Am I the asshole for not speaking to my father?
I (F19) have two sisters, F13 and F7. We all live with our parents (F42 and M41).
Recently, something happened between my parents that affected our entire family. My father cheated on my mother. According to him, it was only an exchange of messages, but even so, my mother decided to forgive him. I, however, cannot do the same, and since then I have stopped speaking to him. My mother wants me to talk to him again, and this has caused conflicts between us.
It all started on Mother’s Day, when my mother discovered the betrayal. My sisters and I were asleep when the argument happened. When we woke up the next morning, my father was gone. He stayed away from home for an entire week, and neither my sisters nor I had any news about him.
During that week, my mother was devastated. She cried every day, spoke at times about not wanting to live anymore, and ended up neglecting my sisters and me to some extent. I do not blame her for that, because she had just received one of the worst pieces of news a person can receive in a relationship: she had been betrayed and disrespected by someone she trusted. My youngest sister did not understand what was happening because she is so young. She only kept asking where our father was. My middle sister, however, suffered greatly because of everything. Since then, she has developed depression and experiences panic attacks.
After a week, my mother spoke with my father and decided to forgive him. He came back home and tries to act as if everything is normal. But for me, it is not. Two days after he returned, he asked to speak with me. He apologized for what he had done and said he did not want to justify his mistake. However, throughout the entire conversation, it felt like that was exactly what he was doing. Then he said something that I cannot get out of my head: he told me that I was partly responsible for the affair.
According to him, if I helped more around the house, my mother would have had more time to dedicate to him, and maybe this would not have happened. He also said that children share responsibility for the success or failure of a marriage.
Since that conversation, I have not been able to speak to him. He complains to my mother, says he regrets what he said, that it was not what he meant, and that he is hurt because I will not talk to him. My father has always been an excellent father. Throughout my life, I admired him deeply. But it feels like this mistake destroyed the image of the perfect father I had of him. What hurts me most is not only the betrayal itself, but the fact that he tried to place part of the blame on me.
My mother says I should start talking to him again, but I simply cannot. I am exhausted from the daily arguments about it, and I feel lost.
Am I the asshole for not speaking to him? What should I do in this situation? I honestly cannot take it anymore.