rediffGURU Anu Krishna counsels a daughter whose father is having an affair with a young, unmarried neighbour.
- You can post your questions to rediffGURU Anu Krishna HERE.
Imagine this: You have just lost your mother.
Your family is still reeling from the loss.
Then you find out that your father is in a relationship with someone else. Someone younger.
Obviously, you are not prepared for this emotional storm.
How do you talk to your father or tell him how you feel about the whole situation?
rediffGURU Anu Krishna, mental health coach and co-founder of Unfear Changemakers LLP, counselled a daughter whose father is having an affair with a young, unmarried neighbour.
Anonymous: After the death of my mother, my father (54 years old) is having an extramarital affair with an unmarried neighbour (25).
Nobody knows about it except our family.
My sister (21) and I (23) tried our best to make our father understand that this is not the correct time to do such things but he is not listening to us and is not ready to understand.
It looks useless for him to have an affair with her because there is no future in this relationship.
The age gap is also huge. Her parents also don't know about it.
Neither can we tell them about it, because they will target our family and ruin our lives.
They can also file a police complaint against our family if they get to know about it.
I am sure they will also deny this relationship.
We took help from our relatives too, but it didn't work.
Don't know what to do. Can you please help?
Dear Anonymous, your father is just coping with his loss in this manner; it's unusual and very complicated.
Now, whether it is right or not is something he should decide. But he does need to understand that this could also ruin the reputation of that young girl.
She is under his influence in terms of attention (physical and maybe emotional).
It's likely that once he's through the grieving phase, he will drop the girl like a hot potato, and she will have nowhere to talk and complain about it.
Do involve an elderly family member who can talk sense into him.
This is not just about respecting your late mother but also understanding the repercussions of having an association with a younger woman and that too a neighbour.
If he is just doing this to forget his grief, it's not going to end well for anybody.
All the best!
- You can post your questions to rediffGURU Anu Krishna HERE.
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