“Is It My Job to Comfort and Side with My Betrayed Parent?”

Molly:
As a teenager, I moved in with another family. I just didn’t want to be in my family. My whole goal in life as a teenager was to get away from all of them. I went to live with my best friend’s family. I would go home on the weekends, but I feel like her family really saved me. She had a wonderful dad and a mom who was totally the opposite of mine. They were perfect for me. It was such a relief to be away from all the chaos and tension, you know? So, God bless them for taking me in. I was there every night for two years.

Dr. Nogales:
It is understandable that Molly would want to escape from the sadness, anger and chaos left behind when her father’s infidelity led to his abandonment of the family. Leaving home was a healthy choice for her in the sense that it allowed her to distance herself from the family conflict, but in another sense she did what her father had done: leave. Children of infidelity whose cheating parent leaves the home are bound by two worlds—that of the betrayer who takes off, and that of the betrayed who is left behind. Either world feels uncomfortable, and the child is left with the feeling of being trapped. Molly felt trapped because even though she experienced a sense of relief being at her friend’s house, she continued to worry about her betrayed mother. She went home on the weekends to be with her mom, and as an adult she continued to take care of her mother in various ways.
Molly couldn’t prevent the emotional scars of parental infidelity. For years she chose older partners, perhaps in an attempt to replace the fathering she missed. And it took her a long while to deal with her anger toward her father and her resentment toward her mom, and to fully understand the repercussions of her family’s upheaval. Molly feels fortunate to have found a therapist when she was in her twenties who helped her sort through the parental infidelity-related issues she was still struggling with.