When to tell kids the truth about their father’s adultery as reason for divorce

[Anonymous]

I was just reading another thread and it made me wonder. What do you all think is an appropriate time to tell your children the honest truth about their father’s adultery as reason for their parents’ divorce?

Would your answer be different if he had never been an involved, caring parent? If he had also refused to treat his mental illness?

Or, on the flip side, if he had been a terrible husband but a caring, involved father?

[Anonymous]

I am the kid in this situation and figured it out when I was 22. It's very hard to keep a secret lifelong if you'd tat with the AP. I would rather have been told, and not lied to when I asked directly. I feel like they lied to me to manipulate me into accepting his new wife, and to avoid dealing with my reaction. Very self-serving behavior that was not with my best interest at heart.

[Anonymous]

I think age 25 or so is good, but again, ask yourself for whose benefit are you keeping the secret. Adult convenience and avoiding difficult conversations is not a good enough reason, nor is manipulating the child into accepting a person they would otherwise choose not to accept. It's unfair, and personally I'd rather have just one parent be a liar rather than both of them.

[Anonymous]

The when is when you are no longer irrationally angry. And when it actually makes sense to have the discussion - not just that you randomly bluet it out.

I have a friend dealing with the fall out of this now. She caught her husband with the other woman. Later that night when the husband returned home she started yelling at the husband and her teenage daughter entered the room. Friend told the daughter to leave the room because mom just found out that dad was cheating with some whore. Not surprising that mom decided to stay with dad and 1 year later the daughter is still struggling and angry at both parents. Grades and behavior have tanked.

[Anonymous]

"Your Father decided he wanted a girlfriend"

"Your uncle has decided to leave the family"

[Anonymous]

I don’t have any experience with this, but I don’t see why women need to protect their shitty husbands’ reputations, even for the sake of the kids. There are age-appropriate and unemotional ways to tell them.

[Anonymous]

it's silly to hide it from teenagers; they will find out anyway. My child found explicit photos on dad's electronic device before I found myself. He was 13 and it caused a 3 year long disconnect with his dad. AP was never introduced to son upon this happening, and my exH is still lying to our son that "this is a colleague". That mom "made up the affair because mom is crazy", even though everyone saw the photos.

He rents her an apartment overseas and visits there. I don't know how she plans to enter into my son's life, if she basically non-existent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think age 25 or so is good, but again, ask yourself for whose benefit are you keeping the secret. Adult convenience and avoiding difficult conversations is not a good enough reason, nor is manipulating the child into accepting a person they would otherwise choose not to accept. It's unfair, and personally I'd rather have just one parent be a liar rather than both of them.

As a mother, I do believe that such lies to children can actually take quality childhood from them. My friend's husband cheated and later moved in with AP, and had a baby. Because my friend never told her 10 yo daughter that the AP was a reason for divorce, daughter continued spending time with the new dad's family and half brother. They made a baby sitter out of his older daughter, made her change the baby, feed the baby, walk the baby while they watched TV and drank beer. Later on dad kicked out the new AP/wife from his house, and kept the baby. This showed very poor familial relationships example to my friend's now teenage daughter. She has very poor grades, was engaged in a criminal story etc.
My friend is very regretful that she basically was forcing her daughter to maintain a good relationship with trashy dad.

[Anonymous]

Never. And my husbands ex cheated, left with her AP and refused to let dad be anything more than a child support check. They have no idea nor do they need to know as adults.

[Anonymous]

My mom told me everything and put me in the middle and it was horrible. They divorced when I was an adult and it ruined my relationship with both of them and I basically lost my parents the day I was told. And, I always suspected it but mom was in denial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was just reading another thread and it made me wonder. What do you all think is an appropriate time to tell your children the honest truth about their father’s adultery as reason for their parents’ divorce?

Would your answer be different if he had never been an involved, caring parent? If he had also refused to treat his mental illness?

Or, on the flip side, if he had been a terrible husband but a caring, involved father?

The appropriate time is when your divorce settlement agreement signed and the final hearing is scheduled; when you secured a new residence and sorted out the custody schedule for kids. Sometime before the kids begin the new schedule, maybe in the end of home separation and nesting. Because once you are separate households, the father is likely to move in his new wife/have sexual activities. You would want your kids to be fully aware this is why you are divorcing, and express their opinion on where they want to be overnight. Dont force new strangers/relatives on your children, give them a choice. Even 4 y.o. can express where she wants to be

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never. And my husbands ex cheated, left with her AP and refused to let dad be anything more than a child support check. They have no idea nor do they need to know as adults.

But she left with AP, she didn't force the AP into her kids' life. It was easy in this situation not to tell or explain vs a "blended" family where the new wive is pregnant, husband cheated, no money, kids from exW are made baby sitters etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom told me everything and put me in the middle and it was horrible. They divorced when I was an adult and it ruined my relationship with both of them and I basically lost my parents the day I was told. And, I always suspected it but mom was in denial.

How did it make you loose your relationship with your mom?

[Anonymous]

Agree with the above posters. First of all, do not gaslight your children with some generic excuse about how you just grew apart or it’s an adult issue. They will find out. They always find out. And when they realize you, other family members, and goodness knows how many others also knew and kept it a secret, they have serious trust issues as a result. Do not do this to your children.

That said, it’s important to tell them an age appropriate truth that allows them to still feel ok having a living relationship with BOTH parents.

My kids were young elementary when it happened to us, and we just told them that mommy and daddy were divorcing because marriage is like playing a game of tag…. It takes two people, and you both have to want to play. If either person decides to stop playing, the game has to end whether you like it or not. That was a metaphor that they could understand at that point in their lives, and it didn’t pin blame on anyone at that moment.

A few years later, when my ex introduced the. To his affair partner, my older son remembered meeting her before when we would go to her house as a family or see them at work events… he just knew her then as daddy’s secretary. When his dad introduced her as his girlfriend, he started asking a lot more questions and it was clear he was putting two and two together. I answered his questions honestly, and explained that his dad is a good person and that sometimes good people make bad choices. That seemed to work well for several more years, until his dad moved in with her and her much younger children and went hard core on the blended family thing…. All the kids in the same custody schedule, bought a giant van so they’d always travel together as one huge family, etc.

Something about that just did not sit well with my oldest, and he rebelled and refuses to spend any time at his dad’s now, and he’s old enough that a court wouldn’t force him. It’s actually really sad to see. It didn’t have to be that way, either. I won’t go too far into the details, but he confronted his dad and asked him if he was sorry for cheating, and if he knew it was the wrong thing to do. His dad literally could not acknowledge either thing.

This isn’t a case of me trying to alienate him, either. We coparenting very well together, attend the kids concerts and conferences together, the former in-laws still come and stay with me when they are in town, etc. There is no trash talking of the other parent around the kids, no fighting, nothing like that.

I know this goes beyond your original question about what to tell the kids about an affair…. I guess my point is that the affair WILL have an impact on them. There is no way to stop that. You can delay it, but that can backfire as others have said. You can be complicit in the cover up, but that just makes your kids eventually feel betrayed by you, too.

The best thing to do is acknowledge the elephant in the room, and do it in an honest and healthy way so as to try to help them navigate the mess that they were thrust into. There will be ugly moments…. But again, the kids do not get hurt because they learned an affair happened. They are hurt the moment one parent decides to cheat. The rest is just timing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have any experience with this, but I don’t see why women need to protect their shitty husbands’ reputations, even for the sake of the kids. There are age-appropriate and unemotional ways to tell them.

+1. These questions almost always get a rush of “OMG don’t tell them.” As someone who was a child in a family like this, I can’t disagree more.