Hi former ws here.
Cheaters run the gambit in terms of the bigger picture of their parenting. Some were never a parent in the first place and may never be, while for others this is more of an aberration to who they have generally been as a parent.
I agree with the posters that most of us (including myself) felt that we would never be caught. I did not associate what I was doing with them much at all. In my case we were empty nest and it was easier to compartmentalize them as they weren’t living with us.
Most people who are actively cheating share the following traits:
-at least a temporary set of narcissistic tendencies. So much so I worried I had undiagnosed NPD. (My situation was love addiction and I put the fix before everyone including my own best interests like any other addict and once that was managed the Narc tendencies went away)
-fantasy world/magical thinking/projection of things into the AP that aren’t really there.
-a sense of entitlement over some unresolved resentment (Examples might be "I make more money and have to kill myself providing", "I do everything for everyone", in other words some form of martyrdom narrative or a narrative they are special and above the rules
-feeling that they are clever enough to get away with it
-poor coping skills combined with a new stressor. Thus the extreme escapism.
Also some percentage of them are in active love or sex addiction. I experienced love addiction. I do not blame my affair on this addiction, like all addictions the choice to start has to come first. But once it began I was really no different than a heroin addict and that became my primary focus over ever other thing in my life. It created more decisions created by the need to feed that addiction making me more erratic and not rational at all.
People often scoff at this but there is scientific research that supports there is a physical dependency on the flooding of dopamine for some brought on by an affair. Nothing matters as much as getting that fix and there is often true withdrawal that happens when it ends as a result. None of this has anything to do with the AP being great at all- they are almost always someone inappropriate and a far step down from the spouse.
To answer your question more directly now that I have given some background:
No I do not feel I was a good parent during my affair. I compromised the future of our family, and I abused their father who they love. I didn’t consider them in it at all and became less connected and distant with them during that time and the year following the affair. If love is actions, which I believe that it is, then certainly by that definition I wasn’t loving them. In my mind, my feelings of love for them never left but that doesn’t count for much with everything else needed is out of alignment with that. (The same is true in regards with love towards my bs)
However, I think that outside of this period of my life I was an excellent mother and loved my children more than anything with all my thoughts and actions in alignment with that.
We all have periods of time that potentially checks us out of being the best attentive parent we can be. The struggle I faced during my recovery was this was a willful choice whereas most other examples of that sort of distraction is cause by something life thrusts on you - whether it be grief, depression,etc. And even worse, you take down the other parent at the same time limiting their ability to be present as well.
For me, I had to accept that I could only change things moving forward. A remorseful ws will work their ass off to do the work to ensure this will not be a decision that will be repeated. And that deep work I did on myself through those years actually did make me a better parent moving forward in countless ways.
I will always hate the reasons that brought me this growth but have found that I can still be grateful that growth occurred. Today, I am a genuinely happy, authentic, loving person who has figured out her relationship with herself. And it changed all my relationships for the better.
I am almost six years out, though I think I could have made those last statements around the three year mark. Change is slow and hard, and it’s done in layers. You can’t see x needs changed until you accomplish y. And each thing can have varying levels of depth/levels of difficulty.
Your ws may be a bad parent right now. I hope they do the work and can show up differently in that role moving forward. It’s hard to see right now that nothing has to be true forever. But also that the only one who can change that is them.
[This message edited by hikingout at 8:21 AM, Wednesday, November 30th]
