agonyaunt | Dear Prudence: My Mother Dated My FIL. It Ended Badly

My father-in-law is a well-known womanizer. My husband had four stepmothers before he turned 20. My father-in-law has one saving grace in that he cared for his stepchildren as his own (one stepdaughter and her son currently live with him). He is a very charming man. My parents just had a divorce after being married for 30 years. Long story short, my newly single mother hooked up with my father-in-law over Christmas at my house! It creeped me out, and I warned my mother that my father-in-law has never been faithful in his life. She told me she knew what she was doing. They began to publicly date this spring, and the relationship crashed and burned as I predicted. My mother caught him cheating.

She is still furious and refuses to attend any family event (including her grandchildren’s activities!) where she might see him. Everyone comes to my home, since it is the largest and most comfortable. It is mostly my in-laws (stepsisters and their kids, my cousins, etc.), since my brother and father both moved out of state. My husband and I both work and have three kids; it is hard to find time to just see my mother besides a quick lunch. My father-in-law has personally apologized to me for the “trouble” he caused, while my mother sulks. She complains about “that man” being in my home and how I should be on her side. I love my mother, I am sorry she is hurting, but literally every one of us told her my father-in-law was a hound dog. The man had five failed marriages before he hit 50! What do I do with my mother?

A: I can understand your frustration with your mother, but I wouldn’t be quite so quick to laugh off your father-in-law’s actions. If it’s inappropriate for her to sleep with your father-in-law, it’s surely just as inappropriate for him to sleep with your mother, and the fact that he treats all of his romantic and sexual partners badly all of the time doesn’t exactly mean it should be laughed off. He slept with your newly single, emotionally vulnerable mother during a family holiday and then cheated on her a few months later. The fact that he cheated on all his other wives doesn’t make it fine. You say that you tried to warn her in advance, but my guess is that he didn’t lead with “Hey, I cheat on everybody I date.” He may very well have given her a plausible justification or charming deflection. Of course, that doesn’t mean that your mother isn’t responsible for her own behavior, and you did of course warn her about his dating history. I just don’t want you to think of her as an idiot for thinking he wanted to be with her or as totally unreasonable for feeling hurt now.

If you have to prioritize one of them over the other, I think you should ask him to work around her schedule, at least for the immediate future. That won’t always be possible, of course, and I think it’s fine for you to set certain limits and say to your mom, “I love you and I agree that he’s a dog, but I also told you not to date him and I can’t always rearrange things to your benefit to make sure you don’t have to see your ex. I’m sorry, but this is how it has to be.”

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I didn't post the other one from this page (about the joke) because everyone has heard enough from me about bigotry lately.

This one struck me as the contrapositive, maybe, of the one where the LW's daughter and stepson dated and broke up.

this is definitely popcorn-worthy! frankly, I feel most for the LW

I can't really support the mother's position much. people get hurt in breakups, and often have to deal with the other party in social/work settings afterwards. no one is taking his side, she's not being required to host him in her own home, and if she can't pull it together for an hour or two for the occasional gathering, then quick lunches might be all she gets for a while (though I do wonder at just why the LW says there isn't time for more - unless mother expects 14-course dinners, surely they could get together for a family meal or Saturday afternoon sometimes)

I feel a bit torn -- I have very little sympathy for "he did X but he'll be different with me", but just because LW's mom had been warned he was a cheating liar doesn't excuse him for being a cheating liar.

But mostly I'm eating popcorn. What a soap opera!

I also feel torn—LW’s FIL was cruel, and her mother was dumb—but LW needs render no judgments. To me, that’s the key. LW doesn’t have to pick a side. This is not her fight, and she can refuse to get involved.

I have sympathy for the mother up to the point where she tries to make this LW’s problem. That I find inappropriate. LW would be justified telling both her mother and FIL that this is between them and to leave her out of it.

Edited 2021-08-19 02:54 (UTC)

Well, they kind of are taking his side. However they describe his behavior, they're clearly okay with it. He has no doubt hurt a lot of women, and LW talks about it like he farts at the dinner table. I'm willing to bet that there are a number of exes who wouldn't want to sit across the table from him at Thanksgiving. This is apparently just the first time that him hurting someone who isn't willing to just shrug it off as a charming character flaw is inconveniencing the LW. I wouldn't necessarily cut him out my family's life, but I sure as hell wouldn't frame this as my mother being unreasonable for not wanting to be around him, and I would, at least for a while, stagger who comes to what events instead of just acting like not inviting him is off the table.

you're right, and staggering attendance makes a lot of sense

I'm glad Prudie pointed out how LW is completely skipping over FiL's bad behavior, as if being a cheater is something he just stumbles into and not something he does. If LW's mother made a creepy mistake, so did he. Predictable or not, he should've had the grace not to do that in the family (or break up with her cleanly before it got to the point where he'd be cheating).

The very least LW can do is timeshare and kick FiL out of family events half the time. He deserves to have some consequences for the decisions he made.

Yeah, the mother made A Mistake; FIL has a pattern of very bad behavior to partners and even though his kids love him, he shouldn't be able to exclude the mother from all family events merely by him being an ass.

Agreed.

This is very true. I kind of feel a bit bad for LW's husband, though, who loves his dad despite what a dog the guy is, and now will find himself being timeshared, possibly Yet Again.

I was once in a smaller version of this (no one was related) where Two Different Friends told me not to date M, and I dated M, and he was just as fucked up as they had warned me. I do hope LW's mom can heal enough to find the humor in this and laugh about it with LW -- it's now a longstanding joke between me and those friends, and M has gone off to do whatever he will elsewhere. (That said it would be deeply annoying if I had to see M again at regular intervals till the end of time.)

Yeah, I suspect mom would find it easier to get to that place if she wasn't regularly reminded both of what happened and the fact that her family seems to think she got what she deserved.

Equal odds iThis is a case of “we tried to dissuade the person most likely to listen”

Bad breakup and FIL's cheating aside, who has a hookup in their kid's house? Couldn't they get a motel room or something? I worked at a motel for a while -- we were used to people popping in for a few hours and then driving off in separate cars.

I think LW might mean 'the started the relationship' during the family meeting at LW's house, not that they did the deed right there. I choose to understand that, at least XD

That is also my chosen interpretation for the sake of my small and tattered sanity.

One more for "do not date inlaws and stepsiblings"

I'll raise my popcorn bowl to that!

Dear Prudence: My Mother Dated My FIL. It Ended Badly

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