A few years ago my wife started having affairs with married men she would meet on Ashley Madison. She was unhappy with our marriage and suffering from depression. Her doctor was prescribing a high dosage of antidepressants which likely caused a hypomanic episode and elicited her promiscuous behaviour. She was later diagnosed as bipolar, and with medication, has been faithful.

When she was hypomanic she confined in her father. Although he did warn her of the consequences (he is a serial adulterer and on his third marriage, so he would know), I doubt her father believes that being faithful/honest is necessary in a marriage. In fact he told her that he was exploring Ashley Madison himself. Although he had many opportunities to intervene, he decided not to even if his daughter�s family was at risk.

After a while my wife�s guilt got the best of her and she confessed what happened. Though a lot of research and healing, I was able to truly understand it was the medically induced hypomania and not the fault of my wife. Given what her father did (or didn�t do), she stop speaking to him for five years. During that period of time he never tried to speak to her, me or our kids. He never tried to reconcile, explain himself or ask for forgiveness.

About a year ago, my wife heard he has prostate cancer. My wife believes he will soon die from it but he has had it for many years and I�ve read many men now live with this cancer. My wife decided to re-establish her relationship with him and this has now caused a substantial rift in our marriage. My wife and he never speak about what happened and her father continues to have no contact with our kids or myself.

Although I have a different opinion, I understand my wife feels she has a duty to her father. What is of great concern to me is how she can ignore what he did in that he disrespected not only the kids and myself but also that of his own daughter. At least she should express to him that what he did was wrong and failed to support his daughter when she needed him the most.

I am not trying to sabotage my wife�s relationship with her father. What I feel now is that if her own family is important to her that she would let her father know. I�m feeling my wife lacks empathy and is disrespecting our family. This is eating at me so much that I think after many years of healing, our marriage will end in failure.

I appreciate your thoughts because discussing this with family and friends would be very difficult.

Welcome to MB.

I'm just wondering why you posted this in the Divorced section of the forum. Are you divorced?

Have you made a thoughtful request for your wife to let her father know that what he did was wrong? What does she say?

Not yet divorced but highly likely. My wife is afraid to discuss it with her father because she doesn't want to risk upsetting him given his situation. I also think it is because she's too afraid to confront him and still needs his approval.

Why is it highly likely that you would divorce? Over what, exactly, would you be getting divorced?

Does your wife know that divorce is "highly likely"? What is her response to that?

By the way, I'm not clear about what kind of help you are asking for. Are you looking for help to save your marriage? Do you want to save it?