What do you think. Are cheating parents hypocrites?

[Wondering33]

The reality is, we are all hypocrites. When parents tell their kids not to something (in a lot of cases) it's bc they already did it & know repercussions of the situation they're talking to their kids about. My parents always told us learn from other's mistakes, even their own.

 

My father cheated on my mom through most of my childhood. I was often more upset with my mom (my out looked changed the older I got) bc she'd get mad, yell at him, threaten divorce but it always stayed the same. I felt we had to listen to her crap when she wasn't doing anything about it. Both of my parents had really messed up childhoods & I always looked deeper to why my dad did what he did & why my mom handled it the way she did. I never saw them as hypocrites, even at a young age I saw them just as imperfect people that were doing the best they could with the cards they had been dealt to them by life & im actually proud of what they went through & how they over came their problems. I never put myself in some "victim" mentality of how damaging my childhood was.

 

I did later on have my own A but it has nothing to do with my parents & when talking with my kids about life I don't feel like a hypocrite telling them not to something I've done, that's called parenting. Wanting better & trying to make sure your kids don't make the same mistakes you did.

[cocorico]

Indeed, most cheaters or APs know it's wrong, but some single OM/OW don't think it's wrong because they aren't breaking vows. If you fundamentally don't view it as wrong, then your kids will surely think it's okay.

 

 

Nope. Not if you bring your kids up to form their own views.

 

I do not have the same views or opinions or values as my parents. And my kids have theirs, which differ from mine in some ways (and from each other's). I'm proud of that, because it shows that they have learned to think for themselves rather than accept what someone tells them uncritically.

[Renton]

Both my parents cheated on each other when i was 12 yrs old. They were not good times and affected me a great deal.

 

I have had relatives ask/lecture me as to why haven't i settled down but not once has my mother and father asked me that question.

 

Would they feel hypocritical in asking?

[autumnnight]

From a strictly social aspect and taking religion completely out of the equation (I'm an atheist), I go by how severe the consequences are of the action committed. If I had asked my xWW if she had filled the car up with gas, and she said yes when in fact she hadn't, that would cause a minor irritant that would be easily solved (simply go to the gas station).

 

But the actions of her affair totally blew up my family. This was three years ago, and the last week I had my daughter (about ten days ago) we were riding a quad around the farmland by my house, and my 7 year old says: "Daddy, it's sad that you and Mommy don't love each other anymore."

 

Three years later, and my little girl is still feeling the effects of what her mother did. And she'll continue to feel it the rest of her life.

 

To me, it's like comparing a grape to a watermelon. You'll barely notice the grape if it falls on your head. But the watermelon could potentially kill you.

 

Very convenient comparison. How about a person who gambles away the family's funds? The spouse withholds intimacy year after year? The alcoholic spouse? The angry, yelling, belittling spouse? The spouse who treats his family as an annoying inconvenience? Might THOSE behaviors be a bit mo4e serious than saying the car was filled with gas?

 

Or do we only condemn those marital sins we have deemed ourselves too righteous to commit?