My father told me he cheated on my mother during their entire marriage

I (23F) always knew my parents shouldn’t have been married. They were always so different and my dad (60s??? M) was away a TON the entire marriage. I have extreme issues with how often my dad was away throughout my childhood, and it ruined our relationship. When my parents were divorced (after I graduated HS) I started on my relationship with my dad to help fix it. My mom went through a nervous breakdown after the divorce and divulged my father had cheated. My father would never confirm of deny. Years later while my mom was drunk I convinced her to tell me with who my dad cheated. She said it was with one of his very close family friends. I finally got the courage to ask him, and he said he never slept with the family friend. Instead he divulged (completely unprompted) that he cheated A TON during the marriage and that one of his exes shipped a box full of his stuff to my family home while he was still married to my mom. I am in shock. I am hurt for my mother, but even more through me. I was diagnosed with bulimia in middle school and after intensive therapy we realized my vomiting was a control mechanism because of the lack of control I had in my relationship with my father. The man who ruined our relationship spent his time sleeping with other women. I can’t believe he told me this and I don’t know how to fix this. I’m sorry if there are errors I literally just found out and am typing through tears. My mom is my best friend and we are incredibly close, but he told me she isn’t aware of half of this. I am devastated and feel like all the work I did with my dad in adulthood was for absolutely nothing and is worthless now.

TL;DR my father shared w/ me unprompted that he cheated on my mother their entire marriage. I don’t know if we can ever fix this.

Submitted June 09, 2022 at 08:23PM by vavavoom17 https://ift.tt/WNSLrjx