End of the Innocence

On Friday my mother told me my father has engaged in a twenty year affair.  My father has told me and my siblings different stories about the state of my parents marriage and this third party so I don't know what to believe.  I have always considered my father the better parent and really my hero in life just after my husband.  To say I'm devastated is taking it a bit too far but I am very confused and sad for our entire family including the small children who will live with the shame to some extent for the rest of their lives.

What doesn't make sense is that my father was always around.  He's still around.  He has been what I consider a very devoted partner for my mother.  No child, no matter how old should hear what I've heard from my mother.  She's devastated but I think, is only making matters worse.  I think she's in shock.  They are not open to my advice.  I suggested they go to Retrouvaille because, believe me, many of those couple have survived affairs.  They know what the pain feels like.  But it's not really pain, it's insanity.  You lose all sense of reality when your spouse cheats on you.  However, my mother made it freakingly clear in a terribly articulate voice, "This is not a problem with our marriage.  It is your father's problem."  Sadly, this is not true.

So, I feel a tremendous amount of compassion towards both of them, mostly my mother although my Retrouvaille friends suggest I show love towards my father which I haven't been able to do the last few days.

OK, so here's the really dirty secret.  For at least eight years, my mother has been a d.rug add.ict.  Presc.ription dru.gs but dru.gs nonetheless.  She's been practically ho.me bou.nd for the same period of time.    I had tried to do an intervention about five or six years ago but my father would not participate and the interventionist said, "No spouse, no go."  Just last week I asked my father to take some action and he refused.  He always says my mother is too smart to go along with treatment.  Intelligence only gets you so far.

Secrets abound in my family.  I learn something new everyday about what random family member confessed to another but nobody knows if what was confessed is the truth.  I never had a perfect family but I thought it was pretty good.

I called my mother today to ask her, naively, how she was doing.  She said my father needed to see a geriatric doctor.  I asked her who would make the appointment.  "You or your sis.ter.  I've been cheated on for twenty years, why should I do it?"  My siblings, in my view, don't take as much action as me.  I won't detail the ridiculous issue they've chosen to focus on to distract them from real life issues.  I can't bring myself to actually type the words.  Believe me, it's crazy.  But my mother hung up on me and told me I'd said a horrible thing about my sibling.  I guess I'm in the dog house now.

I pray every chance I get.  It's practically every minute.  I resolved not to call them for at least a few days.  I thought about sending a card just to say, "I love you both.  I and lots of other people are praying for you."

I'm open to good advice.  It's been clear just how important God can be to a person.  If you keep God in mind, how can you do wrong?