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Your parents have some beef they need to settle between themselves - not with you. Any parent requesting their kids to retaliate against the other parent is a red flag. It's manipulation. Beware of her !
Now, if your dad had done something to you and you felt like cutting ties, or perhaps your dad represents a serious threat to your mother and cutting ties is necessary for her safety, well that's a different case scenario. But that's not what you are telling us.
TLDR: you are not a bad person.
Your mum is hurt and this is okay but the manipulation is not. As Judge Judy always said to divorced parents who tried to use their children against each other. , "You need to love your children more than you hate each other."
No you're not wrong for wanting to keep your dad in your life. Any reputable family counselor would say your mom shouldn't be asking you to pick a side. Your mom does need support though, but it isn't your job. What your dad did sounds really hurtful to her, as it would be for most people. Maybe he is your best friend, but being a parent is more than being a friend. It means being a role model & wanting to teach things like honesty & respect, especially for the people you're supposed to love.
Has your dad offered to pay for counseling for you to process these things & talk to a professional about? It sounds like you could probably use it. I don't know how old you are, but given that you're asking the question here & the way you're asking leads me to believe you'd be much better off talking to a professional about it.
Eh, you should support your family. The dad fell in love with someone else and now OPs parents are splitsville. It's not fair to ask that OP cuts dad off but OP should try living 7/7 days with their parents if at all practically possible. OPs mom is going through so much grief right now - ignoring that is cruel.
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.
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.
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.
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.
No. That doesn't make you a bad person. Frankly, I think it's awful that she's asking you to, but I imagine she's going through some things herself at the moment.
I think you have the right take here already- your relationship with your dad wasn't the one impacted.
He lied, snuck around, and betrayed his wife. You think he won't do the same to you? Interesting..
The end result is, based on what I can see what OP posted, his mom may not be that great but he's just like his dad and doesn't seem to care much about her. He will probably cheat on his partner too based on his attitude.
Why is your mom the one that moved out? Also, the affaire partner moved in?
He's your best friend, so you three like hang out and watch movies together as a new family while your mom sulks in an appartment alone?
Not only does your dad suck but so do you. Maybe one day, you will get cheated on and understand the betrayal it feels like. Hopefully, you wont have children to drive the knife in even deeper. Relationships are suppose to change with a parent who has an affaire, it's abnormal not to be angry at what he did to your mother.
Ask her to imagine the following: let's say she ends up being really close to your spouse one day, like she couldn't have imagined a better pick. The two of them become super close, but as the years go on, for whatever reason, you end up having an affair. Now ask her if she would go no contact with you because maintaining a relationship would condone your actions and ignore your spouse's suffering.
If she says no, then maybe she could see a bit of where you're coming from. If she says yes, well then I would wonder if a lack of empathy was part of the reason your dad sought a relationship elsewhere (not that that justifies cheating).
I can see where your mom is coming from. She got cheated on and to her it looks like you still support him despite the awful things he did.
If he was Wifebeater and beat her instead, would you still support or "be friends" with your dad? probably not right? So why does Physical abuse cross the line but not emotional abuse?
Bad take