I’ve learned a lot in just a few hours of lurking here on the board. I can see a lot of mistakes my mom made when my dad’s affair first came to light. I wish we’d known about this board then.

I have a question though. Since my dad’s death – and even before around our first Dday – we all heard repeatedly from various sources about my dad’s affair. So many people knew and said nothing. Even now, weeks after his death we’re still hearing about it.

Why don’t people say anything when they know these A’s are going on? Why is everyone more comfortable with keeping the secret and thereby helping them maintain the lie?

My grandmother knew about my father’s affair. Had the OW in her home and gave her gifts. Total betrayal of my mother, sister and I.

Do many of you run into this as well? Or are people better at keeping their A’s a secret than my father was?

Is your grandmother alive?

If she is ... confront her.

Tell her how you feel betrayed by her as well as by your Dad.

Her age is not an excuse to withhold discussing the consequences of her actions.

It is OK to confront her. It may change nothing except this ---> YOU will have offered HER honest communications where she has offered you dishonesty in the past.

Why not?

Pep

Yes, she's alive and we've already confronted her. This information plus some other things she pulled at my father's Rosary service was the final straw after a lifetime of crap from her. We're talking about a woman who abandoned her son (my father) as a child to run off with husband #3 and make another family with him. My father never recovered from that - even though he had all of the love in the world from his grandmother. And her mothering skills were topped off by virtually ignoring the fact that her son was dying of cancer. In the nine months between his diagnosis and death - she never called, never took the initiative to come visit unless it was a big family event.

So it wasn't any great hardship to confront her and FINALLY say everything to her I've been wanting to say much of my adult life. She absolutely gets no allowances from me for her age. And none from the rest of my family either.

Its the other people I wonder about though the friends and neighbors who see things but say nothing. Is everyone ok with keeping their heads down and saying nothing? As if coming to us after the fact with "Yeah I saw them once at such n such restaurant" helps the hurt at all!?!

DD,

Sorry for the pain you're in. I wish there was a simple answer to your question. But what I have found is that people can rationalize/justify just about any behavior. It helps them live with the consequences of their actions/choices.

I hope you process this to find peace. My hope is that you can focus on what your lesson in all this is - what you have to learn and leave others to their own hearts/conscience. You'll have better peace if you let go of all that outside stuff that you have no control over and turn your focus back to you so that you have a more rewarding fulfilling life.

Blessings

My grandfather told my mother to "tell NO ONE." He promised my mother on his death bed that if he "got on the other side" and found out he was wrong, he would somehow send her a message to that effect.

When I told her that God would not allow a violation of her freedom to choose to do the right thing by Grandpa sending her such a message, she clung to the idea anyway - even in the face of the fact that she taught me the fundamental tenents of our religion.

My mother's "best friend" also kept her secret to the grave. Lectured my husband when my husband wanted to blow the secret way out in the open. Talked with me about why secret or why openness.

The OMW - the woman in your mother's position certainly didn't want it out in the open, although she very much wanted to hurt my mother and in a way - me. She hated that her daughter and I were such tremendous friends and I never knew why.

Secrets kill. I firmly believe that this man couldn't handle losing access to the secret life he'd lived for so long. I also believe that my mother stayed in an abusive marriage far longer than she would have, had she not had some sense of guilt... I wouldn't have stayed with my father. He was mean, nasty, and provided nothing but a small monthly income to the family. He certainly wasn't a man I felt physically or emotionally safe with. (He has changed substantially in the last 13 years. The OM has been dead for 35 years.) BTW, the OM died w/in 48 hours of my mother deciding she didn't want to be the OW anymore and instigated no contact.

As far as the OW in your situation... my mom was never so cruel or brazen to OM's wife. But I'm very certain that my mother's very existence was painful to this woman. I had no idea the pain my presence caused her, or the fact that I was the one who pointed out the resemblance between my friend's little brother and my little brother...

Pain is inevidible. Suffering is optional. (There's a great book by that title, btw, by Hyrum Smith - the man who founded Franklin Quest - if you've heard of it.)

P.S. - thoughts about why they keep secrets. I think it's the misguided notion that so many people get hurt by exposure. It's not the exposure that hurts. It's the violation of moral laws to begin with that hurt. We just don't know we've been hurt until disclosure happens.

But I can see where disclosure causes a great deal of confusion. I know I wouldn't wish what I went through on my little brother or sister. I really can't say which is easier - because I witnessed my mother's infidelity as a toddler and I don't think my little brother or sister did.

Duplicate???

Phhfftttt!!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" /> Blinking-blanking computers!

<small>[ August 12, 2004, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: KaylaAndy ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by DadsD:
<strong>Why don’t people say anything when they know these A’s are going on? Why is everyone more comfortable with keeping the secret and thereby helping them maintain the lie?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I think the answer to this is very simple.

If asked, I bet everyone would recognize the right thing to do.

But it's just that doing the right thing is sometimes the most difficult thing to do. And in many of life's choices, too many people choose the easy thing to do rather than the right thing.

To my continued amazement, many people are under the delusion that they are protecting someone from "harm" by not warning them about an affair.

I simply can't fathom the logic that goes into justifying such a cruel, callous disregard for others. It is the only crime that is treated so oddly.

Can you imagine any rational person refusing to tell their neighbor that his bookkeeper was exbezzling money from him because he "didn't want to harm him?" Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Wouldn't you accuse the person of being a cruel coward?

It is equally ridiculous in the case of adultery but some folks just have an inexplicable blindness when it comes to adultery that I simply cannot understand. I think it is a convenient excuse to act cowardly.

Your mother had 20 years of her life STOLEN from her because she was surrounded by moral cowards. She was robbed of her life; what a tragedy.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by KaylaAndy:
<strong>
Secrets kill. I firmly believe that this man couldn't handle losing access to the secret life he'd lived for so long. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Interesting that you put it that way. I feel exactly the same way about my father. I don’t think there was a treatment in the world that could have saved him from his cancer. He’d led a life so full of secrets and harm that I truly think God finally said “Enough”.

So I absolutely agree. Secrets do kill.

Hi D,

How are you and your family doing? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

L.

DadsD: I just wanted to welcome you to MarriageBuilders. I don't really have anything to help with your situation. I have found out that my father had an affair prior to his death (12 years ago) and I've been struggling what to do with this information.

As I don't want to thread jack, I will start another thread.

God Bless!
RH

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Orchid:
<strong> Hi D,

How are you and your family doing? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

L. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hi Orchid,

Sorry I missed this post! I’ve been lurking for the past few days doing a lot of reading.

We’re doing ok. I’m having a down day today. Yesterday it was my mom’s turn. She sold her car – the one my father gave her. It wasn’t a sale of neccesity or anything, simply she doesn’t need it. But the act of the sale – the reasons behind it – made her cry. But she got through it. She drives my dad’s car now.

I’m having a down day partly because I just realized that a year ago at this time was when my dad was first feeling sick enough to have him go to the doc. And partly because of the things I’m reading here. I’m doing a lot of “if only’s” which help and don’t help. They help because there are lessons learned here. I can objectively “critique” where my mom went wrong – unknowlingly of course – in how she dealt with my dad and his A and in that critique learn valuable life lessons for myself. And my sister. We’re both young adult unmarried women who want to have marriages of our own one day. And we’re both committed to doing things better than our parents did. I can’t wait to share with her what I’ve learned here.

DD