Why a daughter NEVER gets over a father’s infidelity

At weekends, I would return to see my father at the family home, where I had him all to myself. When I sat in the front of his BMW, I felt like the most special little girl in the world.

But my heart also broke to see the man I had hero-worshipped looking so utterly lost on his own. Suddenly, he seemed a mere mortal as he tried to fend for himself.

Then, one weekend, I turned up to find that he was no longer alone.

On the surface everything looked the same. My stuffed animals were still lined up at the end of my bed. If I went high enough on the garden swing, I could still kick the branches of the tree with my feet. But although the back-drop had not altered, the cast of characters in my family drama had changed for ever.

My mother’s walk-in closet, where I used to hide among her floaty Biba dresses, was now filled with the scent of another woman, and her more utilitarian clothes. The bed where I used to snuggle between my parents on weekend mornings was now off-limits, a boudoir where my father took his lover.

Even as a child, I had always understood that my father was irresistible to the opposite sex.

Because he seemed to revel in the attention of women – handsome and charismatic, he was an incorrigible flirt – the shadow of infidelity always hovered over my parents’ marriage. I was always dimly aware of some female waiting in the wings for my parents’ ailing relationship to falter, so she could move in for the kill.

It was only during their frequent separations that these shady figures would come sharply into focus, their names spat out with vitriol by my mother.

Because I grew up in a world where sex and flirtation were chaotic, destructive forces, I was to grow into a young woman who did everything I could to avoid them.

Even one of my nannies was in love with him. We loathed each other, so you can imagine my irritation when she reappeared after my mother left.

One evening, I was called into the living room by my father where the nanny, clearly banking on being his next wife, suddenly announced that she loved me and that we could all live happily together.

I felt so powerless, I simply burst into tears. Before I had even turned ten, I was learning this was a world were no one could be trusted and everyone let you down.

Since then, whenever anyone says anything nice to me, it takes a lot for me to believe them. I always ask myself what their motive might be. When trust is lost at the age when you are forming your view of the world, it is hard to regain it.

I can’t remember the first time I was formally introduced to one of Dad’s new lovers. I am sure I was as well-behaved as I would have been to any adult. But beneath the polite introductions, I was already learning to feel contempt for the ‘other women’ – a feeling that’s lasted to this day when I see other females justifying getting involved with married men with children.

The derision also came from the fact I felt sorry for my father’s girlfriends for not being able to live up to my elegant mother.

One night, I remember being kept awake by the sound of a woman’s laughter. Back then, mink coats were considered the height of glamour, and the visitor had left hers at the bottom of the stairs.

My mother had a wardrobe of real furs, and already I knew how to tell the real from the fake – by tugging at the tufts and seeing if they came free. So I crept downstairs, grabbed a handful and pulled. When the hairs stayed put – a sure sign her coat was man-made nylon – I had even more disdain for this other woman.

Later, the woman in those grinning pictures in the park moved into our house. My father’s other lovers faded away, and he later married this woman. She tried her best to be sweet to me, taking me shopping and letting me stay up late to watch TV. But I was so cynical at the age of nine that all I saw was a Machiavellian ploy to secure my father’s affections.

Kind as she was to me, I resented her stories of how she had met my father at a trendy wine bar in Covent Garden, as if it was some epic romance that involved no one else but her and him. I remember the jolt I felt when she informed me, far too grandly in my view, that she loved my father ‘very much’, as if that justified all the chaos.

With my father’s girlfriend now living in my family home, it looked like my fantasy that my parents could be reunited was dead. But then, as that summer started to fade, there was hope again.

After the collapse of his business, my father landed a big job in Australia. He promised my mother he would dump his lover, and we could all have a fresh start.

Despite everything, somehow she was convinced to give him one more chance. The mistress moved out. My mother and I moved back into the family home until it could be sold.

But before we went, my father said he had to take one last business trip to finalise some details on his new job. My mother’s sixth sense prevailed. She went to the mistress’s workplace and found she was also away that week. When my father came back, she searched his car and found ferry tickets to France.

The sight of my mother confronting him at the end of the garden, the recriminations drowned out by the strains of 10CC’s I’m Not In Love wafting from a neighbouring house, is one of the defining memories of my childhood. I can still see his head bowed, staring into the pond as she presented him with her evidence. All I felt was desperation to cling on to our ‘happy ever after’.

My mother pretended to forgive him. She let him get on the plane to Melbourne, promising we would follow. Only when he was 10,000 miles away did she inform him that we would not be coming. Instead, my father flew his lover over to join him. When my mother got a new boyfriend, too, I felt abandoned by everyone.

Divorcing parents so often have the solace of new partners. But there are no consolation prizes for the children. Losing a home with a mother and father who love you unconditionally is catastrophic, no matter how unhappy that household is.

I turned in on myself, becoming a solitary and introspective child who found refuge in the only thing I could control: my schoolwork.

Looking back, I now see I sank into depression, although of course in those days children were not supposed to have these feelings. As a result, I became known as the ‘difficult one’ – a label my mother applies to me to this day.

My father wrote letters to my mother begging her to reconsider. She stood firm. The moment their divorce came through, he married his girlfriend.

I realise now that my father’s new wife was perfect for him. She was supportive and adoring, just the qualities an insecure man like my father needed, but ones my less over-awed mother was never prepared to give. When he fell ill in his 40s, my step-mother nursed him until his death aged 57.

And yet, my scars continued to accumulate. As a teenager, I assumed no boy would ever want to go out with me. It didn’t surprise me when I was the only girl not to be asked to dance at school discos. After all, my own father had put other women before me, so I expected other men to do so, too.

At university, I lacked confidence so much I didn’t have a boyfriend until I was 21. I sought my self-worth not from men, but from my career. I couldn’t control how men behaved, but I could control how hard I worked.

I became a workaholic, with a horror of ever using my femininity as a tool to advance myself. While other colleagues flirted after work I stayed away, rather than get involved in the sex that had caused such destruction in my childhood.

I lived quietly with another journalist who worked as hard as I did. I reasoned he would never have time to cheat on me.

Our long relationship taught me love was possible, but I was serious and intense and rarely enjoyed myself. Because I had never known much happiness or fun as child, I didn’t feel I was entitled to those things in my adult life.

Finally, at 30, I left my boyfriend when the growing number of rows over the directions our lives were taking meant it was clear any marriage would not last. It was simply not a risk I was prepared to take for my future children.

When I met my husband later that year – through work, of course – I finally found someone who could offer me the stability and security I needed. Even though I have achieved many of my career goals, I now view my greatest achievement as finding a man who is the opposite of my father.

While my father was dramatic and volatile, Anthony is dependable.

Unanswered questions: Tanith will knew know if her father regretted his infidelity as he died in 1997

I admired Anthony’s family values, too – surely they would be an insurance against him straying. He grew up in a close Catholic family; his parents have been married almost 60 years. He was taught that the family unit is sacrosanct, with no revolving door.

Even so, before we married I still felt I had to spell out to him that I took a zero tolerance policy on infidelity. I told him in no uncertain terms that if I spotted so much as a frisson of flirtation, it would be over – no questions asked. It would not just be me he would be betraying. It would be our children.

With those trying to justify their extramarital affairs I am equally puritanical. One friend came to see me, in the grip of a delusional infatuation with a colleague, expecting me to sympathise with her reasons for having an affair.

I was furious. I told her bluntly I couldn’t care less about her passion or her boredom with her marriage. While she painted a picture of stolen moments and sexual tension, I told her all I could see was the faces of her young son and daughter when they found out.

As I know only too well, children who grow up with parents who put their own needs first often end up cynical beyond their years. But, as counsellor Phillip Hodson told me when he heard my story, in order to do that they have to lock away part of themselves that still feels ‘very angry and out of control’. I type these words and recognise these qualities in myself.

I am so aware of what infidelity could do to my children, I work to keep my marriage strong. Because I know how important it is for my girls to have a positive role model for the future men in their lives, I encourage their father to have one-on-one time with Clio, nine, and Lily, 12, – long walks and camping trips – so they feel valued in a way I never felt.

Knowing how precious the mental well-being of my two daughters is, I sometimes wonder if my father ever considered the consequences of his liaisons.

I will never know. He died in 1997. After he moved to Australia, I rarely saw him more than once a year and our relationship was always too damaged to have those ‘How could you?’ conversations.

But if he was here today, I would have one question for him: ‘Was it all worth it?’