Mother's affair with exchange student shocks child
Dear Amy: When I was 16, our family had a foreign student come live with us on a summer exchange program. He was also 16.
He wanted to stay beyond his visa, so my parents arranged to take legal guardianship of him.
It was very stressful having him move into our family. My mom and I constantly fought about his presence in our home.
Six months following the guardianship, my dad moved out and my parents divorced.
Eventually, my siblings and I grew up and all left home, except the boy, who lived at home with our mother until he was 24.
My siblings and I all moved on from this stressful, fracturing time in our family.
The now-adult guy recently contacted me over Facebook to apologize for "ruining my family," disclosing that he was my mother's boyfriend during his time with our family.
In shock, I called my mother, and she insisted that this relationship was consensual, and that the relationship occurred "only after the guardianship had ended" (when he had turned 18 years old).
I don't understand why he found it necessary to tell me about their relationship.
I feel shocked, hurt and betrayed -- oscillating between considering that my mom is a child predator (grooming and taking guardianship of him), to realizing that she must have had very strong feelings for him to choose him over me, and our family.
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