So I have been informed that my dad has found out that his girlfriend has been cheating on him behind his back. This is a woman we've been trying to get him rid of for years because she's awful but it's going too far this time. Our dad found out after she tried to get him to register for a swinging site and it turns out she has an account listed as single and has met several men who have made.. less than distasteful and very intimate comments on her profile about activities she's been getting up to with them. 3 days after his birthday and 6 days before no less.
So my question is what can we do to support him and try and get him through this? How have you guys coped with cheating in the past?
I've been cheated on once myself but it was nowhere near like this. And she's been wanting a baby with our dad for christ's sake. It's insane. She's not trying for children with other people, she's literally going out and doing the nasty with them. Can't express how mad we all are.
Any suggestions?
Oh hunni, that's a saw one. I'm so sorry you and your family are going through this with this lass. It's really hard to advise as I've no experience with parents cheating or being cheated on.
What I would suggest is to be there for your dad and let him know ought he needs you'll be there in a heartbeat. Don't go in on him as much as you'll want to scream at him to get rid don't do it. In my experience trying to convince folk to do something always has them running in the opposite direction; although it's been with other family members and close friends. However hard I've tried to tell them about their no good cheating partner all it achieved was upsetting them to the point they didn't confide in me anymore. Since stepping back and not holding the 'hate' card they trust and come to me about their issues at home.
In your situation it's much harder as it's your dad, I mean if someone did that to my dad I'd be absolutely bursting inside and I honestly don't know if I could put the advice into practice 😕
Have you spoken to him? What does he want to do, has he contemplated leaving her? How long have they been in a relationship? The longer the more difficult and more intense the 'feelings' become. Ask those questions. Tell your dad no matter what you'll be there for him and 'support' his decision, it'll encourage him to be able to come to you for support. Id like to think by telling you your dads already planning on ending it, because why would you turn your kids against your lover? It doesn't fit as there would always be an atmosphere there.
I wish I could offer further, better advice but that's all i have. Either way try and sleep on it and think things through as you don't want to regret anything said in anger. Sending hugs 💟xx
The thing is she (we all believe) needs massive amounts of mental health. We think the reason she's been seeing people is to potentially get pregnant and lie about it being our dads. She's wanted a baby with him for ages but he doesn't want one and is infertile due to medicine he takes for Arthritis. She's only been having hookups, but we assume this because she lied to him two years ago about being on the pill and he found out when he went to the doctors with her and she had to tell the doctor she hadn't been taking it.
There's so many reasons why we've told him it's best for her to go and he knows it is. He's pretty much been waiting for this but we know he hasn't taken it well. He's been gone since about midnight and none of us have heard from his so we're all really worried. Still trying to get messages to him but nothing yet. :I
I'm seeing him tomorrow so I'm definitely going to talk to him about it. And tell him to go straight to the GUM clinic. God knows whether she's been using protection or not but from what I've seen she's been sleeping around for a while.
I wrote a massive post there but deleted it as I'm unsure. Id hate to give bad advice and its a very delicate situation.
What I will say is you seem to be dealing with it really maturely and matter of fact. It's a very good point he will unfortunately need to get checked out. I mean if she's meeting strangers to get pregnant that's a very, very dangerous game.
I hope both your dad and this lady gets some help. Your dad may know she's unstable - hense him being so forgiving.
Sending masses of possitivity and hope you get some answers hunni 💟xx
I just re-read your post and realised I assumed they had broken up. If they haven't and don't, ignore everything I wrote! I have no advice for someone who stays or is considering staying with someone who cheated as my only advice would be don't....
I've not been cheated on but I've supported close family members who have been. My advice is allow a little bit of wallowing. Make sure the cupboards have comfort foods and the freezer has ice cream. Mindless TV/copious amounts of Netflix/favourite films have got me and my family through a lot of hard times. Alcohol really isn't a good idea but one day of drowning sorrows is usually ok. After that, try to discourage it. If there are any jobs you can do to help out over the next few days, that would probably be helpful. It's even better if you actually know what needs doing so you can say, "I'm going to go to supermarket/take X to her appointment/put a wash on" etc rather than "do you need anything doing?" which will inevitably be met with "no". Processing the fact your relationship was totally different to what you thought uses up a lot of mental energy so in the first few days I try to help out so they have the energy to process.
Depending on what type of person your dad is, he may or may not want to talk. I try to always be open to listening but I know some people find people asking frustrating and want to process it alone or to just be treated like things are normal. Both approaches are fine, as long as they are at least processing what has happened rather than pretending it hasn't happened.
It's probably going to sound harsh but...once a week has gone by I switch back to normal mode. No more wallowing allowed and they can't talk about their ex all the time (although needing support and talking is most definitely ok). I try to check in more with them and go round a bit more often than usual but they need to see life goes on, even if they don't feel like that at the moment.
Good thinking about him getting checked for STIs. I would actually recommend waiting a while though. Firstly, he doesn't need to be worrying about diseases right now unless he has symptoms. The window periods for most STIs are 2-4 weeks (the exceptions being syphilis, hep B and hep C which are longer) so it is pretty much pointless getting tested before 4 weeks after he last slept with her (you need to check with your local clinics as all the tests use slightly different window periods). Secondly, worrying he has a serious STI isn't going to help him in the early stages of getting over a break up. Unless he is already talking and worrying about STIs, I wouldn't even bring it up. I'd wait until he is a bit more ok with what's happened. If he is worrying, a trip to the clinic now (even if clinically pointless) might help reassure him though.
He's very lucky to have you 💙
Thankfully he is home now. He was gone longer than three hours.
Unfortunately we were right. Her intentions were beyond insane. She was sleeping with people to try and get pregnant and was then going to lie to our dad and tell him it was his. I keep telling him she needs to get help but I know he would prefer to leave it all alone. Sadly he is a lot like that due to years of bad luck.
He's going to tell me what happened tomorrow when I see him to take the puppy to the vets to get his jabs and chip done but I know the gist of it and am horrified and disgusted. I know she wants a baby (and acted horrendously when I found out I was pregnant and didn't have a clue what to do) but that is so, so wrong.
I feel like we should do something about it but I really don't know where to start. I told my dad to call the police if she threatened suicide again but he said she didn't this time so it's slightly more difficult. We don't know how to go about getting her the help she needs, she clearly needs something done. No one in their right mind would do such a thing.
I also feel like my life is like a soap opera at the moment. It's making me slightly dizzy. Thankfully my dad seems to be okay and is home so that's two good signs. He's a strong man so he will be okay. I'm treating him to a meal soon and he has games to keep his mind off of things.
I more advised him to get checked adapt to to the fact that this seems to have been going on for months. There's been a lot of different guys and a few couples. She's lied completely about who she is to them, even saying she's not a smoker. It's all pretty crazy and I don't know when he last slept with her, though I don't assume it was that recent as he's not all into sex stuff.
If you're in the UK, have you thought about contacting Mind? They may be able to give some suggestions on how you can get her some help. It sounds like she definitely needs it, and sooner rather than later.
Gosh this is awful! So sorry to read this. Sounds in the same league as my ex.
One thing I kept doing, and still do sometimes, is go over the whole relationship in my head to work out where and why it went wrong. Thinking about times I suspected something, or when she was acting out of character and then realising those were the times she was messin around behind my back.
The best thing you can do is be there for him and listen to him. He'll want to talk about it (probably over and over again) and it's your place to listen. You may not even have to respond or come up with answers, just listen.
In time try to steer him away from it all by helping him to find a new hobby or picking up and old one again. Maybe get involved yourself too.
It's so awful when something like this happens to your parents. My mums husband is a vile little rat for other reasons, he's a gambling addict and had been stealing and lying for years, then he stole 4k off an old man who had practically raised him. My mum kicked him out and I worked my butt to encourage her to leave him and sort her life out. He's pretty much ruined her, she quit college because he didn't want to support her. Then she just gave up, he we asked his way back in to her house and then she asked me if I was contributing to his birthday present, a trip to the races! He did one session of counselling for it and now it's all forgotten.
The main thing that I think did it for her was that she thought she was too old to change her life. Like she was condemned.
Encourage him to take this opportunity to change his life and do something else, that he's not past it and he can't just give up, ask him what he'd be saying to you if your partner had done the same. Try and get him to see it as all positive that he found out as opposed to a negative, that he's lucky he found out now what she's like before he had invested more into into her