Sick over adult child affair

Sick to my stomach as I write this with no where to turn without breaching confidences. Have 2 adult daughters 35/31 who I’m told by everyone are amazing human beings. Have been so proud of them their whole lives. They have a very close relationship. Daughter 1 married 5 yrs to a great guy, with 1 - 4 yr old daughter but there have been issues since the baby came… financial, communication, etc. Daughter 2 today in a word vomit while defending some opinions she expressed to me about her sisters character inadvertently told me my #1 daughter is involved in an affair going on since before her daughter was born. I am BESIDE myself because she asked me NOT to say it came from her! (She called back after upset with herself for having told me but felt unvalidated when I was defending her sisters character having no clue why she feels the way she does). I have known daughter #1 is unhappy and have been coaching her with communication, advising her to get out if she is that unhappy and she alone is in therapy at my recommendation for 2 years now. I am disgusted, disappointed and feel like a failure! I raised them better than this! I want to confront her but can’t reveal how I know. I feel like I am complicit by knowing and doing nothing. My son in law while not perfect deserves better! My granddaughter deserves better! What kind of an example is she setting? I am screaming internally. I have baggage when it comes to affairs having lived through a couple friends devastation when they experienced it. I am so disgusted with my daughter.. and I am so emotional .. .i am told her coworkers and boss know about it. I want to scream at her and shake her. It will kill me to not address this! But I don’t know how to handle it as my emotions are simply raging!

@Aspiration, I do feel for you. It’s clear this is having a big impact on you. I hope you’ve had a bit of time since posting to think and reflect. Taking time to think about things is really important - your actions now may affect your relationship with your daughter for the rest of your lives.

I’ve always held the view that as a parent I will always feel responsible for my children (26 and 31 now), and I’ll certainly always be there to love and support them as best I can, whatever path they chose to follow in life.

I think the keyword in your post title though is the word “adult”. Your children have grown up. They are adults. You have done your best to bring them up with good values. However, whether they live by those values, or whether they choose to live their life a different way is their choice. Is it up to us as parents to live their lives for them, or take responsibility for their actions? I think theyneed to be free to choose their own path. We just need to be there to love and support, and provide guidance if asked.

It’s interesting that you somehow seem to think that this is your fault, and that you have failed as a parent. If you think about it though, you can guide people and instil values in them, but you can’t really control them. All you can do is control how you react to what they do.

For whatever reason, your daughter has chosen not to share the details of her relationship with you. There may be many different reasons for that, but I wonder if that’s something you need to respect, to come to terms with, and to accept?

If your daughter does choose to talk to you about it, and does seek your advice, then that would your opportunity to offer your counselling.

Jeff.

It might very well be that the daughter who is having an affair has suspected all along that your reaction would be as strong as it is now: disappointment, hurt, and, well, a strongly worded negative judgment. Further, if the daughter knows you well, she might have suspected that you would feel that her affair reflects negatively on your parenting skills. Clearly, for you, it does, and you then transfer the relationship between you and the daughter onto the relationship between her and your granddaughter, faulting your daughter for setting a bad example, even though the 4-year-old is probably too young to follow in her mother's footsteps, esp. if the affair is concealed in the household (it is not clear whether it is, because her colleagues and manager are, apparently, in the know).

Jeff ^ wrote well: "For whatever reason, your daughter has chosen not to share the details of her relationship with you." But could it be that the reasons the daughter did not confide in you were 1) the expectation of a harsh judgment coming from you, and 2) the desire to spare you the negative emotions from feeling that you failed as a mother in raising a daughter who strays in her marriage?

The affair is clearly long-playing, since it started before your 4-y-o granddaughter was born. Possibly, your son-in-law knows about it, and he and his wife might have entered into a tacit don't ask, don't tell arrangement. Who knows. Maybe he has seen signs but chosen to ignore them to avoid feeling psychic pain. There is no way to determine what is going on in their family. And there is nothing you can do at the moment, so why not step back and read some fiction books or watch some movies on the topic, i.e., where women having affairs are portrayed, to gain some perspective and get out of your current pain in which you probably feel that you are alone with this pain. There are also self-compassion meditations by Kristin Neff where she talks about common humanity– those might help you. Realizing that many grandmothers go through this, finding out their daughters are having affairs, and that realization will make you feel less alone with your pain.

To the extent that your daughter did not share with you because she wanted to protect you from the psychic pain of feeling disappointed and lacking in parenting skills, this shows care and concern on the part of the daughter for the well-being of her mother, which is laudable.

To the extent that your daughter did not share with you because she was trying to avoid being judged harshly by you, this is understandable.

The language you used, in describing your communications with the 35-y-o daughter, sounds a little off: "coaching her." She is too old to be coached by you (Jeff ^ put it better than I can). You advised therapy, and she accepted your advice; this is already very good. It means she values your recommendations. She respects you, and your opinion is highly valuable in her eyes. This is good, but it is also good enough–wanting to coach her is excessive. She will figure out what to do. She is a big girl. Maybe she has been actively discussing the situation with her therapist, who, if said therapist is a consummate professional, provides a confidential and non-judgmental environment. Leave it to them–the daughter, the therapist, possibly her men (the husband and the man she is involved with) to figure out what to do. There is no good scenario with your involvement in their lives given the situation and given your beliefs, so step back and focus on yourself, your own relationships, friendship, physical and mental health, reading, hobbies, travel, fitness, work, volunteering... whatever is most important to you Since you came to this forum, see the Relationships and Communications subforum, which, incidentally, is visited more often that this sub-forum, and read the stories. You will quickly see that there are many stories that describe circumstances much worse than what you have just described. This might provide solace. Better yet, start responding, as you might help other people in the safety of an anonymous setting, and your energy will be redirected from feeling internal pain and beating yourself up over what you believe to be your failure as a parent onto something more constructive and worthwhile.

ETA coaching when the adult child requests it is another story. If you have special expertise the child doesn't have because of the child's age or because the child is in a different line of work or has a different profile of interests and skills, and asks to be couched, i.e., takes the initiative and actively seeks out couching by one of the parents, why not provide said coaching? And maybe I made an assumption that your daughter did not actively seek your guidance and coaching. If she did and you provided it, I take back what I wrote in my previous post.

You’ve been put in a hard spot being given this information but being unable to betray your 2nd daughter’s confidence, I can’t imagine how that must feel.

You’ve received a couple of replies that I think are very wise, but you haven’t replied so not sure if you’re reading them. Not much I can add other than to say as a mother of an adult I would urge you to stand back and see the big picture, not just the devastation this affair will bring, but think perhaps about how things might look and feel 10 years from now. By that I mean how do you want your relationship with her and your grandchild to be?

I don’t have experience of the situation you describe, but I do have experience of harsh words said in the moment- trust me, they stay with you, and that relationship is never quite the same again. You’re very wise to pause and to come here to seek support. I hope things will work out.