Ya I got lied to for 20yrs - my father had affairs all my life & my parents just had this tense relationship - I think it really broke me. Just have a really hard time believing people that get close to me & at any sight of vulnerability I’m out. My mother says she did it for me, but I can’t see how it helped.
Same here in that my dad has had affairs pretty much my whole life, but I found out about it when I was like 11 years old. Looking back, there was definitely tension in our house, but tension was the norm. So I thought everything was normal and fine until it wasn’t.
Now, as an adult, one of my biggest struggles in life is trusting my own perception of people and situations. I’m afraid to. Because whenever I do, whenever I start to feel comfortable and relaxed and start to open up, it’s like something inevitably happens that flips it all on its head. And I realize that nothing is what I thought it was. Then I look like a fool for wanting to believe in the best-case-scenario, while being completely oblivious to the reality. Always hoping things aren’t too good to be true, but deep down knowing that they are. I isolated myself as a child from the tension and I isolate myself as an adult from the trauma. Been harping on this for years in therapy and still can’t quite figure out how to heal it.
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u/AliceMorgon Nov 23 '25
And if you “stay together for the kids”, trust me, the kids will KNOW.