The cheater dad and his new wife should be excluded from everything. It’s not for nothing the phrase “you’re dead to me” is in the language; and love does NOT conquer all. What makes people think that because they want what they want when they want it that it’s OK? I hope the sorry excuse for a dad and his miserable wife are cut from his kid’s lives. They’ve certainly messed up life backward for his family, at least. And all the posters who say the abandoned wife is to blame for being “bitter” – that’s just another way of excusing his behavior. She should be, and has a right to be, as angry as she likes. So what if it’s been five years? Mourning the loss of a relationship takes different times for different people. After all, if he has a right to want what he wants when he wants it, she has to suppress her anger because why exactly? It seems like all the guilty cheaters out there posting and reading this think, “no, no, she has no right to be angry or bitter, she has to be the adult or we will judger her very harshly.” What’s all that about? Take off your idiot goggles and face reality. The dad messed around, messed up, and has no right to his old family. At all.

Maybe if the dad wasn't married to such a scum sucking bitch & his kids were not ungratefull, self entitled assholes, he never would had an affair & left.

Dumb Blond

Where is that coming from? It's so totally unlike you. Are you being sarcastic and I'm totally missing it?

Methinks DumbBlonde may have been The Other Woman.

My response would have been to toss a guy who's ruled by his dick AND his little fuckpuppet to the curb.

Wait.....My father DID bring his fuckpuppet home for dinner. With her husband....

What an asshole.

The second wife is taking her husband's word for it that it was his first wife who made things terrible. For all she knows, he was just as much to blame.

angel-of-death:

The cheater dad and his new wife should be excluded from everything. It’s not for nothing the phrase “you’re dead to me” is in the language;

Wow. I'm glad I'm not your relative. Certainly there's a good chance that Dad is an ass and it would be understandable if his children want to cut him out of their lives. However, I would caution someone from cutting a close family member out of their life in this fashion when personal safety is not at stake. You may find yourself regretting a decision you made out of anger.

angel-of-death:

I hope the sorry excuse for a dad and his miserable wife are cut from his kid’s lives. They’ve certainly messed up life backward for his family, at least.

I'm not sure that his adult children'd lives were messed up backward (whatever that means) by his actions. Certainly they were upset over his actions, but how much will this actually mess them up?

angel-of-death:

The dad messed around, messed up, and has no right to his old family. At all.

Well no one has a "right" to their family at all, even people who don't "mess up". But holding on to anger for years over someone's actions when the past can't be changed isn't healthy. After all, this man might have been a perfectly good father. Some people are good parents, but bad spouses (or vice versa). His children may find that they miss having dad around once in a while if they banish him from their lives.

I was reacting to angel of deaths over the top judgement post.

What ‘messed their lives up backward’ means is that any good memories they might have had of their dear old papa are now tainted by the knowledge that he had no self control and no morals. The honorable thing to have done would’ve been to leave the marriage BEFORE messing around, and not throw an atom bomb on the house. Therefore, their reality since birth (backwards from the present) is called into doubt. What a fine man to do that to his supposed ‘loved ones.’

BTW, I'm glad you're not related to me either.

I come from a family where this situation happened twice: My Dad's father left his mother and married his mistress when my dad and one of his brothers were in their twenties; my Dad's youngest brother was in his teens. The second time is when my dad's middle brother (who actually punched out his father for leaving his mother) left his own wife to marry his mistress; he also left five kids of varying ages.

Both situations caused hard feelings, and different children reacted in their own way. Some (like my dad) treated their father and his second wife like pariahs. Others (like my dad's youngest brother) reached out, and maintained some relationship with their father and his new family (albeit somewhat frosty). Neither my grandfather nor my uncle helped the situation -- my grandfather cut off most contact with his old family himself, and my uncle acted as if he had every right to leave his wife for the woman he loved. For the record, to my knowledge, neither my grandmother nor my aunt were known to be bitches or abusive women (their "crime" was that they were either too fat or too old compared to the mistresses).

I agree, in principle, that families should forgive and forget. In reality, though, it takes a very big heart to overlook the betrayal that occurs when dad announces that he not longer loves/ never really loved mom and he was trading her in for a newer and better model. The daughter inviting her dad to the wedding sounds like she is making a big first step on the road to forgiveness (and "forgiveness" is the right word -- many hard feelings are present). Asking her to invite the "other woman" is asking too much -- it may happen over time, but remember that it's dad with whom the kids have the relationship. Accepting (and forgiving)the woman who the kids believe helped break up the family may require a saint-like capacity for forgiveness and acceptance. Not many people can do it.

'fuckpuppet' I hadn't heard that one before. I have to remember that one.

I just call my now ex husband ' the bozo' and the strumpet he took up with, then gave me the 'opportunity' to continue my marriage if I let him live with her half the time.. 'the twinkie' 'cause she was about as real as one. And they are relatively 'low value' words as far as emotional impact go. (Yes, I tossed him out over that ultimatum)

Hmmm. Oh, yeah. To her, I was the 'Bitch who is keeping my master from me'. Or so she told co-workers at the time... at a job that *I* had found for her, at a company owned by a friend of mine.

He's paying for his indescretion. (Paying all her bills, from a couple months after I kicked him out) She lost her job due to messing up paperwork, we don't know if it was on purpose or not. I had made it clear I didn't want her to lose her job - not on my account.

Wrenn:

I just call my now ex husband ' the bozo' .

That's what I call my ex, too. Are they related?

I don't feel bad that he left her, too. I only feel bad for the additional child he abandoned.

Wrenn:

To her, I was the 'Bitch who is keeping my master from me'.

The bitch who kept her MASTER from her? What kind of stuff were they into? I would've told her, if he was a true master, no one would be able to keep him from anyone!

Under ancient Roman law, the husband had the right to have affairs, and to divorce the wife on virtually no pretext. It's not for nothing the term "patriarch" is in the language.

After divorcing wife #1, he would have arranged the daughter's marriage, and she would have obeyed on pain of death. There would be no question of inviting or permission.

What makes people think they can defy this father's rights? After all, the language has a term for it, so it's clearly OK.

Under Vespasian, Roman women had the same rights to divorce as men, and if their husbands' affections were alienated by someone lower on the totem pole, or worse, a slave, then the jilted wife had the right to ask for the torture or death of the other woman.

Women also had some property and class rights. If they had married into a Patrician family, they had the right to keep that status, and so did any children of the marriage.

In truth, this led to a lot of wives being sent off to the Provinces to languish in country estates for most of their lives.