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My parent's affair is in the past, but why does it still affect me?

The affects your parent's affair will have on you and on your relationship with your mom or dad depends on a number of things: your age when it happened, how aware you were of what was going on, how much conflict you were exposed to, whether or not your parents stayed together, how old you were when they separated, and what kind of relationship you had with your parent even before all this happened. But I know many people who are very aware of how the affects of a parent's affair continue to linger into their adulthood, often having impact on the way they view and experience their own relationships.

It's important for you to get help dealing with this. I strongly encourage you to talk to a counselor. And if there has never been an adequate repair of your relationship with your parent, you may want to address the issue with them even now, if that is possible. Start by writing a letter. Try to avoid direct attacks or blaming and, instead, focus on the difficulties you have experienced along with the feeling that things still are not "fixed" between the two of you. If you want a different kind of relationship, describe what that looks like, too.

I'll be honest with you, if your parent is not healthy, you may not get what you need from him/her, but I still think it is important for you to try. You may find the article Randi's Letter helpful. It's a true account of one father & daughter encounter years after his affair.

And I'd also encourage you to listen to the audio program Children & Affairs, where a brother and sister talk about their experiences in a family being torn apart by an affair.