My mom (50) found out that my dad (52) sexted with one of his clients. I (24M) have no clue how to deal with this.

My family went through something similar, though it was my dad telling me that he was going to divorce mom and later telling her I knew before she did.

It permanently damaged my family relationships. For a long time I tried to figure out if my dad was an asshole or just an idiot. I eventually decided he was a bit of both, and told him so, and he was genuinely apologetic. He made reparations and gave me a lot of space, and while I’ll never have back the dad I did before (not that he was much better then) I have a healthy and happy relationship with him now.

My mom though? She’s the one I don’t talk to anymore. I cannot forget or forgive the struggle I felt when I was trying to get her into counseling and she told me she could only see my father in me. To be pushed away when I was trying so hard to help. After she recovered from the shock of it, she emerged anew as someone I didn’t recognize and frankly can’t love. We were never great to start with but I felt discarded and inconvenient.

I would have never expected that out of everything, my dad and I would grow close, and that I would grow very distant from everyone else. These days, the only blood family I talk to are my dad and my younger sibling. I don’t have the energy or interest to recalculate my position in the tangled and ugly branches of my family tree.

OP, you have a new family situation now. Both of your parents are strangers to you. Don’t be afraid to give yourself time and space while they figure heir shit out, and be very blunt with telling them that you need their patience as you try to discover what life will be like as a family going forwards.

/r/relationships Thread