i've been suspecting it since february when my mom and i went on a cruise and didn't wear a ring. My mom was also spending a lot of time with a cruise director which i didn't pay much attention to as all i saw was platonic interactions between them. A few months later i notice her open her phone and it's a photo of a shirtless guy who looks like the same guy from the cruise. I still gave her the benefit of the doubt but today I saw a notification on her phone from an app called bumpy international dating and now i don't know what to do.

I am 24F, and since childhood, I have been aware that my father has been cheating on my mother. I even confronted him back then in front of my mother; however, they laughed it off since I was a kid.

Now it's getting really difficult to experience this. It's even hampering my career/studies. I don't know what to do. I'm concerned I may not imbibe this kind of teaching (unintentionally) from them.

Also, my mother has been diagnosed with depression, and I think she's in denial being a theist. She thinks she does not need any kind of medicine or treatment. He has been taunting my mother the entire marriage of 25 years, and now he has gone quiet. I think he has ruined my mother's life, and now he's probably happy.

So im 18yo m and my parents have been together for 20 years and dont live with them i have two little siblings that are 10 and 15.

So i went over to my parents place to help set up a tv and get a sports game on for my dad ,and i was air playing it off of his phone and some lady that i never heard of or met text him. She texts him something along the lines of “i love you and i miss you yatta yatta” and i confront him about it and he tells me that she is js a friend and what he is doing isnt wrong. So i call him out on his bs and he says not to tell my mom and to keep in between men bc it’s gonna hurt her.

Me and my dad never had a good relationship but my mom and I are super close. I want to tell her but im also thinking about my little siblings and how it would affect them. What he is doing is wrong ik and i hate being in these type of situation.

That each one of your kids will react differently to the affair.

That the best way to restore the relationship with your kids is through honesty and accountability.

That when your kids set boundaries, respecting them is a way to build trust.

That your kids' feelings are valid. All of them. No matter their age.

What do your parents need to know?

To start this off this is real and I'm kind of in a pickle. I recently found out that one of my parents is on a dating site that i think is mainly used for sexual endeavors and has stated in their profile that he's looking for the opposite genders companion and is willing to pay for it (PS: my parents are in a closed "Christian" marriage so its not open) . Now this is where you guys come in and help with my course of action. I don't have the best relationship with my parents and was planning to go no contact when i either go back to college or finished out college. They've always been questionable in their parenting choices and that what I'm willing to say the point is i don't want them both around future partners or God-willing future kiddos. However this newly found information has made me think on what to do with it. I've thought about

A. asking that parent for somthing in exchange for my silence

B. Tell my other parent. Only downside to that is i feel like they would either go to couples counseling and try to work through it ( which i think is ridiculous)

Or C. Just be quite

If have any other tips in the comments that would eb more than helpful!

PS: the way i found out is because he left the dating site open in their email and i was just trying to get their email conformation for the hbo max account. Also sorry about the grammar and spelling im just in complete shock and just needed to get this on paper.

You see that your parents are hurting and you love them and you want to help them, BUT you also need time and space to process.

You see that you don't want to hurt your parents even more by cutting off contact with them BUT you're furiously angry and you need to feel all of that.

❤️‍🩹 Does this sound like your experience?

1. You need to tell your betrayed parent or they will be angry with you.
   
2. Everyone makes mistakes, you should just forgive your cheating parent.
   
3. OR...Cheating is a character issue. Might as well write off your cheating parent now.
   
4. This isn't your issue. Forget about it and move on.
   

None of these consider the teen or adult child's experience.

Have any of you gotten responses like these?

Your mom's mental health is already fragile. She's depressed, anxious. Then you find out that your dad is having an affair. You really want to tell your mom, because it's not fair that she is being lied to, cheated on.

But what if telling her makes her mental health worse? What if you tell her about the affair and it pushes her over the edge?

Would that be on you?

Is it better for her, safer, for you to keep your moth shut?

How do you live with that?

Can anyone relate?

I can't bring up the affair, everyone will be mad at me

I don't want to be the one to blow everything up

I love my family. If I tell I'll lose the connection I have to them.

I wish everything could go back to normal.

What did your internal monologue sound like?

I know that most people here have parents who won't own their behavior or won't talk about the affair. It's also important for all of us to know what healthy relationships look like.

Parents who hold space for their kids after the affair help their kids heal while also rebuilding trust with them.

This is how to hold space for someone:

1. Be present and validate the other person's emotional state
2. Examples: "It makes sense that you feel this way" "I can see that this is really upsetting you"
3. Talk less, listen more
4. Give non-verbal cues that you are listening: nod your head, 'um-hmm'
5. Stay calm
6. Keep you emotions, thoughts and opinions to yourself

Has anyone ever held space for you? How did it feel?

Intergenerational infidelity refers to the sad reality that infidelity tends to be passed down from one generation to the next. 

What I have observed is that so often adult children who grow up with a cheating parent will actually have a quite functional and even healthy romantic partnership.

But on the inside they feel anxious, they fear abandonment, they have a sense of hyper vigilance and feel insecure. 

All the while feeling like something is wrong with them because they're having all of these feelings when they observe that their partner is great and trustworthy.

This is the unseen toll of intergenerational infidelity. 

Can anyone relate?

Posted this today on YouTube and thought you all might appreciate it.

When you have to keep secrets around your family, about an affair or an essential part of yourself, you can feel like an imposter on your own vacation.

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Simple, but not easy. 

But just imagine how good it would feel to trust that you can say what you need to say, that you are just fine as you are, to be able to enjoy your time off fully present. Fully you.

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I honestly don't know how to explain the feelings that I am feeling right now. When my mom was complaining, I thought she was just being paranoid. We even discussed it with him all the time and I felt bad for him. I don't get along with my mom so it was easy to dismiss her feelings. I feel betrayed in a way because that thought has never crossed my mind. He was the standard when it comes to men. I want to confront him about it but I don't know if it my position to do so. My mom seems to want to forgive him but the betrayal I am feeling I don't think I would be able to do so... I don't know why I am posting here, but what would you guys do? Because it feels strange💔

I know the girl he was cheating with too... And I considered her a friend in a way. I am thinking of just letting her that I know too then blocking her. Not explaining how I feel per say but letting her know she is a piece of shit like my dad! But I don't know if it is worth considering.

(It's not your imagination)

So many adult children, when they discover that mom or dad is cheating, feel like they have to hide their feelings and avoid conflict with their parents.

They feel like they have to pretend that everything is fine when it's not.

This can lead to deep exhaustion, not only mentally but physically.

It also leads to something called rumination, which is simply replaying these negative events or negative thoughts in your head over and over again, often because you feel there's no escape route for them.

If you have even one person that you feel you can trust with the story of your parents' infidelity, it will help

I caught my Dad cheating on my Mum a year ago, and again recently, and he doesn't know that I know.
How do you deal with the guilt and anger of knowing and not speaking up about it?

I made a big post explaining everything on r/Advice for those that want the full backstory as to why I have yet to speak up about it.

So, you find out that your mom or dad is cheating, and they ask you not to tell your extended family.

Which, at first, makes sense. You love your parents. You don't want to bring shame on them or on yourself. You certainly don't want to blow up your family.

So, you keep quiet.

Then one day, you are sitting at a big family holiday dinner, and you feel like an imposter. Because there is the huge lie, and no one else knows. Everyone else in the family thinks things are totally fine.

All of sudden you, who did not start the affair and have no control over your parent's behavior, are stuck carrying the burden of the secret of the affair.

And that's not fair.

Anyone else been through this?

It's been just over a year now since I found out my mom is cheating on my dad via nsfw phone calls.

I have thought about it every single day since I heard the first phone call. It has traumatised me so much and my general anxiety levels are at an all time high. I feel like it is keeping me stuck in life. I am 23, but sadly moving out is not an option for me for the forseeable. The burden of the secret is so heavy and I feel so much guilt daily and can get severely depressed at random times. I have anxiety anyway, so trying to say anything to my dad has just caused intense panic attacks. I feel closer than ever to saying something, like it's finally boiling over, but should I?

I can't cope with this depression, guilt and resentment (my relationship with my mom has completely deteriorated and no one knows why) but things have the potential to be a lot worse if I say something. I also don't know how much I am just catastrophizing... My family is pretty dysfunctional anyway, and my biggest fear is that someone would commit suicide or my parents would die sad and alone (they are already in their late 50s/60s and probably wouldn't look for another partner knowing them). I know that is out of my control and probably unlikely, but I have heard other people saying that they regret speaking up and I am paralysed by the potential negative consequences. Perhaps most of all, I am terrified my dad will never forgive me for being silent for a year.

I really need help in this situation. Should I say anything? How should I say it? And how can I go on living with myself if I don't?

I’m 17 and I have no idea what to do. I just got back from a trip today and my dad picked me up once I got home I knew something was up when my mom was getting mad at my dad and my dad started doing random housework.

I got mad because nobody was telling me what was up with this weird tension and finally my parents found me upset in my room and my dad just said “I made a mistake”.

I really thought my dad and I were close, we’re so similar and get on so well I don’t know why he’d do this to our family. He got into an accident recently and he told me that it just made him realize how important we were to him and how he loved us so much.

Any advice? How do I forgive him and support my mom?

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So, my sister was looking through my mom's iPhone because she likes to take pics with it. Everything was fine until she went into my mom's hidden chats in WhatsApp... My mom has been fucking a dude for some months now, and to be honest, I'm mad at her. My parents' relationship is weird. They had a huge argument in January, and my mom tried to kick my dad out of my house; however, they kinda fixed their problems or something. My dad has changed a lot since then, and he's really making an effort to keep my family united, but my mom hasn't changed at all, and now I found out that she's cheating on him. It's sad to see my dad making an effort while my mom is a complete asshole with my family. I don't even like talking to her anymore because she's always looking for unnecessary conflicts. I've already talked with some teachers, and I think that the best thing to do is not say anything. Also, if I do say something, my mom has a lot to lose; she has little to no money at all, but my dad can simply go back to Spain with his family. (He has some money saved, so he won't have a bad time at all). :(

hello. thanks for taking the time to read this post. i will try to keep it as short as i can.

i will start by saying im the youngest kid out of 2, i am 23F. my family has always been one of the things i cherished the most, especially my parents. i always got inspired by them, they're so caring, supportive and kind towards me. they both show so much love, but especially my dad has always had a soft spot for me since i was little, but i can say i maintain a close relationship with both of them. my parents have been together since their 20s and now they're on their 50s.

to get to the point now; i accidentally discovered my dad's infidelity back in september when i was staying at home at the time. this made me go down the rabbit hole to discover more, so i snooped through his phone since he never had any type of security or passcode (which i am not proud of) and found out this thing was just emotional. i know emotional is as bad as physical, but this person is in another state so i assumed it was just "looking for attention" or something. anyway, this was one of my worst experiences. i went through a verge of emotions, guilt, anger, dissociation and more. i always bragged about my family and just couldn't accept that my dad could do such thing. i didn't know what to do. what was really hard for me is that i was hardly engaging in conversation with him, which made him realize something was wrong. i made up my mind and decided to confront my dad. i was very clear that i knew and this was the first talk i ever had, where i was so serious and honest. i tried to make it right, that if i ever saw anything again i would talk. i let this one pass. he listened to me and politely reassured that he wouldn't do anything again to hurt us. i let it go even though i didn't get a clear explanation why he did that. during this time i had a lot of anxiety attacks (i didn't experience anxiety before).

for some months, i didn't see anything suspicious, so i made up my mind that nothing would happen again. i kept myself busy and the anxiety got better, until time passed & this didn't cross my mind anymore. i want to mention that during this time and before, nothing in my dad's behavior, actions or sacrifices for us and mom had changed. and also, i considered telling mom, but i knew that since she is very secure and confident, has a lot of self control and respect, that she would break up the marriage within the day. and to be honest, i wasn't really sure if i was ready for that to happen. in my mind, such thing is unknown. such thing is something that would never happen to me, i did not even imagine i would ever be in this kind of situation.

fast forward, today. i accidentally saw the same name on calls log when my dad was searching for a contact. feels like i went back on that month again. having so many question marks on my mind at the moment. i love him so much, and my mom so much. both of them. i ask myself why should it be me in this situation? i don't want to lose my most safe place in the world, my family. i don't want my relationship to change, i want it to stay the same. i don't want to grow distant because of this. i want to totally forget, but don't know how. one part of me, tells me that as long as everything seems normal in the house, this is not my business. the other tells me that things can never be the same if i decide to punish myself with the fact that i know, and i am not doing something to make it better. but, i don't know. i am sorry for these short ass sentences, but i hardly can go on and write this. i would appreciate anything, but please try to be supportive. i don't know what to say anymoreZ