Her Teen Daughters Are Saying They Never Want To See Their Dad Again After He Cheated On Her
Early in this 37-year-old woman’s relationship with her 38-year-old husband, George, she ended up pregnant.
They chose to stick together, got married 10 years ago, and have been with one another for 17 years in total. Their oldest daughter is now 16, and they have a younger daughter who is 14.
She says that things were happy between them for quite a long time, but over the last several years, they have been losing touch.
It’s not that they fight or disagree; in fact, they both avoid conflict, so that’s not the reason why they have been drifting further and further apart.
A year ago, their divide deepened. They each struggled with mental health, and adding to that, their day-to-day obligations left them feeling so exhausted they had nothing left to give the other person.
Whenever they had conversations, they revolved around the girls or logistical things. Ten months ago, they brought up divorce.
“We both agreed it was probably the right thing to do, but neither of us was enthusiastic to uproot our whole lives, deal with the financial side of things, or face breaking it to the kids,” she explained.
“We talked about whether maybe we can still make it work and fall back in love, whether we should consider marital counseling, etc. Things were left very open-ended. A week later, my father died. We both embraced that as an excuse and agreed to revisit the issue later, but never did.”
“The last year has been tough. I’ve been mourning my dad and always had the future of our marriage in the back of my mind. But we’ve pretty much kept operating as if that conversation never happened.”
Miljan Živković – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
They’re sharing a bed and hooking up a couple of times a month, so nothing really changed at all. She thought that perhaps she and George absolutely could figure it out. She even asked her friends who they suggested for marriage counseling.
But then, her sister-in-law saw George out with another woman and absolutely lost it on him. She told George’s entire family, and then their kids heard about it.
She’s hardly happy that her girls had to find out about their dad’s infidelity in this way, but she can’t pretend that her world is falling apart when their marriage had already come undone.
She and George were more like roommates than partners. George did say sorry to her, but they came to the conclusion that they need to move ahead with the divorce.
George is now looking to get his own apartment, and she admits she is emotional and having a tough go of dealing with his cheating.
Their girls have been so negatively impacted by George’s decision that they are refusing to say a word to him.
They’re also insisting that after he moves out of their home, they never want to see him ever again for as long as they live.
“This is devastating for him and upsetting to me because he’s a great dad and a good influence on them,” she added.
“The explanation that I’ve gone with for both his family and the kids is that, “the relationship has been essentially over, we’ve been holding off on divorce while I’m dealing with my dad’s estate, but there was no big betrayal here. Most of his family accepted that (along with a reminder that we have kids to worry about, and the only concern in all of this is keeping it friendly and drama-free for their sake). His sister and my kids have not.”
Her 16-year-old continues to demand to know if she and George had a talk about seeing other people, and since she doesn’t want to lie to her child, she simply tells her that she doesn’t want to discuss the specifics.
However, her oldest daughter goes around saying what her aunt is saying, which is if there was no agreement, that is nothing but cheating.
She’s left feeling lost on how to handle this mess that George ultimately created, and she’s concerned her kids can tell she’s having a hard time staying on George’s side amid everything.
“I’m not going to lie and say I don’t have some level of frustration towards George for jumping into another woman’s bed without thinking about what it could do to the kids or having the courtesy to let me know that things are definitely over (or at least not continuing to be intimate with me!),” she continued.
She also is hurt that her sister-in-law loves gossip and was quick to blow up what George did, instead of telling her in private. Then, she would have had more time to do damage control.
“I can tell my girls feel incredibly hurt and betrayed, and I can’t help but blame myself as well because clearly, we should have put this marriage to rest a long time ago and saved us all this grief,” she concluded.
What advice do you have for her?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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