Note these questions are derived from The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, PH.D (New York: Workman), 1988. My answers are in bold
While out one day, you are surprised to see your mother holding hands with someone who is clearly her lover. She notices you, runs over, and begs you not to say anything to your father. How would you respond? What would you do if your father later told you that he was going crazy because he kept thinking your mother was having an affair yet knew it was just his imagination?
I would tell my father the truth and have a detective film the evidence to help him in his divorce trial.
I would ask my mother in the strongest possible terms stop what she was doing and to tell my father about it. If she refused, I would tell my father what I had seen and what she said. And if anyone is interested, the same would hold true if the situation was reversed.
I’m quite certain that this could never happen, in my specific case. (Yeah, yeah, I know, but trust me, if she was going to waver at all, she would have seriously left completely years ago.)
So, entering fantasy land, I would be very disturbed and start avoiding both her and my father. When he mentioned his concerns to me (which might be tough, since I’m avoiding him), I would reluctantly confirm his suspicions.
Not really applicable to me, since my parents have been separated/divorced/annulled for nearly as long as I can remember. In fact, I’ve sometimes wished my mom would (re-)marry, just to see the look on Dad’s face.
I think it is pretty clear that the moral action is to tell your father what you saw, particularly if he directly asks you about his suspicions. Both from a Golden Rule perspective and from a practical perspective. If your mother is intent on continuing the affair then it is for the best that the marriage ends. The truth is almost always preferable to a lie, especially a continuing lie.
I’ve not faced the situation but my boyfriend did as a teenager and it has left some pretty deep scars. He did indeed run into his mother on several occasions with different men. She also came home with jewelry and other trinkets and asked him to corroborate her lies about them to his dad, which he did and now feels quite guilty about it. The marriage ended of course and the father has long since forgiven him as he was just a kid caught in the middle. He has not forgiven himself and says if he had it to do all over again he would have told his mother to fuck off ( his actual words).
Speaking for myself, my parents’ marriage was such a nightmare I feel like I wouldn’t have cared either way.
My father cheated on my mother and on a couple of occasions I saw him with a GF while my mother was not present. I had no idea what was going on, being young (like 10-12 years old) but once I got older and figured it out, I was deeply hurt that 1) my father used activities with me to form an excuse to be able to see his GF and 2) that he would later ask me to lie to my mother or at least omit the GF from conversation and 3) that my father thought so little of me that he would only want to do something with me because he could spend some time with his GF.
Later, once my parents were seperated and in the midst of a divorce, I told my Mom what I had figured out. I had already confronted my father and he confirmed that I had things right, but he had no remorse and no regret over his actions, he said. I spoke with my father for another 4-5 years and then, after another incident where he flat out told me that I wasn’t nearly as important to him as his house, cars, and new wife were, I told him to fuck off. That was 23 years ago. I haven’t spoken to him since, except to acknowledge his presence at a family reunion about 18 years ago. Fuck him.
If I was a child when I discovered the infidelity, I would be unable to distinguish between adult issues and children’s issues and I would probably run and blab to my daddy.
If I was an adult when I discovered it, I would confront my mother and ask her to come clean to dad before I felt compelled to myself. As a grownup, I’d probably say something like, “Finish your unfinished business with dad. Then go sleep with this other dude.”
FTR, my dad did have an affair while married to my mom. I was very young – under 10 – and knew nothing about it at the time. After my parents were separated and had already decided to divorce, then he introduced us to the woman who would become our stepmother. The fact that dad had cheated on mom was never addressed within the family and we children were left to draw our own conclusions about it. :dubious:
On thinking about it some more, I think I sort of evaded the question. To answer in the hypothetical (if I had parents who were still married, or if it were some other couple I cared very much about), I don’t think I would raise the topic with the other parent. I would also not lie, however, if it did come up, and I would do what I could to encourage the one I caught to raise the issue with the other spouse his or herself.
When I was 17-18-ish, I figured out how to look at offline emails on AOL without using a password (this was in 2000-2001). I looked at my dad’s email, and saw that he was sending pictures of his (coughs) to someone online.
I asked my dad, and he said there were things I didn’t understand, and asked me not to tell my mom. Of course, I’d already told my mom before confronting him; her reaction was, “well, at least I don’t have to deal with it.”
I’m pretty sure my dad had affairs off and on for as long as I can remember; he used to have a weekly, Friday night business trip in Peoria. He went on business trips for a month at a time. For a while, he maintained his own apartment in Milwaukee in order to avoid the commute. Yeah, right.
I know my mother had an affair, but by the time I found out about it, my dad already knew, and the affair had been over for something like seven years.
Sadly, I lived this scenario. I missed the schoolbus one morning whn I was in 7th grade. My mother was going to be off that day and had run an errand, so I waited for her to come home to take me to school. I saw her drive up and waited for her to come in. It was taking her a while so I went to the window to see where she was and she was in an intimate embrace with a man clearly not my father.
I hid in the attic all day and she never knew I was there. I was devastated especially since this was just after I had returned to school after the death of my younger brother.
I have kept the secret all these years from both her and my father. Eventually he found out and they divorced.
I would tell. Anyone who is being cheated on deserves to know.
There’s a good chance I’d give the cheater 72 hours to do the telling him/her self, but that’s as far as I go leniency wise.
Of course, my parents both know me well enough to have hidden their affairs from me throughout their marriage. A great many things finally made sense when I found out.
Like why our preachers wife ran out of the room any time I walked in . . .
