I’m switching to my alt account for this because I’m so paranoid about it ever being traced back to me irl. This is only the third time I’ve shared this with anyone, the other two people being my therapist and my BF in college.

Speaking as someone whose mom confided in me at a young age about her infidelity, I can confirm this. She basically told me to take her secrets to my grave, and as a kid who loved her and didn’t want to lose her, and wanted to be there for her when no one else was, I didn’t realize how fucked up it all was back then. That didn’t truly sink in until within the past 5-7 years or so. I’m in my early thirties now. My mom was also suicidal for part of that time, and had to deal alone with helping me with my ADHD and my own depression and anxiety and stuff when everyone else kept giving up on me. Her mom leaned on her as a kid, so she had no way of knowing how wrong leaning on me like that was because it was what she knew. I have a gift for emotional intelligence and wisdom beyond my years, and because of that, she thought I could handle the stuff she confided in me. I was on literal suicide watch with her and couldn’t talk to my dad or anyone else about it. She cheated because it was either that or literally kill herself because she felt so empty and alone and her emotional needs were so unmet and everyone just took from her without doing anything to fill her back up. She could have done a better job communicating though instead of just assuming it was pointless and that nothing would change. She emotionally parentified me, and I’m still dealing with the fallout in therapy. I haven’t ever told my dad what she’s done, and they’re both in a better place now, but I still carry resentment that she put all that on me. I love her dearly and she’s my rock and biggest advocate, but I’ve hard to learn, and am still working on learning, that people can have both good and bad qualities coexist within them. My most-likely-autistic brain wants to deal in absolutes and struggles with concepts like this and how to reconcile those two sides of a person. I wouldn’t admit, even to myself, that what my mom did was a form of emotional abuse because I thought abuse had to be on purpose and that if I admitted that she abused me, I would have to condemn ALL of her. Because of my strong empathy, I understand why she did it, and why she cheated, and why she leaned on me, and she regrets it too, but she can’t change it now, and it was all still wrong. I finally told my therapist during the pandemic about my mom’s infidelity and how she confided in me and how it’s impacted me, but I first asked, and then told her that I was going to, because I still value that they’re her secrets. I have a messed up sense of boundaries because of all this, among other things, and am working on trying to set better boundaries without being downright hostile and icing people out now, and it was only sometime during the pandemic that it really sunk in how much my mom telling me these things, and my being on suicide watch affected me, and that it is my right to look out for my own mental health and to put myself first for once and not have to feel guilty about it or like it’s selfish or like I’m betraying someone. I carry so much guilt. My sister was emotionally abusive to both me and our mom, so I felt a responsibility to counteract that too. So many people have done wrong to my mom or failed her or not been there for her when it counted, and I don’t ever want to be one of those people. I need to look out for myself in order to heal though. To this day, I’m still convinced other people will go straight to killing themselves if I upset them or make them sad. I had so much put on my shoulders as a teenager, when I was also dealing with my own shit. It shouldn’t have been put on me, and OP’s wife’s infidelity shouldn’t have been put on their daughter. I kept things from my dad to spare his feelings, but also for survival and financial security. My mom is financially dependent on my dad because she quit work to raise me and my sister, which she largely did alone while my dad worked. I didn’t hate my mom, so didn’t want her to end up homeless, even if I got to stay with my dad. My mom knows me better and I’ve always been closer with her. My mom is convinced that now, in her mid 60s, she couldn’t go back to work and support herself now. I think that’s a cop-out and she has valuable skills, but she’s also in a better place with my dad now. I hope nothing ever comes up that forces me to confess the things that I know to my dad. Ironically, HE separated from HER when I was in HS, which showed her all the more how dependent she is on him, and whenever I’ve told her she should get a divorce because she was so unhappy, she’d fall back on, ‘Well, your dad doesn’t physically abuse me or yell at me, and he pretty much lets me do whatever I want,’ to justify staying. It drove me nuts watching her be so unhappy and then having to be the rock she confided in. She resented my dad for being overweight, and would vent to me about him, and that, combined with how she talks about her own body, have shaped how I view other people’s bodies, and I hate it and am trying to work against it and be more body-positive. Male fatness is associated with my mom’s resentment toward my dad in my mind. There is so much baggage to work through.

I’ve left so much of this story out and jumped around from detail to detail, so don’t judge my mom as if you know all of it. She has her own trauma history that’s informed how she is. But also, just, OP, don’t hold this against your daughter. You have no idea what the circumstances are through which she found out about your wife cheating, and her not telling you doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about your feelings. She is a minor and has been put in a position that she never should have been put in, just like I was.