Have you ever caught or suspected one of your parents having an affair?

No. But I think one of my sisters did and I think the husband of another sister found out because they worked together at the same hospital. When the two were at get togethers you could see the daggers fly from their glances. He hated her. I’m sort of guessing the reason, but it fits a conversation I had once with the sister. I think it was one of the doctors.

Only suspected. One day my family was ready for dinner. My brother and I was sitting in the dining room next to the kitchen waiting for my parents to finish preparing. Suddenly mom’s mobile phone in the dining room rang announcing a new message. Mom does not have the habit of checking new messages often and she told us to check the message for her. My brother grabbed the phone and for some reason managed to access the message box. He gave the phone to me and asked me to explain some message. I saw, among the boring messages of mom’s collegues, some hateful messages of a woman basically telling her “darling” to get off her life.

I suddenly remembered seeing dad doing something with mom’s phone alone some time before (dad’s phone was acting funny at that time and he had to borrow mom’s phone for calls and other things at one point). I began to suspect that dad was having an affair with someone and the affair went sour and dad was leaving the woman. I was afraid that the woman could do something horrible to dad, judging by the tone of the message. I quickly deleted the messages and pretended nothing had happened, but I was confused and didn’t know what course of action to take next.

I asked for advice and was told not to do anything since I did not have enough evidence to conclude that dad was having an affair. I took the advice and put the events in the back of my head. To this day nothing has happened to our family. I don’t know the story behind the messages, and I would like to think it was just a wrong number.

My aunt and I suspect that my sister is actually my half-sister.

My sister is not aware of this suspicion and we do not plan to tell her.

No, but thats not necessarily due to any virtue on their part.

They were too busy getting drunk to really have any room for relationships (even with members of their own family much less anyone else’s)

Their priorities were certainly not centered on people of any sort (even their own kids ) that’s for sure.

My father cheated on my mother. They had been married for like 30 something years. I hated my Dad when I found out. My mother is a saint. To say she didn’t deserve it would be an understatement. My father IMO should be thankful he has her. Her devotion from all those years seemed betrayed. His life would be exponentially worse if he didn’t have her. But there relationship was suffering from a lack of sex. (That felt disgusting to say)
My father wasn’t getting what he needed from the relationship so he went elsewhere for it. He felt terrible about it. He was drunk that night and hasn’t really drank since (probably been 10 yrs now.)
Like I said I HATED him for it. But as the time has passed I realized the sad truth of it. My father was /is human. He succumbed to his natural desires . He had , I understand, ‘gone without ’ for a substantial time. I guess he needed to get it out of his system or something. Anyway I never forgave him for it. My mother was embarrassingly aware of it. She still stayed with him and is still married to him. I think they have been married now over 40 years. Part of me wishes she left him for that. Such an insult to her being such a great person. The other part of me is happy they’re still together. They fuss n fight all the time. But they love each other. They are best friends and don’t really have friends or family they do anything with so they’re kinda stuck with each other. From an observational standpoint they seem content.

My father doesn’t deserve my mother. That’s a fact. But in this world, deserve has nothing to do with anything…

@Seek Out of curiosity, if both you and your Aunt suspect this much about your sister…do you think your dad knows/knew suspected this as well?

@Cruiser – I have no idea, as I haven’t seen him since I was ten years old. If you ever find him, feel free to ask him for me.

The parents? Noooo.. They were madly devoted to each other until their deaths. A few other family members, yes.

Three years ago, my brother and I found out that our beloved grandfather had, for years, a mistress he “kept” in an apt. near his downtown office. An aunt casually mentioned it, and Mom and and another aunt confirmed it. Granddad died decades ago, but this news was still devistating.

The following year, the topic was brought up again at another family gathering. This time, my sister was there. She was equally upset. Unfortunately, she was sitting next to our brother’s 2nd wife, who we aren’t particularly fond of. Sis-in-law reaches over and pats my sister’s hand. “It’s okay,” she said. “All men have affairs. Your brother did.” First of all, that was also new news to us. Secondly, it was said in front of two of our brother’s children from his first marriage. Then there was the blanket statement that all married men cheat.

One of the aunts married her high school sweetheart, the charismatic football quarterback. He turned out to be an alcoholic, womaniser, and abusive. It really did a number on their four kids (my cousins), but Auntie stuck by his side until his death.

And finally, and on a much lighter note, there was the time that I suspected my BIL was cheating on my sister. While visiting their house, Sis handed me an open envelope from the hotel company I was working for. It was addressed to a Michelle ‘Somebody’ and sent to their home address. The envelope contained a survey regarding a hotel stay at one of our properties located across town.

“Your company’s computer system made a mistake. I don’t know who this person is or how she got our address. Can you do something about this?” Well, I knew. BIL had stayed at a local hotel with some chickybabe and foolishly used his home address.

At dinner that night, I casually asked, “So who is Michelle Somebody?” He looked at me in utter shock. “How do you know about Michelle?” I explained the mail, and asked why her name was linked to their address. The response: “Well, HE is a client of ours that flew from His office in France to meet with us and couldn’t get a flight back until the next day. I booked the reservation for him.” From my sister: “Oooh, I remember that now.”

I had a suspicion once, but it was no business of mine.