Dad Wonders If He’s Wrong For Not Encouraging Son To Speak To Mom Who He Caught Cheating
Was this really the right choice for his son?
Motortion Films / Shutterstock A 39-year-old father and his 39-year-old (soon to be) ex-wife are going through a bit of a messy divorce that has them fighting over their 14-year-old son’s custody.
Both parents are fighting for primary custody of their son, but when the time came for the judge to ask the teenager what he wanted, he said he wanted nothing to do with the mother.
Now, the father is wondering if he’s wrong for not helping his son keep a relationship with his mother.
As all well-informed internet beings on the internet do when their controversial actions get slighted, the father went to the melting pot of Reddit to post his misgivings on the famous subreddit, “r/AmItheA--hole” (AITA).
On “r/AmItheA--hole,” web philosophers will give you a rating based on the information you give them on your post about whether or not you are the “a--hole.”
The ratings are usually “Not The A--hole” (NTA) or “You’re The A--hole” (YTA), but sometimes there’s an “Everyone Sucks Here” (ESH) or a “No A--holes Here” (NAH) rating.
You might think that this father deserves a YTA based on my summary, but the context helps you realize why that might not be the case.
“I thought everything was fine with our relationship until my son told me that he walked in on her cheating on me with our next door neighbours son (20ish I think) - it’s been going on for a year now,” wrote the father.
Quite the bomb to find by a 14-year-old teenager who has to deal with the repercussions of his own mother’s actions.
As a result, the father moved out and took all of his things with him, but his son wanted to come too.
“I made him stay with her till I got a place lined up but ever since he’s been living with me and is refusing to spend time with her or even speak with her,” he writes.
“The entire time I’ve been supportive of this. She’s scum as far as I’m concerned and I don’t see why I should try to convince him otherwise.”
The father emphasizes that although he’s not doing anything to convince him otherwise, he hasn’t been badmouthing his mother either and that he’s trying to let his son figure it out on his own.
“[My sister tells] me that I should be telling my son off whenever he expresses how he feels about his mother and that I should be encouraging him to sort things out with her and to see things from her perspective,” he wrote.
However, he shouldn’t have to be the one who does that, especially in a situation like this.
It’s not like she spent her son’s life savings or got rid of the family pet — she cheated on her husband, betrayed her marriage, and likely scarred her son for life.
“My wife cheated on me for a college kid and threw me and our son away for it,” he continues, “I don’t get why I should be helping her to get away with this regarding our son and his feelings about the situation.”
However, his family members are giving him slack for it, so he decided to see what the internet would say about this awful situation.
Surprisingly, not everyone is in agreement that the father isn’t the “a--hole.”
While most people argue that he didn’t need to “poison” his son because his mother did that on her own, a lot of people don’t support pushing his son away from his mother.
People wrote about their experiences as children who had to deal with their parent's divorce and how they wished their single parent would have done more to repair those relationships.
They’re likely worried that since the child is so young and still developing, he’ll harbor feelings of resentment towards all women or won’t be able to work through his feelings.
People brought up therapy, but the son doesn’t want to go to therapy, and so the argument that a 14-year-old is old enough to make these decisions for himself comes back up on the “NTA” side.
Whatever the case, it does look like there are more NTA votes than ESH, because nobody likes a cheater but unfortunately, most people have suffered from one.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.