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I want to investigate my mom because my dad won't

42K views 247 replies 51 participants last post by  SadandAngry 
#1 ·
Hi,

I originally posted here with a list of red flags that concerned me about my mother's behavior, with the suspicion that she may be cheating. Here's that thread again if anyone wants to go over the list:

http://talkaboutmarriage.com/coping-infidelity/72097-someone-looking-help.html

Eventually, I decided to talk to my dad about my mom's change in behavior without bringing up infidelity, and as I thought he would he told me not to worry about it. He said that she was going through "changes" because of her age (turning 50 this year), and that her work is stressing her out, and that we should be nice and give her a break. So I kind of backed off for a while but the 'red flags' persisted and built up to a point where it was hard for me to even be in the same room as her. These are sort of the major ones that set me over the top, in addition to the previously existing red flags:

- She's been going out more with a divorced friend of hers. My mom usually gets annoyed when we ask her who she's meeting but this woman usually picks my mom up from our house, so that's how I know who she's going with. This woman bothers me because she's always trying to influence my mom to do things based off of her single woman mentality (like she's always going "Oh we should go here" "We should do this" "We should do that"), when it's really just her dragging my mom along because she doesn't want to venture out on her own. Not to be rude, but at that age it's probably hard to find another single person and I can't help but think that this woman just wants a friend to act single with her.

- Another thing that bothered me about this woman's influence was that on a day where they were going to a spa to get massages, she said to my mom, in front of my sister and me, "When's the last time you spent an hour on a bed with a hunky guy all over you?" I mean, okay it's great that you think you're funny, but do you have to emasculate my dad in front of his children in his own house? I don't get it, seriously, who does that? To make it worse, my mom gave her a playful "Let's go!", which really freaking annoyed me.

- My mom didn't want to do ANYTHING on Mother's Day. It didn't help that my dad was working, but we offered to cook her breakfast, to take her out shopping and to lunch, and to make dinner/take her out but she didn't want to do any of it and she just watched T.V. the whole day. Like I said in the other threat, my mom says she feels unappreciated (no matter what anyone does), so I thought maybe she didn't want to be with us if someone was making her feel appreciated.

- Also on Mother's Day, she got a succession of pings on her phone but she wouldn't check them in front of us. My sister and I decided to go out and get her lunch, and when we left I realized I forgot my driver's license and when I went back inside to get it, my mom was on the phone, and when she saw me she put the phone down and asked "What are you doing?"

- Recently, she went to a night event for her work. The event was supposed to be over at 9:30 and she told my dad she'd be home by 11 but she got home around the time when I stopped studying, which was past midnight.

- I found an unsigned card on the floor, and all it said was "You are a queen and should be treated like one. Thinking of you." I couldn't tell if it was male or female handwriting but when I gave it to my mom she acted unnecessarily dismissive about it, and told me it was just something a co-worker gave her for Mother's Day. I didn't ask if it was a man or a woman who wrote it because I didn't want her to catch on.

So I really just want to find out whether or not my mom is cheating and I just need help. My mom obviously needs some kind of help herself regardless of if she's cheating or not, and we've tried helping her my dad's way ("be nice because she's your mother") but that always backfires. She almost never wants to talk about things, and on the rare occasions she does, it's always HER, HER, HER, and she is literally unable to empathize or sympathize with us. It's like she never hears what we say to her because she's thinking of the next way to victimize herself. As an example, when she misinterprets something my sister and I say to her or our tone of voice, it's our fault because we should have expressed ourselves in a way she could understand. But when she's misinterpreted, it's our fault still, because we should have been more understanding of her and we jumped to conclusions. My mom has always been stubborn, but in the past, if my dad told her she was wrong, she was wrong. Now her stubbornness surpasses my dad's word, and if he tells her she's wrong she gets even more incensed. If she wasn't cheating, I don't think we'd have a problem defusing things through communication like functional families do. But I think if she is cheating, her partner makes her feel wanted/appreciated and "the fog" (which I learned from here) makes her relationship seem perfect, which would validate her feelings that she's right and we're wrong, which would explain her unwillingness to compromise. Anyway, sorry for ranting again! But the adults in my life would either be at risk of telling my mom everything I say to them or are too pretentious to talk to, and friends don't have the experience that you guys do.

For the TLDR people, I just want to know how to catch a cheater is all. Thank you.
 
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