| > In a nutshell: Infidelity doesn't destroy a relationship. Instead, it grows out of serious problems within the relationship. Yup, she was co-dependent on him and he was a workaholic mechanic. There is more to the story than I have said: My father had a serious cocaine addiction (he is clean now); that combined with his workaholic nature (at the time) caused him to not be around my mother as much as he should have. She wished he would be around more with her and the cheating on him seems to be the side-effect of that issue. Those were the starting points of the relationship problems and they only worsened from there. My mother's mother ragged on her a lot about every mistake (big or small) she happened to make. I believe this caused her to have a hard time trusting her decisions and lowered her self-esteem. The codependency with my father and his lack of being around due to working (to help provide for us) was definitely a factor in her cheating on him; it seems to be a common problem of those whose significant other isn't around as much as they should (or would like them) to be. Thanks for the thoughts on healing, it's definitely a struggle. |