SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Has anyone here read "Parents Who Cheat: How Children and Adults are Affected When Their Parents Are Unfaithful" by Ana Nogales?

I'm the BS and wondering if this would be worth reading, or if this is geared more towards WS and/or BC (betrayed children).

Hi ibonnie,

I am also the BS and we have 2 adult kids (30 & 31 years old now) but who were a Junior (20 years old) & Senior (21 years old) in college when D-Day happened 10 years ago next month. They were both in high school when the WS started up with his Skankopotamus who had dumped him 35 years before I ever met him.

She Googled him, found his workplace, called him and things took off running. I wish I had seen the red flags and had known what a selfish, self-entitled man-child who obviously needed constant validation (unbeknownst to me) otherwise I never would have ever talked with him let alone married him.

I have personally bought the book off of Amazon but haven't had a chance to even start reading it but I was intrigued enough to purchase it.

I'll have to keep you posted when I get a chance to finally start reading it!

[This message edited by LuvsMeLuvsMeNot at 12:25 AM, Saturday, January 15th]

I read it a long time ago. My recollection is that it does a decent job describing the effects on kids.

I'd definitely be interested in hearing what you guys think - especially if there is some advice for dealing with the situation (as opposed to stats one how horrible the effects can be).

I know people who were greatly impacted by their parents' divorce while in HS/college, no matter the reason. (Though the ones who had parents who had affairs had a really hard time both in the relationship with the cheating parent AND with forming new relationships. One friend's dad left his marriage after 25 years for another woman during his wife's cancer treatments. That friend was engaged at the time, and it screwed him up so much that he broke the engagement and went on a weird bender of casual sex and treating women VERY poorly for 15 years before meeting his current wife and getting married.)

My kids have known about the affair for 2.5 years and unfortunately found out traumatically (same day I found out the affair was sexual). I definitely think it impacted them, but time will tell how much.

I would definitely be interested in that book.

My father left my mother for his AP the summer before my senior year in high school. I was 17 and it definitely affected me.

When my husband's A was discovered, it brought back all of the trauma from my parents' divorce. I was overly-involved with the discovery of my father's A and the trauma is real. :(

Sorry - slight threadjack.

SadieMae - I had to do a double take on your signature because I was worried for a second that you were my sister. My father chose to move out on my little sister's 17th birthday to move in with his AP. I was just starting my second year of university at the time so wasn't living at home. I will never know why it needed to be THAT day of all of the days. At first he lied and said he was living alone but my sister eventually spotted his car outside of his AP's house months later. I do know that despite being "grown" it affected me too. I'm still unravelling all of that many (many) years later.

I'd like to read the book too.

I was interested in reading this book too, but some of the reviews said the recurring message in this book is to understand the "reason" for the affair… in order to get to a place of forgiveness.

So I definitely won’t be reading it now. I’m of the opinion there’s never an excuse for having an affair. If you’re unhappy about something in your marriage, then discuss it with your partner and try to improve it. Don’t cheat.

I’m also of the opinion that people can sometimes have unrealistic expectations of a marriage. Being married and living together day in and out is hard, especially when you’re raising children. There are all kinds of stressors a marriage has that can obviously take the "fun" and "sexiness" out of it, which is why it’s important to understand that marriage takes work. You have to work hard at keeping the connection alive. And the "spark". And also understand that the spark you have in your long lasting marriage is not the same as the spark you feel in a new relationship. That new spark is short lived in all relationships.

Many who say they were "unhappy" in their marriage cite things like not having the spark anymore, not having enough sex, unequal workload or balance, different parenting views, and so on. And these are the things a lot of people blame for their affairs. And to them I say, grow up. This is almost every marriage. Mature people with character work through it best they can. None of these excuse affairs.

Now obviously if there was legitimate abuse or some other exceptional issue, then that’s different. But even then, you get a divorce. Then you try to start your life new with some one else. Cheating does nothing but complicate things.

Sickandafraid - Gently, because I agree with a lot of what you are saying. There can be, and typically are, all sorts of reasons - poor boundaries, feeling unhappy with myself and blamed the marriage, felt like my resentment of X in the marriage gave me justification in seeking Y, etc etc etc - that are not "justifications". I don't like justifications either. Not all 'reasons' are justifications.

Children of cheaters cannot simply divorce their parents. They can't - and I would argue in most cases shouldn't - just write them off and walk away. I say this as a child of a cheater. Some level of forgiveness and understanding is necessary for a healthy relationship going forward. Your (parent) is a selfish, dishonest POS isn't going to cut it.

In my own experience, my father gave some non-specific drivel about life being too short and how everyone deserved happiness and thereafter avoided the subject as much as he could because to have the conversation would be to admit he had done something wrong (not his strong suit - surprise surprise). I mostly let him get away with this because it felt like if I pushed him on the subject he might walk away from me too (the way he had walked away from my mom). My sister and my mom and the rest of the family quietly and politely decided my dad was just a bad guy and we all avoided talking about him any more than absolutely necessary going forward. Do you know what that feels like for a 20 year old who had spent her life being compared to this man (it had always been said in my family that my sister was always more like my mom and I was always more like my dad). It was like all of a sudden his good qualities - and he had them - didn't matter. What did that say about me???