Post deleted by crayola_mb

Well I can only add what I've witnessed in our life. WHs father left when he was very young, to be with a woman he had been cheating with for quite some time. WHs Wayward Father even tried claiming WHs younger brother was not his due to the fact that he was cheating on his wife at the time. Well WF seemed to be a cake eater, got WH M pregnant and left again. WH has always hated his WF and has had NO relationship with him and swore up and down his whole life he would be nothing like him. To this day he gets highly upset if anyone mentions anything about WF. "I'm nothing like him, I'm there for my kids, I'll always provide for them" well he's one up on his own father, he does financially provide for our kids, but in all else... yep, the cycle has continued.

What amazes me is the pain that these children see their parent go through and then they do it to their spouse when they grow up.

(ps OT "Molested children (usually referring to males) often become molesters themselves" This statement is always stated backwards it should be; Molesters were often molested themselves as a child.)

Well, my parents were BOTH WS....My sis is now a FWW and me...nope...nada never done it, but by God...look at where I am now??? Where does THAT fit into the studies????

Oh, and neither of WS cheated,,,so where does that put him???

I was the the one who was "supposed" to cheat, he was not....

Serenity...kudo's on the ps....I completely agree with that statement.....

not2fun

ps...not saying the studies are right or wrong, just stating my situation...and if you can't tell I'm a little angry right now....at WS....

Post deleted by crayola_mb

well, let's see....

my father was a cheater, and married on of his ow after he and my mom divorced. they have a child together as well, my sister.

my parents divorced, my exes parents divorced, he and i divorced. i guess that is one cycle.

my ex was not raised by his bio father, but by his mother's second husband who adopted him and his brother. both my ex and his brother, even tho not raised by bio father, are exactly like him. both are narcissistic and arrogant. my exes brother was married, and literally made his wife crazy. she was in and out of mental hospitals their whole marriage. so, when it came time for a divorce he used that against her and got full custody of their son.my ex was more well matched with me. i am much smarter than he is and refused to let him make me crazy. nope, i let him do all his stupid things like cheat and lie and be verbally and eventually physically violent. and yet he still tried to follow his brother's footsteps and get full custody of the kids and lost of course. in fact, if it weren't for my generous custody offer i gave him, he would have only had been given 2 weekends a month and that was it.

their bio father was a cheater according to my ex MIL and their adoptive father had an affair as well. i do not know if my ex BIL had any affairs but my ex had more than i can count. don't think that i am fearful my son may follow suit!

i had an ea.

so, many things from both my exes and my life followed into our marriage.

scary huh?

mlhb

Dr. Harley talks about this quite a bit because he was a child of adultery. He believes this is why he has NEVER committed adultery. He calls it one of the greatest lessons of his life. Not only did he see the terrible devastation wrought upon his family, but he also witnessed the HEALING of his family when his father ended his affair and righted his wrong by making amends. This is one of the reasons he has committed his career to the speciality of infidelity.

Children of infidelity are sent the message that it is ok to lie and cheat. But children of REPENTANT waywards are taught the opposite lesson, as was Dr Harley. That if one REPENTS, healing can take place. That is a powerful, positive message. That is a powerful demonstration of strength, courage and CHARACTER when an adult rights his wrongs. Character does not come from perfection, an impossible standard, but in how we right our wrongs. What better lesson for a child to see?

For me personally, I was taught the opposite. I was taught that adultery is acceptable and was introduced to my father's tramps at an early age. My mother never commented about my father's adultery because she did not want to be "judgmental." I call that parental neglect, bordering on abuse.

No one ever told me this was WRONG even though I SENSED it was wrong. My instincts screamed that this could not be right and I was very confused. Apparently, my instincts were WRONG since the adults in my life did not validate them. I concluded the problem was that I must be a STUPID GIRL and learned to never trust my instincts. I grew up profoundly morally confused and had to learn right from wrong on my own.

I did not grow into a cheater, but my brother is a serial cheater and damn proud of it. He left his wife and autisic son for a 21 yr old girl with my Dad's encouragement: "son, you just have to do what makes you happy." So he did. And his W had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized.

Anyway, I do agree that adultery can send a powerful message to kids. But it can be a bad lesson or it can be a good lesson, depending on how it is handled. Most of all, children need the TRUTH and they need MORAL GUIDANCE. Because if they don't get moral guidance, they will get IMMORAL GUIDANCE and confusion and self doubt.

Here is a good article written by Dr. Chalmers, Dr H's DD:

Infidelity:
The Lessons Children Learn

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8112_lesson.html

Both myself and my FWH were children of wayward spouses. Me it was my father, him it was both of his parents. His parents divorced mine did not although i grew up in a household where my parents were always mean to one another and never said i love you, hugged or kissed each other, or even slept in the same bed.

I would NEVER EVER even consider cheating on my spouse but he did cheat. So therefore i do not know if growing up that way makes a difference or not.

Same thing to me as children who are grow up in a bad home. You would think that seeing all of the hurt that is caused when growing up (no matter what the hurt stems from) would make that person be just the opposite but it does not seem that is the case in a lot of circumstances.

My father cheated and mom caught him.

He cheated when he was out of town on business.

She was so angry, that she took it out on us and I got beat into a coma, had to have my head sewn up from where she beat me with a boot.


She never forgave him right up until the day he died. Instead of divorcing, she chose to torture him for the next 20 years. During that time, he put up with beatings, stabbing, and her shooting through the house with her .38.

I have never cheated, but my ex wife, her father cheated, and cheated often. Her mother never said a word to him about it, or seemed to care about it.

Pariah...I hope you are seeking counseling. Between the abuse from your mother, the affair by your wife and the betrayal of your church...your pain comes through loud and clear. I am sorry you have had such a rough go of things. You didn't deserve any of it.

My father cheated while stationed overseas. He wanted to bring his OW home and marry her so he had to clear the way first. That meant brooming aside my mom, two year old sister and me. I was four. He came home for a few days after being away for about 6 months. I was so happy to have Daddy back. Mom found pictures of OW in his wallet. I will never forget that morning. He was sitting on the bed in his underwear and Mom was crying in the bathroom. She tried to make it work, but he was intent on leaving and starting his new life. They divorced within a few months. Dad imported his new family and the Airforce transferred him several states away. I saw him once or twice a year after that. Mom let me know what happened as I became old enough to understand. This stuff messes with your head. I'm 40 and get along OK with my father on the rare occasions we are together. It never goes away, though. Now my children have to carry the same stuff around. It breaks my heart. Adultery stinks and always will. That is all.

My mom was wayward. She cheated on my step father, left us with him for a month while she and my now step father looked for a place for us all to live. It was horrible.

My first step dad openly blamed my sister for my mother leaving, saying that my sis was so bad that mom focused on her and SIDED with her, causing a rift between my SD and mom. My step dad's anger, was inescapable. EWWWWW. I just kept my head down and kept on truckin'. This all happened when I was 13-14. I didn't learn anything good from the sitch, and did grow up thinking you were supposed to go out and get your happy, no matter WHAT, just like my mom.

Thank you for bringing up this topic. Its something I wonder about often. My Ws parents divorced due to infidelity. Thier family has been scarred badly due to it. I don't know if they even recognize it, but my W's mother's infidelity has had long reaching, negative repercussions for all of them that endured it.

Through our M, my W has loathed infidelity. It was something that I never even worried about her doing, as I knew she had seen first hand the damage it caused, and believed that she would never want to bring that into her life.

Now, in the wake of what happened in our M, I struggle with how she could have been willing to do this. Not even so much to ME, but to our daughter. She willing put my daughters future on the line, was willing to perpetuate the cycle through yet another generation. Its something I still cannot comprehend.

My W and DD(7) have a very close, amazing relationship. In day to day life, my W is an amazing mother. The bond she has shared with my DD is truly special. It is very hard to correlate that with the fact that my W was willing to risk so much with her infidelity, essentially risk damaging our DDs future, something that I know she cares about deeply. It has made me realize that while my WW is in many respects a good mother, that I cannot really trust her to instill a strong moral foundation in our daughter, it has made me realize that this is something I am going to have to do. It wasn't that I would not have done this before, but now, I see it as an imperative.

However, seeing the history of her family and the consequences of the adultery my W experienced as a child also gave me the courage and strength I needed to fight to restore my family. I could not bear the thought of my DD growing up in that kind of environment, learning those lessons, being scarred in that way. It made me see that the dysfunction in her family, and within her, was deeper than I realized, and has become a threat to my own family.

Great topic, I look forward to hearing other's insights, and perhaps hearing how some of you in recovery have dealt with this and your children going forward.

My dad grew up in a VERY dysfunctional home. When his mom had him (after having 2 girls) my grandfather told my granny that now that she gave him a boy he had what he needed and he wanted a divorce. He even brought his new GF with them (granny didn't drive) to the court to sign the final papers! My granny was married 7 times but one didn't count because he was already married, YIKES! My dad and his sisters were passed around to family members while my grandfather was on to his next conquest and granny was who knows where. I see the damage it did to my father now that I am older. His sisters have been married several times and there are multiple marriages with my cousins. My mom grew up in a loving middle class family in Ireland, my dad dirt poor dysfunctional family in rural AL. How different can you get! I was just talking about this with dad recently. Here is what I told him
You could have gone that road too. I am so glad you and mom decided to move away from that environment before I was born. (They lived in AL for the first 3 years of marriage; my 2 older sisters were born there. They moved to MA where all my mom's transplanted Irish friends and relatives lived) He said he was determined not to repeat the mistakes of his family. I told him if we (kids) were around that he would have no sure way of knowing what direction we would go. Like the old saying "well, so and so is doing it." He thinks even if we were born and raised there we would have still ended up the same. I do not agree.

I am not saying everyone in AL is cheating and has multiple marriages but it is rampant in my dad’s family. One of my cousins got married at 14 with her parents consent. He cheated and abused her and she finally left him after 10 years and 2 girls. Then one of those girls got married at around the same age! She told me she wasn’t going to make the same mistake as her mother and get pregnant right away. She didn’t see getting married so young as a mistake but having a baby young was. She did have a baby and was divorced by the time she was 19. The other girl got married and pregnant (not sure of the order) before 18 and was divorced before 2 years. Out of my 7 cousins none of them have been married only once. Some only twice but are no longer married and don’t intend to get married.

My paternal grandparents, divorced and remarried EACH OTHER THREE TIMES. Of their four boys, only one ended up divorcing his wife. The others (except my dad who passed away in 1983 while still married to my mom) are still married (50+ years each). I think they saw enough dysfunction in their parents' marriages/divorces to last them a lifetime. I'm surprised any of them wanted to marry.

That's why I am here, to assist and bring awareness.


It seems that only time (sometimes decades) will tell how these children are effected.

the % of molested children that eventlually abuse is somewhat higher than those that were not...but two important facts to remember..

1. molestors frequently use the "I was molested" argument to try and explain away their crimes(and to garner sympathy)...even when their was no molestation in their history.
2. The VAST majority of children that are abused NEVER have abused a child or anyone else.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

I noticed that you were a WS. Do you think we have exaggerated the effect on these children? If so, please say so and we can discuss it maturely.

Listen, I am all for the help you wish to offer, and commend your obvious intellect. I just wish it didn't come across so superior and condescending.

The eye-roll had nothing to do with the advice you offer...just the phrase for which I quoted..very "here I am, to help all of you lost souls."

The fact that you had the need to point out that I am a FWW is very telling to me. I have made my situation very well known here and have been helped by many, many people on this site who reached out to me and my DH in our hour of need. I have not been here long, but in my time here, I have not witnesses such a flagrant attempt by a new poster to "enlighten" us "peasants" in such a demeaning manor. But that is just my personal opinion.

**************edit***********

Fellow MBers, please carry on with your discussion. It is very helpful and the life experiences you share are invaluable. My father was a serial cheater and although I was never quite in the "thick" of this knowledge until late teens, I believe it may have had an impact on me and my later betrayal (although I hate to "blame" anyone else for my choices, which is why I have not really spoken about this part of my past). My mother was less than supportive the day W2S told me he wanted a D, and told me in no uncertain terms how difficult and painful this all is to overcome.

(((LaLa)))

Well handled girl..

I LOVE that you are taking the full responsibility for your choices and actions.

I'm not a child of a WS.. matter of fact my parents FULL on did the better or worse thing.. might be why I'm hanging on to such a BAD situation.

But I don't think it's all that 'enlightening' to anyone who sits back and thinks about it.. in many ways, we all.. even as hard as we try not to in some aspects.. have a TENDANCY to turn out like our parents.

Why?

Simple.. perception -is- reality.. it's a concept we deal with when dealing with WS and BS mentality here on MB all the time.

We have threads where we have people talking about not FEELING stressed out because they've just become accustomed to a certain stress level.. and here we see displayed in a lot of ways that what was 'accepted' as the NORM in our childhood will tend to be repeated in our adulthood.

Even in my sitch where I'd stick it out in a miserable situation.. is it because my mom did? Taking care of my Dad and his long resent-filled road to death via Diabetes, even when it made his frequent AO's and DJ's more and more difficult to bear? Or is it because I take a sense of what COMMITMENT really is from them?

I don't fully know the answer.. but I believe I'm more inclined to fight for what I think is NORMAL for my kids.. and that's to have two parents who do their best TOGETHER...

Most certainly I'd LOVE to do that and be in LOVE with my wife.. and have a WONDERFUL marriage with her..

But her NORM.. is vastly different.. and sadly, she's living it now.... (though I'm not sure about the infidelity part... the disposable spouses/parents/stepparents however seem to be in line with her upbringing).