SINGAPORE: A young Singaporean sought advice online after her mum, who single-handedly supported the family, found out her dad was emotionally cheating.
Posting on Reddit’s ‘Singapore Raw’ forum on Wednesday (Jan 8), the young Singaporean said that after her dad’s businesses failed one after another, her mum took over taking care of the family for more than ten years.
Her mum also made countless sacrifices, including repaying all her dad’s debts to licensed moneylenders.
“She has been bearing the financial burden of the family… He destroyed my mum’s friendships and relationships as he coerced my mum into borrowing money from them. It clicked as I started to see why we suddenly stopped visiting these relatives during CNY,” she explained.
Aside from borrowing from everyone they were close to, her mum also withdrew a significant amount of her CPF savings to help him repay his mounting debts.
Her dad, meanwhile, has worked mainly for Grab to help repay his loans.
“We also had no car, so he relied on daily car rentals, which amounted to about $85/day. He does not contribute to the household in any form,” she added.
Despite all her mum’s sacrifices and efforts to keep the family afloat, everything collapsed when she found out about the infidelity. Her mum discovered an exchange of explicit messages between her dad and an ex-colleague, who, to make matters worse, was also married with two kids.
“The messages were damning, and they were already at the stage of arranging a meet-up at 9 pm that night. However, my dad and the woman could not come to an arrangement and decided to postpone their meeting,” she said.
“The following week, my mum found out they arranged another meeting and were going to meet up that night. But again, at the last minute, the woman was sick and requested to postpone,” she added.
When her mum finally mustered the courage to confront her dad about the affair, he denied everything but later backtracked and told her that “it was all just a ploy” so he could borrow money from the ex-colleague. Her dad also kept insisting that “he never really did anything.”
“My mum could not buy his story and ended up chasing him out of the house. He has been sleeping in his car since, and my mum is completely distraught and hurting. She wants to divorce him,” she wrote.
“I tried speaking to him… I don’t know if it’s a generation thing, but he doesn’t get that he emotionally cheated on her.”
At the end of her post, the young Singaporean admitted that, despite everything that’s happened, she’s still hoping her parents will work things out and that the family won’t fall apart.
She asked the Reddit community, “Is it normal that I just want everything to return to normal? Is there still hope for my family? Or am I being selfish because if I tell her not to divorce him, my mum will just continue to suffer in the future?
Or should I help repay my dad’s debts? But I’m afraid this whole cycle will repeat itself. What should I do?”
“Try to put yourself in your mum’s shoes…”
In the comments section, most of the Reddit users told the young Singaporean that instead of holding on to the hope that everything would go back to normal, she should focus on helping her mum.
They pointed out that her mum had already been through so much, from the emotional toll of her dad’s infidelity to the financial strain he had put on the family, and that she deserved to prioritize her own well-being now.
One Redditor commented, “It is best that your mother gets a divorce, and your father cannot continue to drag down the family finances with his debts.”
Another wrote, “It’s okay to feel this way but try to put yourself in your mum’s shoes. She’s currently clearing debt because of your cheating dad and her mental health.”
A third expressed, “I was going to say you sound selfish, but then I saw you asked yourself the same question. There you go. Think of your poor mother. Think of your useless father. Be objective. And be supportive.”
Still, there were a few who said that she could try to help her parents reconcile. One Redditor said, “There is a limited thing you can do because it’s the adult’s decision. I guess you can talk to both of them. Ask them to go for marriage counselling.”
In other news, a Singaporean worker took to social media to ask netizens if supervisors are allowed to plot the annual leaves of employees without consulting them.
She shared her situation on Reddit’s Ask Singapore forum on Sunday (Jan 5), explaining that she had initially requested leave for Chinese New Year. However, when she checked her ‘yearly leave schedule,’ she was disappointed that her request had been denied.
Featured image by Depositphotos (for illustration purposes only)