"AITA for not forgiving my son for what he did?"

So here's I (53m) have a 3 adult children 26m, 24m, and 20f. So im gonna skip the build up and say we were a wonderful family unit I thought my kids were the best siblings until 24m slept with 26m's wife and after the divorce they got together and had a kid. 26m won't even acknowledge that he has a brother and we have all completely cut contact with him.

Unfortunately this means that I can't see my grandkids but when I last spoke to my son I told him " you sold your family for some disloyal @$$, I hope its worth it." Now I haven't spoken to him in about 3 years and we have begun to build my son back up to the man he was before. We were having a small party for his birthday and somehow someone who didn't know the story asked about his brother.

I said I don't know and they asked what he does and I said again I don't know and they started getting upset with me saying that its sad that a father doesn't know anything about his own son. I told them that he made his decision and I'm not gonna disuse this any further. Honestly I have missed my son but I can't began to think of how much it would hurt 26 to have me disregard his feelings for those 2. So AITA?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

SaltyBiscuit1 said:

She's probably gonna cheat on your son too since most cheaters cheat again.

Mindfullofdoubt said:

Ok, NTA in the situation, but does anyone else find the “disloyal @$$” comment problematic? I get it, you don’t like her, but that’s just a misogynistic way to express that dislike.

And kvs90 said:

NTA. Truth is , your 26m son needs your love and support. He is the one who suffered the ultimate betrayal. You may chose to, eventually, build a 1 on 1 relationship with 24m ( once 26m feels sufficiently healed ) , but to include him into the family fold , a millisecond before your eldest actually feels ready to (which he may never), would be T A move.

As a father, I think you are permitted to have a more discreet relationship with your disloyal son eventually, but anything more is a direct injury to your eldest.

EDIT:

I apologize for my failure to communicate this effectively but the affair happened for about a year before my son found out and the divorce happened. This happened 3 years ago and they were those ages at the time of the blow up they are now 29m 27m and 23f. Exwife/wife is now 28 and was 25 at the time.

They had been married for 4 years and my wife and sister loved her he was my wifes baby and the first one to get married and she would just adore any one that made one of her babies happy. When my wife died she took it as hard as any of us so I really thought of her as my daughter. 26 was alot like me he was brash and but hardworking but kinda unambitious.

My wife loved that about him and they were always closer to each other then they were to me or the other kids, whereas I liked to hang out with the kids that behaved more like my wife my headstrong and highly ambitious son and daughter 24 and 20. They were my favorite children, they were the ones that I went to bat for when fun met funds. I know I shouldn't say this but they all know it i guess.

Maybe thats what made 24 thnink that he could get away with anything with me. But I spent 26 years doing everything I could think to do to help my kids be good people. I hate that this situation ever happened but I do not support betrayal.

So I just got a phone call that I didn't expect. My oldest son just told me that he saw this post and wants to talk about what we should do going forward. We're going to talk after church and I'll see what he wants to do. I hope he's not mad at me for airing his business. I'm just so scared but I think this needs to happen.

And thank you all for the comments and awards. I am truly sad and humbled but I have to say that maybe the reason that other parents don't do what I did is because it is so hard and I think easy is the normal way that people do thing.

UPDATE:

I was asked how thing went with my sons. Well I'm not sure how to make an update post so I guess I can just do this here. So as I stated before my oldest son saw this post. His fiance showed it to him and apparently this is the first time that he had thought about his brother in the last couple of years and hadn't actually thought I had kept to my word and not spoken to him (24).

He had known that he was one of my favorites and expected me to maintain contact in secret and was amazed and shocked that I hadn't been lying to him all these years.

He is a bit upset with himself that he doubted me and was extremely apologetic for driving a wedge between me and his brother and I had to tell him that he didn't do anything wrong and it was 100% on his brother for how everything went. I told him I loved him and I would always have his back and that it was the easiest decision that I have ever had to make.

Then him and his fiance told me something that I really didn't expect to hear, she is pregnant and they were planning on telling the family at Thanksgiving but let me know early and asked me to keep it a secret til then. So yes I'm going to be a grandfather.

After I left my sons fiance called me and again thanked me for sticking up for him in that situation, apparently something similar had happened to her and like alot of stories below it went the way of the cheated being the one who was exiled. So I guess this is really as common as you guys told me I just never imagined it could be "that" common.

Thanksgiving was where everything went weird for me though. So we had a plan to have just the 5 of us at the at my home for Thanksgiving but when my daughter read the post that list went to 4 because she realized why I had been so annoyed with her girlfriend at my sons birthday party.

Then while I was cooking dinner. I get a tap on the shoulder and turn around and it's 24 looking like he expected me to punch him (i almost did). 26 had apparently called him and asked him to come to dinner, I don't know why he thought surprising me like this was a good idea but I guess he thought I would object which I may have.

24 apologized to me but I told him he didn't do anything to me he and he doesn't need my forgiveness I told him he hurt his family yes but he hurt his brother first and foremost. 26 said that he had already forgiven him and that it was OK for us to all move on.

Now I have made it a point that my children never saw me cry. Not when my parents died not when my sister died not when my wife died. But I couldn't get away this time and I cried I cried for an hour straight my sons both hugged me and my daughter came in and hugged us all. Then I heard this little voice say why is daddy crying and I almost had a heart attack.

This small curly haired kid standing next to a person I swore would never set foot in my house looking almost identical to my son. I didn't know what to do I was not prepared for this and this is not a person I felt deserved to see me like this... but the boy looked scared and I couldn't be mad at a scared kid so we stopped hugging and 24 went to the kid and said daddy's ok and he wanted him to meet his (24) daddy.

He's a polite kid and he's way better behaved then any of my kids were at that age. So yeah this has been a bad trip and I guess I have reddit to thank for putting this years long foolishness to bed.

I just hope 26 is OK with this, I would hate to find out that this is a problem for him and that he is just doing all this for me. I want my children to be happy, and hopefully that is possible for all of us now but its only been a week so I guess time will tell. Thank you.