Dad’s a Closeted Cheater and Mom Wants to Reconcile

Tom,

The first principle of First Aid is to not become a casualty yourself. You have your own family now (you mention 2 children); your priority is to protect yourself and and them. You are absolutely entitled to put some distance between your mother and your father while they sort their shit out. Whatever it is that you do owe them and you – rather than them – get to decide what that is, you do not owe them becoming the collateral damage of their own toxicity.

In your shoes I would put boundaries in place to protect myself and my family, but be prepared for your parents (most likely your mother) to challenge them. When that happens, I would simply respond with “This boundary is to protect me and not to punish you and whether you like it or not, you will respect it.”

LFTT

“my mother just told me yesterday I need to figure out what I’m going to do and how I’m going to move on with all this (my relationship with my parents).” Tom, it seems that you HAVE figured out what you’re going to do, which is to distance yourself from your parents, and you have moved on. Your mom is the one who won’t accepting that you are keeping your distance. She doesn’t like your boundary with him, and she wants at least the appearance of a happy family that perhaps you never had.

I suggest you show her this column in a day or two, after most of the responses are in. Tell her that if she keeps pushing you to forgive him, and bringing that up in conversations, that you will have to distance yourself further from her, too.

You did mention that, “I have not contacted him that much despite a handful of attempts from him to make contact with me.” Since you don’t know what he hopes to gain from the handful of attempts, why not suggest that he puts whatever he has to say in writing, either a letter or text or email? Obviously he could think of that himself, but perhaps if you prod he’ll respond, although that’s doubtful.

It’s hard to learn that our parents aren’t who we thought they were, who they said they were, and who we wanted them to be. That applies to your dad, and now as you are learning, to your mom as well. Invest your time and energy in your wife, kids and perhaps your sister, who may be feeling as you do and may also welcome some support.

I think it is perfectly understandable to put some distance between you and both your parents, Tom. While your mother’s decision to stay in the marriage is hers alone to make, YOU get to decide how you want to move on going forward.
You know what is and what is not acceptable to you, and any decision or conclusion you cone to based on that premise is the right one to make.

Ex-wife of a closeted man here. Yes, it’s a homophobic/transphobic society. It’s entirely within one’s rights to stay closeted, and maybe, if you’re honest with your same-sex partners, to conduct clandestine relationships. But only if you’re single. Pulling someone else–your opposite-sex spouse–unwittingly into your closet, withholding the crucial information necessary for your spouse to make informed decisions about her life, is unethical. Homo/transphobia is no excuse for deception and betrayal.

Tom, I have a similar story— my dad traveled abroad half the time and always had a cast of male teens in our lives. When I was 14, my boyfriend told me my dad propositioned him. My dad dropped dead of a heart attack (43) a few months later- I was with him and did CPR. My mom, who is also an alcoholic cheater (likely a sociopath), told me the week he died that she was “relieved” he died 😫. I was 15 and in major trauma because I adored my dad (although he neglected me, he also love bombed me while my mom was physically abusive and cruel). A few years later, after my mom kicked me out and I lived on the streets at ages 16-18, I confronted her about sexual abuse I’d suffered as a 3 year old at the hands of one of those teen males my father and she allowed to live with us. Rather than comfort me or a acknowledge her role, she disclosed my dad’s long history of pedophelia. She said that dozens of young males (we lived as expats in Southeast Asia) complained about him but she couldn’t “do anything” (5 kids, colonial lifestyle with servants, clubs, designer dresses and fancy cocktail parties….a husband gone half the time when she could have her affairs with married men….). She told me intimate details about how he could only have sex if they watched gay porn or she dressed and looked like a boy (before kids she was tiny with a Mia farrow haircut popular in the 60s)…. It goes without saying that all 5 kids grew up extremely disfunctional. 😭😭😭. My mom is 83 and as disordered as ever. She’s been trying to speed her 4th husband’s death to get his pension. She has no integrity at all. A complete grifter. I have what Tracey described as a superficial relationship with her at most. I’m ok with that.

Speaking from the side of an enabling wife of a my XH who was inappropriate with my own daughter, his step daughter. This is a hard confession in that I downplayed what he did ( both were lying unfortunately)and my daughter left to go live with her own dad, the cheater. She cut me off and caused pain that to this day is unmatched, even by my most recent horrific divorce from this destructive man. I kept a tiny candle of connection between us until after 10 years,she allowed me to slowly enter her life. My divorce has brought us closer but it will never be mended. I deserved all this as now I know the full truth of what my XH was doing with other woman and porn. He was very disturbed. I was blind but now I see. Your parents need your boundaries and sad to say, your girls/ wife need protection from creepy hiding pastor grandpa. I am so sorry to tell you this because hiding a secret life means there are more secrets you do not know. Hold onto your family first. Your mom needs to see your stand for her even if she will not stand for herself. Just like a friend who says…he is abusing you!! But you still CHOOSE to stay and be abused and exposed to deadly diseases day in and day out. You still sounded the alarm, now step back and take care of your family. I
must go also to the story of forgiveness Bible. The well worn story of Joseph…oh he did forgive didnt he??? BUT I will tell you that If Joseph’s brothers had stood before him, not bowed down or show him respect. If they had remained murderous and fighting among themselves,and selfish and unconcerned about their dad back home or their little brother. Joseph would have thrown their asses into a dungeon and had then executed at sunrise. Real Forgiveness comes with true repentance and changes in behavior. Letting go of this sick family dynamic can speak volumes. My daughter’s stand against me taught me a lesson of how enabling my mentally ill XH resounded through out my whole family. I chose…. they left.You can show your parents what healthy boundaries look like. It is so hard but it is truly the most loving choice. Praying for you now you can do this!

I’m so sorry you’re going through this Tom, but I agree with everyone else – your boundaries are yours and your priorities have to be your wife and children! That being said, have you talked to your sister about all this? What does she think? Sometimes it can be helpful (but maybe not always) to talk to someone who hopefully understands completely! Good luck, and stay strong!

Chump Lady – Once again you have responded to a complicated story of infidelity – met it with compassion, identified the misguided thinking and outlined a healthy path forward. And all before breakfast !

“If he were an honest man (he’s not), he would … live openly as a gay or bisexual man. He wouldn’t choose the closet.”

I’m not condoning his choice to betray his family. But I understand it. And if he did what this quote says — in a lot of places in this country (I am US-based), he would be in serious danger of bodily harm, to say the least. Let alone 30 years ago.

He’s been forced to live an inauthentic life, one way or the other. His other choice 30 years ago was a life without marriage or kids – he chose. The harms have exploded on everyone.

My empathy for his wife’s experience and OP’s has no bounds. The foundational deception — the trauma of finding this out. Heartbreaking.

When society forces inauthenticity to avoid danger, we end up here.

(A bit different in the case of bisexuality perhaps — you can half-fit the ‘acceptable” mode? I guess? Or instead you have to shut your true self down and pretend you aren’t. As we all know as we get older… Nothing you deny and hide deep down can stay there over time without its dark and winding tentacles everyday finding their way out.)

Dear Tom,

If your mother is willing to lose you, wouldn’t she also risk losing contact with her grandchildren? Would she be willing to take things that far to enforce “forgiveness” of your father’s neglect, toxicity, lies to the whole family and betrayal? That’s extreme in itself but imagine the fallout if you cave. Being that your parents aren’t very “old” grandparents and will likely be around for years, at what point do they start passing down the poisonous tradition of enforcing denial and silence (excuse me, “forgiveness”) to your children? Maybe a child goes through a harsh experience and gets the “shhh, accept it and forgive and don’t defend yourself” message from grandparents. For a minor hardship, that might not be so damaging but what if it’s following a really hard experience?

If you want to understand how potentially dangerous a behavior is, apply logical extremes. The effect could emotionally catastrophic. That’s why I think this is a standoff that you can’t allow yourself to lose whatever the price to your parents or your relationship with them. The offense to you as a child and adult being forced to deal with parental betrayal are bad enough but there’s more at stake now. It makes me think of a quote from Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko who wrote that the young “may not forgive in us what we forgave.”

Your discussion about where “forgiveness” ends and toxic complicity begins stirs up a ton of related issues, things I’m not sure have really been extensively discussed in clinical circles yet so we’re all like pioneers wandering around without a map. Negative bystanderism is a certainly a classic theme, one that director Martin Scorsese seems to be tackling in his new film and one that people like MLK and Einstein addressed– the thing about evil not being the only problem in society but those who remain silent about it (or, I would add, those who actively and aggressively enforce silence). And the world seems to have way more “proxy enforcers” of evil than actually directly evil individuals. Personally speaking, I’m still grappling with the concept of forgiveness itself. Because my parents stopped going to church before I was born and forgiveness is mainly a Christian conception (for other major religions it can be “optional”), I come at it with my head cocked like a confused spaniel. Maybe in times of yore when people killed entire families over a stolen sheep, Jesus’s recommendations to turn the other cheek were needed corrections? Maybe what some mean by it is an equivalent to my tendency to look at the backgrounds of people who commit evil deeds in order to understand what “makes” a person like that. It doesn’t lead to me sparing genuinely dangerous people one ounce of consequences and it’s mostly done to create a list of red flags so I can avoid those types in future, but it does tend to eventually lead to “living down” certain events and letting go of anger to the point that my heart rate doesn’t even go up when I think about those people or events. Is “meh” a type of “forgiveness”? But one thing I know is that, by “forgiveness,” what many people actually mean is “STFU and eat your shit sandwich.” I just can’t get on board with that form of it. I suspect that these types of forgiveness mavens aren’t solely covering up for the ill deeds of others but possibly covering up their own complicity.

By that token, I wonder what “extreme stakes” your mother could have to risk blowing up her entire family with these rigid forgiveness rules. Could it be that your mother is worried that, if you continue to stand firm in your resolve not to “forgive and forget” your father’s conduct, you might start to remember more unpleasant things from childhood, including ways in which your mother may have thrown you under the bus and contributed to negative experiences? Memories of FOO dysfunction seem to operate less like Pandora’s box where all the monsters fly out at once but maybe more like “Pandora’s canister” where lifting things off the top of the long narrow tube can start to reveal a progression of buried or half-forgotten issues and events from the past as one digs deeper. And I think the effect can be contagious. Once one person in a family starts to unpack history, this risks triggering long-buried memories of other family members’ pasts which might be even more horrifying than the first things being unpacked. Those who’d prefer it all remain buried might intuit that lifting the first lid is the first step to the progression and there’s more to come. In that sense, exhorting “forgiveness” can be code for “don’t lift that first lid.” Again, it could also suggest that, aside from trying to tamp down bad memories of their own, the forgiveness mavens might have been complicit in the suffering of others in some ways.

I couldn’t possibly know what that might entail in your family situation but can talk about what I’ve seen personally (and risk being boring) in case any of it applies. In any event, it’s a been my experience that foisting “forgiveness” is frequently just a way of silencing victims. The people who insist on forgiveness for those who commit really severe transgressions may be proxy abusers in their own rights (aka, flying monkeys) and also ironically quite unforgiving and persecuting towards any survivor who unleashes consequences on perpetrators or who “tell.” I saw this unfold in extreme ways several times but I think the principles probably still roughly apply to less extreme cases. For instance, when I was forced to prosecute a violent workplace stalker right out of school, suddenly flying monkey coworkers– some of them in their thirties and supposedly groovy, egalitarian and “woke” (and, weirdly, some who hadn’t even previously liked the perp)– came out of the woodwork demanding I drop charges and “forgive” because “jail wouldn’t help” the psycho. The perp’s fan club became so aggressive that police threw the perpetrator back in jail and had to step in and threaten charges of witness tampering against his supporters. This eventually led to the “forgiveness mavens” getting fired so I could sense that they were behaving compulsively and were blind to the potential consequences to me or even themselves. Because I’d studied sociology, I was so curious about the psychology behind it that, in the middle of the drama, I did this odd thing of playing armchair shrink and polling the monkeys about their childhoods and FOOs. Wow. Everyone single one of them grew up with some form of domestic violence or sexual abuse. God knows why they admitted these things since I clearly wasn’t asking out of the kindness of my heart. Maybe they thought it would make me “understand,” “forgive” and drop charges against the perpetrator (who also, as it happened, had a terrible upbringing). I didn’t but instead concluded they’d all been trained like Manchurian candidates from birth to automatically and mindlessly flip into “victim silencing” antics to protect perpetrators the second they observed similar dynamics as adults regardless of who was involved or the consequences of it. Understanding this helped me prevail in a fraught situation, predict the actions of opponents, keep my job and probably stay alive.

I think it’s no accident that some people are like this. Again, they were trained. It’s now the lens through which I see things like “Swiss friends” in cheating dynamics or apologists or cover up artists for other forms of domestic abuse. I don’t think they’re behaving that way out of naivety but the reverse: damage. I’ve also noticed that people like this are not really benign in general and can do their own damage to others, including to their families. Here’s an extreme example of the latter: After exFW, at age 17, had been sexually assaulted by a family friend, FW’s mother threw one of her famous bully tantrums. If anyone told her anything she didn’t want to know or deal with, she’d go into weeping and wailing fits to cast herself as the “victim” of the teller. That must have had a catastrophic effect on young children. This is how she managed to prevent her kids at very young ages from, say, talking about being bullied or endangered as they walked to and from school in a city with one of the highest murder rates in the world at the time. It enabled exMIL to do nothing about it and to not feel responsible nor worried. She justified it on religious grounds, in her case a new age Yogazilla cult practice which I think amounted to what is now being called “toxic positivity.” She believed that if her kids thought only positive thoughts and shunned negative ones, then providence would protect them. Consequently FW– and probably his sibling (who knows because the sibling internalized mom’s message and doesn’t “tell” regarding anything)– had many harrowing experiences before reaching age 12. But exMIL only remembers that time as “wonderful.”

Though ex-MIL wasn’t reportedly violent herself, she might as well have been because she threw her own kids under the bus to preserve her emotional comfort. I think the outcome was obvious because FW became a FW who, in turn, ended up betraying and traumatizing his own kids. I suspect FW might have married me as an experimental departure from family patterns since I was raised by activist “talk about everything all the time” parents to be a regular Wendy Whistleblower, at least for the really big stuff. No surprise that ex-MIL hated my guts, couldn’t stand that I defended my kids from school bullying or that, eventually, FW returned to factory setting and had an affair with a dead ringer for his toxic mommy (down to the beady eyes and bully tantrums). He was raised with a kind of Omerta and eventually turned into an enforcer of silence himself as his “Manchurian candidate” training kicked in. It was also no surprise that, when he was cheating, FW suddenly turned on me regarding my tendency to “stir up trouble” and “talk about things endlessly”– the very reasons he said he married me to begin with.

Regarding the non-benign general behavior of “enforcers of silence,” right before the affair, FW and his toxic mum became estranged over– get this– the fact that I’d pulled the kids out of school and home schooled for a time after my middle child was physically abused by a teacher and then the school ended up in the headlines for harboring a credibly alleged (12 adult former students came forward, so pretty credible) child molester on staff. Could there have ever been clearer grounds to take small children out of a dangerous and toxic setting? I don’t think so and I wasn’t alone. But exMIL was outraged and went around to everyone in the family circle to demonize me for having done it, flinging around neoFreudian claims that I was suffocatingly overprotective and that my “negative thinking” was causing my middle child’s chronic health problems and learning disability (a criminal accusation). FW, who’d never previously done much to shield me from his mother’s verbal aggression, finally stood up to her and his mother punished him by cutting us all out of the extended family, even the kids who never had contact with that side of the family again.

For me it was like an exorcism to get that awful woman out of my orbit but the excommunication is probably what drove FW into some kind of regressive meltdown. He suddenly started drinking himself to death and ran out to find a mommy replacement. But the point is really that defying family “Omerta” rules will be severely punished, even with excommunication. I sense exMIL also grew up with serious Manchurian candidate training to the point of committing human sacrifice and destroying her own family. I don’t know what happened to her as a child but, at least before he went off the deep end, even FW speculated it must have been really, really bad if she couldn’t stop compulsively protecting the interests of rando abusers she didn’t even know by enforcing silence and inaction on victims in her own family.

Going back to the “trouble” I was accused of “stirring up,” it could only be referring to the prosecution of a violent stalker, filing civil rights claims against and withdrawing kids from an abusive and dangerous school and FW’s estrangement with his mother. Otherwise I tend to avoid conflict. Though I was never directly exhorted to “forgive” in those scenarios, it’s still implied because “forgiveness” had always been code in FW’s family for “STFU and throw yourself and your children under the bus or else.”

In summary, I suspect FW ended up two-faced and leading a double life because splitting himself in half like a quasi schizophrenic would be required to even survive in a family that would sacrifice children’s safety and well-being in service of the laws of silence and denial, to preserve adults’ emotional comfort and keep their own tormenting memories tamped down. At some point he and his family turned to me and demanded that I continue the “tradition” and I refused and cut contact before this damaged my own children.

Because I cut contact with that clan, does my attempt to “understand” what made them that way qualify as “forgiveness”? If I eventually achieve full “meh” about the whole thing, would that count as a kind of “peace” that’s supposed to come from forgiveness? I don’t really care and have no regrets. “Meh” and healthy kids are their own rewards. So, Tom, I commend you on stopping the generational buck in your own family. It says good things about you as a person and as a parent. Take the above as recognition that this is no small or painless feat and also take it as a cautionary tale of what happens when people “forgive” the unforgivable. I think you can move ahead with a clear conscience.

Anyway, forgive the length of this. Very complicated subject.

What do you owe them? Not compliance with their rug sweeping campaign, that’s for sure.
It’s okay to disengage from toxic family. Your mental well-being is important. They have made stupid choices and you do not have to support and enable those choices. Our choices have consequences. They’re supposed adults, so they should accept that reality and stop pestering you. If mom won’t quit her forgive the cheater campaign, you may have to stop talking to her. I had to do this with my mom, who pressured me to forgive and stay with a cheater. I asked her not to call me again if she was going to continue to do that, and that I would not be visiting her either. Eventually, she emailed me to apologize and agreed to stop. Stick to your guns. If they do want you in their lives, they’ll come to respect your boundaries.

You know what, I’m tired of people acting like gay people have to be degenerate slutbags. I know several married gay men and even single gay men who are not disgusting perverts fucking in park bathrooms with random other perverts from the Internet. Would it be any better if he was playing with diseased pussy instead of diseased cock? No. It’s still someone I wouldn’t want anywhere near my family so I’m all for kicking this disgusting perverted father to the curb.

The son will probably be called a bigot for it but the incredibly sad and funny thing is the people who will call him a bigot for it are the people who think being gay and being a disgusting, disease ridden whorebag and degenerate are the same thing. They’re the real bigots.

I think the mother has been so gaslit over the years she doesnt know if she’s Arthur or Martha. She is not a good source of truth as she is too invested in the lie. The only person Tom save here is himself.
Ross Rosenberg has an excellent YT video (there may be more than one) on what he calls “reverse gaslighting” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV-wnU57-hw

Whats to reconcile with your dad? That he was a crappy dad to you? Its been 31 years of a non relationship. Tell him sure! You would like to get back to that relationship you shared prior to his infidelity. Then focus on your own kids and being a good dad to them. Ignore your parents, they are not relevant to your life. Not sure why they are pushing this issue, they must be bored.