loss in social terms is devastating too.
But I'm in no condition to go out and find myself a job nor would I be able to as, when we moved for my step-father's sake abroad that side of life was interrupted for me age 16 when I had to learn another language, etc...cope with homesickness in my already ill state.
I have very few people to turn to. Any friends i;ve had over the years I've lost either to the mobile way of life we've had, the distance or to them moving away. At time it's been because anyone who's stayed in my life has grown tired of the constant problems I've had.. from crying
at their house that neither one of my parents loves me to knowing in a month my mother and I will be homeless because he's left us in an unpaid flat.
bipolar, cruel, mother I should have left ages ago because she was abusive to me as a child but because of the mental health and self-harm problems I've had I'm not capable of independent living. I suffer from extremly low self-esteem, depression and agoraphobia.I actually saved my mother's life once though because when I was 12 my step-=father flipped out and tried strangling her and I pulled him off. Even though my mother could go after him for maintenance as he has an awesome job she's not done it. I stopped talking to him when I found out what haoppened but he's not made any effort to reestablish that contact or to know that regardless how messed up our family was it was the only family I had and so yes, it does disturb me. let alone the fact that he knows very well what kind of life he's left me to with a mother like that. Who was herself abusive toward me as child.
and I've no-one to help me through it. My mother, who was left by my abusive and selfish step-father, is a complete and utter headcase herself and finds the balls to blame me for the falling apart of their marriage just because I didn't leave home when I was 16 and ill with anorexia.
It fell apart because he's a selfish, cruel, cold pig who was obsessed with his career and therefore when he saw an opportunity to swap one set of opportunities for another ( he picked up my mom when she was a lawyer's daughter with her own flat and he was unemployed and has now replaced her with a chinese girl the same age as me - 25 - who has several properties and
allows him access to a career in China) he took it, also without as much as a word and a penny.
God bless you!
She doesnt' want to confront him? She doesn't have to. She just needs some professional advice.
People are people; fallible, greedy, deceptive and capable of everything from great kindness to great cruelty. As an old tutor of mine used to say (to explain just about everything) ‘It is all part of life’s rich pageant’.
Some people have no concept of how their selfish behaviour affects other people – much less do they care.
For the other side of the coin – go to the post on here about Jealous ex wives. Again, this is all about how selfishness in divorce destroys families.
NotAnExpert