QU31 brings up a VERY good point. My father ran his own business which was located right directly behind our house...a walk of about 10 steps...yet he was a VERY absent father. My mother had basically disappeared from my life except for the 4 days a month she had us and that was too much for her.
i made efforts to talk to him on occation by going into his shopping and talking to him, but he still barely acknowledged my presense. i would sometimes talk about his work...pretending i wanted to know something...just so he would talk to me, but even then it was brief and he'd be quickly back absorbed into what he was doing.
he was so busy with his life that my best friend's family often introduced me to people as 'their adopted daughter' since i was with them so much and wouldn't have ever gotten to do anything if they hadn't picked me up for afterschool functions and church and stuff.
what made it worse was that my step-mother and step-sister ignored me for years unless it was to tell me to do something or yell at me. my father never batted an eyelash because he was TOO wrapped up to even notice or care.
my point....he never changed....he only got worse. to the point where the only time i could ever spend time with him was if i followed him to his favorite bars. even then i was usually not paid much attention to. and because of his self-absorbed ways....when we did talk he usually said something hurtful for not having a clue what his words actually meant to my life.
i gave him chance after chance. i finally stopped talking to him completely for a year and then decided to give him another chance and went out to a club with him. when he refused to stop talking about my ex (who had been an alcoholic friend of his) even after my repeated asking him not to....well i told him i had to leave. he said he would walk me to my car.
that turned into him being his typical self-absorbed self and thinks-he-knows-better and i'd had enough so i told him off. he literally punched the window of my car when i told him to get a life and stop drinking and start thinking of other people for a change.
That was 2 years ago and i haven't willingly spoken to him since. and i have NO desire to ever speak to him again.
MY main point is that regardless of if you realize it or not...there is a HUGE price you pay for putting things other than family first in your life. The affair is only the beginning and not surprising to me.
i pray this is your wakeup call...and you are able to really realize what is of true importance in life. like i said before, "we work to live...we don't live to work."
hugs,
jenna