"I actually got a role model.."

Anthony’s story: My mother’s lover was my role model

Anthony grew up in a home where his parents often argued about his father’s alleged affairs. In fact, he remembers feeling grateful as a child when he came down with bronchitis because it provided a respite, forcing his parents to concentrate on his health rather than bicker at each other. Anthony never saw his father with another woman, but he did come into close contact with someone else who was instrumental in shaping Anthony’s adult behavior: the man whom Anthony is certain was his mother’s secret lover. Although he has only recently become aware of the extent to which his mother’s infidelity has influenced his adult relationships, Anthony is beginning to realize that his own romantic choices and predilections are loosely modeled after those of the gentleman who was his mother’s secret boyfriend.

Anthony claims to have freely chosen to be “the other man” in a series of love triangles, but might he actually be acting out the infidelity drama that he witnessed as a young boy? Acting out is never a behavior one freely chooses. Rather, we engage in acting out behavior when we are unconsciously grappling with unresolved issues. This is how Anthony described how the drama of infidelity first appeared to him as a child.

I was pretty young, I’m not even sure how old, but my mother had a friend who would come over and visit her. In some way, I knew that they had a kind of relationship, and yet there was nothing I saw that would prove my mother was unfaithful. But this man would come and be with her and would never come over when my father was there. Even at that young age, I was suspicious. I remember asking my mother, “What is this man doing here in my house?”


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Excerpt from my book "Parents Who Cheat".