I have spent a lot of time browsing this website and forum. It is quite obviously geared to spouses/partners, so I am somewhat tentative about posting a question/discussion as a child of infidelity but I'll give it a try.

I am a 29 year-old professional woman. I am single and have never been married. I grew up in a house with two siblings, two loving parents, and an abundance of love, laughter, morals, and values. My parents are in their 50s, grandparents, and have what is viewed by most who know them as an ideal marriage. This is not in a phoney, "what lies beneath," Stepford sort of way, but in a real open and honest "work through the tough spots together" sort of way.

They are the best of friends. They laugh a lot, hold hands, tell each other all of their problems, go on trips, date nights, sometimes argue but always talk it through and come out better on the other side. My mom does not work and my father has an office job. They even keep in contact by phone several times throughout the day. It is always mutual reaching out, mutual responding. Their relationship is very equal and full of respect. They have spent our whole lives teaching my siblings and I about the importance of family, love, honesty, and faithfulness. It has been like this throughout their entire 35 yrs of marriage.

Up until 10 months ago I was still living at home with them. I do not recall a single time that they had a dark period, fights, anguish, or one of them was acting distressed or distant. We have big family dinners with the grandkids and they couldn't appear a happier, more content couple together. In October I inadvertently discovered a recent heartfelt love letter written by my father to an unidentified woman. It spoke of "I one day hope we can be together where nobody will raise eyebrows" and included lots of "my loves" "angels" and "my darlings." Needless to say my world, my life, my trust, and everything I had believed of my family and parents was shattered. It came so out of left field. The moon falling from the sky couldn't have shocked me more. There was no sign... how could a couple who were such strong and equal partners, so emotionally bonded, so devoted, so open and honest and always talking everything out and sharing with each other..... ? How could this happen?

The trauma this has caused me goes without speaking. And I won't. This post is not about me. I kept this to myself for six months. Suffered in complete silence while I agonized in my hell over what to do. My father had always been my hero, the most wonderful man I could ever hope to know. He was the sacrificing, working hard, home by six, advice giving, warm, shirt off his back, give up the last piece of anything left on the table kind of dad. He treated my mom like a piece of gold and I'm still single because I had always held out hope of meeting someone like him. His morals and values are so deeply ingrained in him. He doesn't just love his family, his emotions for us are fierce and immense. He has lived his life for us.

My mother is a strong and intelligent partner for him. They have always shared dreams together and aspired to achieve them together. She will do anything for him, and loves him with every fibre of her being. However, underneath the strong and confident outer layer my mom can be fragile emotionally. She doesn't deal with huge stress very well and depends a great deal on my father for support at times. Given their very deep connection and emotional bond, finding something like this out would destroy my mother. I don't just think this, I KNOW this. It would destroy her mentally, and eventually physically. It would destroy HER parents who are old and sick and adore my father. They wouldn't understand and need so much of her care already. It would destroy my siblings, and create such upheavel in the lives of their young grandchildren whom we all adore, and ruin the family foundation my parents have worked so hard to build and cherish.

The utter shock of this will ruin so much with very slim chance of anything every truly recovering. I anguished over all of this for months until I finally decided to share what I knew with my father, almost 6 months to the day I found out. To see your hero not just nudged off of his pedestal, but yanked and crashing so loudly on the floor is beyond description. My father was devastated. He explained to me that he was engaging in "fantasy" and had not truly understood how involved he had been drawn into it, to someone he originally tried to help from abuse and depression. He explained and swore to me that it had never become sexual. He "snapped out of it" and realized what he was doing and stopped it, before I had even read that awful letter. I have told him that it was not fantasy but an emotional affair. I explained to him that my faith and trust in him was lost and that I didn't even believe it wasn't physical, didn't believe it wasn't the first time, didn't believe anything he told me. My relationship with my father has crumbled to nothing. I cannot be around him with ease, cannot look him in the eyes. This has become sadly easy to disguise in front of my mother because we keep our interaction to larger family gatherings and quick, casual one-word verbal exchanges. She doesn't suspect anything is wrong with us.

My father has written me countless emails of his mental anguish, his remorse, his sadness and despair over me and what has happened. He insists it was long over before I found out, that he couldn't live without my mother and our family. He speaks of his love and devotion to her and his "lifelong penance." I feel that even though he claims it wasn't physical, to read his words of love and devotion to another woman was worse for me. That someone else could have had his heart/mind will haunt me forever. I have not responded to any of his emails or letters to me and remain emotionally estranged from him. He is my daddy and everything he gave me and taught me cannot be ignored forever. I desire an opportunity to talk with him again about this, a chance to heal.

I know that my mother simply cannot find out. The destruction of her will be the destruction of him, the destruction of our whole family from which there will be a lifetime of heartache and pain that will probably never heal. I know them and my mother very well. She will NOT heal from this. I know this was a long message but the details of this situation are important for help in answering my ultimate question. Everthing I have read suggests "the betrayed spouse needs to know." However, in this case does my mom really and truly need to know if the result will only be anguish? I have anguished, my dad has anguished. Right now I feel such guilt and shame around her. I can't heal with my dad because I feel that it betrays her however, it may be possible if we really talk about this and work on healing together. I know he comes from a family where infidelity was present. He witnessed it as a child. I am currently in therapy, reading, researching, and preparing a meeting with my father.

Is it possible that the two of us with time and discussion may be able to heal this together without anyone in our family ever finding out? Can we get past this? Can my family unit remain intact and experiencing joy together?
Thank you.

Welcome to MB, Marnie.

Disclosure of the affair will be hard on all the people you have discussed, but it is patronising for you to decide that they cannot handle this knowledge. It is wrong for your father and now you to decide that it is better for your mother that she never knows of this affair than that she learns the truth about her marriage and husband, and makes her own decision on how to deal with it.

You have said that you cannot be around your father with ease and cannot look him in the eyes. I strongly believe that this is because he is behaving in a cowardly fashion. Not only did he first, dishonour your mother in the worst possible way, but now, he is not honourable enough to confess to that and work to put right his wrong. I think you have lost respect for him because of his cowardice.

Most people here have had to tell their children, some of them very young, about the betrayal of their parent's affair. I told my children the full details of their father's affair very recently, and it was very hard to do. They were angry with him, but this gradually dissipated when he first, apologised to them and then showed them that he was willing to work hard and rebuilding our marriage and their security. I suspect that if your father confessed to your mother and then worked at what Dr Harley calls "just compensation" - paying back the debt he owes her - your respect, and everyone else's, would return.

I'm sorry, but MB isn't the place to come if you want advice to keep an affair secret. It is morally wrong to keep your mother in ignorance about the truth of her marriage.

I am so sorry. I have had my image of my husband destroyed, I cannot imagine what it must be like when it is your father.

People on here, some of them former cheats, will tell you that good marriages suffer infidelity. That good people commit infidelity.

However totally honest people - and totally honest marriages do not suffer infidelity. It is impossible to be an honest cheat.

The idea that lies can protect people, allows people to lie to each other.

People who knew about my h's affair, lied to me. They assumed he would snap out of it, that my ignorance was bliss. Our marriage looked so good to everyone else.

In fact I kept to myself that I was often very puzzled about his behviour and defensiveness on certain topics. I even blamed myself.

The lies, more than the sex or his feeling for her hurt the very most.

The fact that my friends also hid the affair is excruciating. If someone as close as my daughter had done it, I would be heartbroken.

People valued our marriage and thought I would never forgive him, so they made the understandable mistake of trying to talk him out of it. That is like trying to talk a drunk away from a bottle.

The truth is - I could stand it, I could forgive. I can forgive anything but lies. People dont know this until it happens to them though.

Plus your mother has the right to react anyway she wants.


You admit you think he is lying to you. Why do you continue to lie for him?

The owner of this site, Dr Harley, created the Marriage Builders programme. It has been very successful at helping couples restore their marriages after an affair. Posters to this forum offer Dr Harley's advice to those seeking help.

Here is what Dr Harley says about honesty after an affair:

Should an affair be revealed?

I have been letting you in on some clues to infidelity when a spouse is unwilling to be truthful. But there are a few, of course, who are honest enough to tell their spouses about an affair without being confronted. Guilt sometimes sets in right after the first sexual encounter, and it continues to build as one lie is added to another. Depression follows guilt and it's not unusual for a wayward spouse to even consider suicide as a way to escape the nightmare he or she has created. As an act of desperation, honesty is sometimes seized as a last resort, often in an effort to relieve the feelings of guilt.

From my perspective, honesty is part of the solution to infidelity, and so I'll take honesty for whatever reason, even if it's to relieve a feeling of guilt and depression. The revelation of an affair is very hard on an unsuspecting spouse, of course, but at the same time, it's the first step toward marital reconciliation.

Most unfaithful spouses know that their affair is one of the most heartless acts they could ever inflict on their spouse. So one of their reasons to be dishonest is to protect their spouse from emotional pain. "Why add insult to injury," they reason. "What I did was wrong, but why put my spouse through needless pain by revealing this thoughtless act?" As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don't think they will ever be discovered, and so they don't expect their unfaithfulness to hurt their spouse.

But I am one of the very few that advocate the revelation of affairs at all costs, even when the wayward spouse has no feelings of guilt or depression to overcome. I believe that honesty is so essential to the success of marriage, that hiding past infidelity makes a marriage dishonest, preventing emotional closeness and intimacy.

It isn't honesty that causes the pain, it's the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it's in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity.

It's patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth.

It's not only patronizing, but it's also false to assume that your spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Illusions do not make us happy, they cause us to wander through life, bumping into barriers that are invisible to us because of the illusion that is created. Truth, on the other hand, reveals those barriers, and sheds light on them so that we can see well enough to overcome them. The unsuspecting spouse of an unfaithful husband or wife wonders why their marriage is not more fulfilling and more intimate. Knowledge of an affair would make it clear why all efforts have failed.

After revealing an affair, your spouse will no longer trust you. But lack of trust does not ruin a marriage, it's the lack of care and protection that ruins marriages. Your spouse should not trust you, and the sooner your spouse realizes it, the better.

Full article here.

You feel guilt and shame because you are trying to bear the burden of guilt and shame for your father which is rightfully what he should bear - between him and his WIFE. This belongs in the marital relationship, not in the father-daughter relationship.

You are feeling pain, of course, because the image of a fantasy marriage you had built up in your head about your parents has crashed and burned. The truth is that all marriages have difficult spots, and terrific spots, and the places in between. No marriage is perfect. Your parents have a strong marriage.

The truth is that your parents have a marriage which will likely withstand the TRUTH of the affair

and will NOT withstand the lying about the affair.



Consider that your mother is being lied to each and every day of her life.

Every day, your father wakes up, kisses her face, and lies to her by not telling her about his affair.
Then, every night, he goes to bed with her, and kisses her face, and lies to her again.
And all day long, each and every day, he lies to her with each and every breath he takes.


So. Do. You.


You both have decided FOR HER what the "truth" of her life will be.


How nice of you.

Wouldn't you feel great if someone were to decide, for YOU, what the truth of YOUR LIFE would be? If someone else were to decide what you would and would not know about each and every relationship YOU HAD???? You would have no choice in the matter. Someone else who "knew" what you were "able to handle" would make those decisions for you. After all, they are much better able to judge what YOU can handle, and can make those decisions FOR you. You are certainly not capable of handling anything tooooo emotional, after all.


And someone else will decide what those things might be. Not even a professional someone. Just someone...random.



You wouldn't go for it, would you? Don't think so.


But you and your father have decided to exactly this to your mother. And you both couch this in the cloak of "doing what is best for her".


What you are doing is trying to protect your father's good reputation from the stench of his affair.

And trying not to rock the boat.

And trying to bury what is very ugly and hard to deal with.

And hoping that if you hide it very far under the rug, nobody will notice the big old bump of garbage right there.


What I would like to know is, WHEN your mother finds out, and she WILL FIND OUT, what will be your answer to the question:


WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME WHEN THIS FIRST HAPPENED? BECAUSE I COULD HAVE LIVED WITH KNOWING ABOUT THE AFFAIR, BUT I CANNOT LIVE WITH KNOWING HE LIED TO ME ALL THIS TIME. AND ALSO KNOWING YOU LIED, TOO.


YOU ARE ALL JUST A BUNCH OF LIARS...........


What will you say then?


Because, that is what I said.



SB

Wow SB.

That is what I said too!

I disagree with your take on this and believe you show enormous disrespect for your mother. What will upset her and your family is the affair, not the truth. She has a huge problem in her marriage and she cannot fix that problem unless and until she knows the truth. Learning the truth about this affair will give your mother an opportunity to fix the problem and save the marriage. Divorce is a greater risk by not telling her. Your mother will have a much harder time recovering from DIVORCE as a result of an affair, than she would a recovered marriage. And your mother CAN recover her marriage, if she so chooses, if she knows the truth.

As long as the truth is withheld from her, she cannot take steps to protect herself from your father and the OW. She cannot take steps to make sure the affair is ended.

Let me give you an analogy. If your neighbor's bookkeeper was embezzling money from her would you not warn her? Would you neglect to warn her using the excuse that you didn't "want to hurt her?" Does that make sense? Of course it doesn't. Embezzlement is much less severe a crime than infidelity.

The right thing to do is to tell your mother the truth. This is information about her life that has been wrongfully withheld from her. Will she be hurt? Of course. But she will be much more hurt if pertinent facts about her life are wrongfully and cruelly withheld from her. Telling her the truth will help her solve her marriage problem and stop your dad from behaving in such a cruel and callous and unloving way again.

You do your father no favors by helping him cover up his crime. You are simply enabling him to further harm your mother. True repentence means telling truth to your victim and your father has demonstrated NO repentance and no remorse. As long as your father continues to deceive your mother, he remains dangerous, because as long as she doesn't know, he is free to pursue his affair. If your father were truly sorry, he would tell his victim, but he doesn't do that.

Honesty is the solution to infidelity, not more lies. Tell your mother the truth.

Unfortunately, his "mental anquish" and all that hogwash does not reflect any remorse or repentance. The bank robber is real damn sorry he got caught, but just not sorry enough to give the money back. Sorry, but this is just the empty dramatics of a liar who doesn't want to be exposed for his crimes.

If he was truly repentant, he would telling his VICTIM, not you. A truly sorry person doesn't continue to lie and deceive his victim. A truly sorry person doesn't ask his own daughter to help him and his skankho deceive her mother.

AMEN.

Hmmmm.

Imagine spending the rest of your life with a guy doing a 'lifetime of penance'

Wondering why the funny clever man you married is a depressed wreck

(I spent many nights wondering about this)

That sounds super fun. It also sounds absolutely nothing like a proper healthy recovery.

Telling the truth takes COURAGE. He should stop making excuses and so should you.

Your thread title .... Is .....



Wrong.

You would do better to ask .....

POSSIBLE TO HEAL WITH DISHONESTY & LIES?

I understand what is being said and I thank you for your comments and advice. Please remember that I wasn't asking for advice on how to keep a secret or how to deceive. I may not be a child anymore, but I am a child in this.... THEIR child. I love them both so much. He never asked me to keep it a secret. He hasn't said that once. I do believe she needs to know, but I also believe he's suffering. He has insisted it's over, and was over before I came to him. I also believe she needs to know.

It took me 6 months of mental anguish to come to the most difficult and painful decision of my life to disclose what I knew to my father and watch him crumble. My pain and fear over what my mom will endure had me begging HIM not to tell her. I guess I was wrong. Just after I had begun to contemplate the possibility of healing with my dad and moving on from this, getting my life together I have come to the painful realization that she will need to know this.

Whether or not their marriage overcomes this, it will create such pain and suffering for my family. The whole last year of my life has been pain and suffering. I am so close to my mom. I NEED her in my life. However, now I'm looking at yet another year of pain and suffering with the fallout from this. There is just no let up, no tiny ray of light at the end of this dark tunnel.

And I feel so utterly alone.

Welcome to Marriage Builders Marnie33. How did you find us?


Sounds like your parents brought you up in a loving home.


As far as you know.


That's amazing... 35 years of total bliss?


How did you discover the love letter?


Apparently there were things you did not know.


It's hard when your parents let you down.


No, what will destroy your family is if you and your dad continue to lie to your mom. It's not your place to "protect" your mom from the truth about her life. I have children your age and if I found out that they kept something so important from me AND helped their dad hide his betrayal, it would be very hard for me to forgive that. OUR relationship would never be the same.


Your father is saying the things to you that 1000s of waywards have said before him. You're right to not believe him. Again, your mother finding out is not what will ruin everything, your father's behavior is what HAS ruined everything. It will only get worse the longer you and he keep this devastating news from your mother.



I wouldn't bet on that. If they are as close as you have described, you can be sure that she know's something's wrong. Whether she has chosen not to share it with you is something you can't know.


He needs to be saying these words to his WIFE not his DAUGHTER. This sounds very unhealthy.


There is NO WAY you can know this even if she is your mother. You're not inside her head or heart.


You should feel ashamed. You are assisting in your dad in carrying on his betrayal.


No you cannot heal this with your dad as long as you keep quiet. The only thing you can work on healing is your relationship with your dad.

Your family cannot remain "intact" because it isn't "intact" now. How long are you willing to keep this dark ugly secret?

P.S. BTW, you sound very familiar to me.

Marnie,

It is very possible your father has been praying for a way through this...

an angel to help him through this mess.

You very well may be that angel.

You have found the place to heal your parents marriage...

the tools...

and the people.

All you have to do is use the tools that are here to get your parents started toward their recovery.

Ask any questions you have and the great people here can help you to save your parents marriage...

just like they did mine.

Listen to them.

God bless.

Jim

I'm sorry you feel alone. I really hope your dad does the right thing and takes this yoke off of your shoulders.

Marnie, you have been placed in a terrible position. But the right thing to do for BOTH your parents is to tell your mother.

That is for the benefit of your mother AND your father. Your father will never change himself and come to true repentance until your mother knows the truth. He will stay a sick and dangerous man. He can never recover as long as he continues to live a lie and deceive your mother. And you don't know if his affair has ended at all. You only know what he has told you.

If you want to heal your relationship with your dad, then help him do the right thing by your mother. Bring the truth out.

The sooner this happens, the sooner you can all be on the track to a REAL RECOVERY. Your father will have a chance to make amends to you and your mother. But he cannot make this right as long as he continues to deceive.

My suggestion would to tell her yourself without forewarning your dad. This is going to be bad, but it would be much less dramatic if you told her yourself.

Who is the OW? Does your mother know her? Do you know her?

If you want help, you could call the Harley's radio program for advice.

I wasn't asking for advice on healing of this problem with my father. That's not for me to do. It's not my marriage. I was asking if it could be possible to heal MY relationship with him. I don't know who the OW is and I never cared to learn. I honestly do not want those details.

I also disagree that it will be less devastating for me to tell her than for my father. I think it will be MORE devastating to hear it from me. He is the one who needs to tell her. I may help encourage him to see what some here have explained, but he needs to be the one to do it.

I disagree he should be the one to do it or that it will be less devastating to hear it from him. He is the one who did this to her, after all. It will be harder to hear it from him, even if he would agree to tell her. The downside of trying to make your father break the news to her is that he a) won't do it and/or b) will spin the story. If the story is spun, which it likely will be, then you will have a harder time convincing her of the truth. And what will you do if he refuses to tell her? Have a battle with him and then end up telling her yourself when he refuses? Much more efficient to just avoid all that drama and tell her yourself.

It is much easier for all concerned for you to tell her about the affair and show her the emails. You are less inclined to gloss or minimize it and will ensure she gets the true story, skipping the drama with your father. Once you give her the framework of the truth, your father will then be FORCED to fill in the details. He won't be able to do much spinning.

And why would you not want to know WHO the OW is? Her identity is important for you and your family to know so you can protect your family from her. As far as you know, she is some family friend who could attend family events. You can't very well know who the enemy is if you don't know her identity.