How can you cheat and not think about how it will affect your kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because cheaters don’t care about kids feelings. This is a moral character flaw. It is them first and then affair partner, then maybe kids and lastly the wife.

Cheaters care very much about the kids and this is why they have affairs: to keep the sexless marriage together, for kids' sake.
You prever divorce instead? Ok then all women who have lost interest in sex must divorce. Happy now? Is that better for the kids?

[Anonymous]

^yes happy now. Go live an authentic life after divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm 29. My dad cheated on my mom, and unfortunately I was the one who discovered the affair. My dad has a way more powerful and high earning job with great connections, and my mom works as a school admin. If he wanted to he could have decimated her in a divorce, so I told her so she could get things ready to divorce him.

It's been two years but things are very terse and cordial with my dad. He imploded my family because he wanted pussy. I will never forgive him.

Wow. I'm curious how you worked up the courage to tell your mom and how she reacted? How did she "get ready" to divorce him? How did you and she manage to keep it secret that you knew and for how long?

Good for you for recognizing wrong when you saw it and protecting the more vulnerable person in the family.

It took about 24 hours of working up courage. At first she didn't believe me. I couldn't even believe it myself but I had written (email) proof. I might not have told her if it was just a fling or something but my dad was planning on getting a new job halfway across the country (where his mistress lives) and totally uprooting his life to be with her. My parents were parried for 35 years. He probably would have strung my mom along for as long as he could before he would actually divorce her. She found a lawyer, got finances in order, and started to take a close look at her budget. She had to stop making retirement payments temporarily so she could afford her lawyer. I gave her a loan as well. It was hellish. It still is, in many regards. Holidays are incredibly painful. My brother is getting married in a month and there is so much pain about inviting him to a celebration of love and matrimony. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. It doesn't make it any easier that I am an adult and have my own husband, life, live thousands of miles away. My sister is still in college and is caught between them and it's even worse for her. It affects us so much and anyone who thinks otherwise is lying to themselves.

I'm so I'm impressed with you and your mom. You are strong ladies. Just wondering why invite your dad to the wedding? Is your brother not as concerned about what has happened to your mom?

It’s been two years and we have tried our best to move on. He is still our dad and is invited to the wedding. He made mistakes but at the end of the day, he didn’t screw over my mom in the divorce, and has tried really hard to ask for our forgiveness and be back in our lives. Even though I’ll never forgive my dad, I can understand (on an abstract level) why he did what he did. I still don’t trust him at all (he’s still with the woman but lying about it, which doesn’t make much sense to us) but I couldn’t keep living with all that hate in my heart. I HATED him. Now he’s just my dad who has made a horrible mistake two years ago. It’s hard to explain.

Thank you again for posting. This is helpful to understand.

My question is that ultimately, there's no consequence for the cheater in the long term from his perspective. He gets to live the life he wants, his relationship with his kid remains intact as he sees it (you may not but he may be OK with it). Does this mean that there's no real consequence in the long term for the cheaters? They just need to show a bit of remorse to kids and then move on. I struggle a bit with this (not that my husband has cheated but conceptually).

PP whose mom was cheated on. I struggled with this too. He’s living his life with his new chick, he still gets to be “dad” (even though like you said the relationship is nothing like it was before, it is still there), he’s living on his own, doing whatever he wants. I think there is no such thing as justice. Bad things happen to good people, and bad people who do bad things still sometimes live happy lives. It took a lot of therapy to realize stuff like that. My mom wasn’t perfect in her marriage but at least she didn’t cheat. She is a good person and a bad thing happened to her, and her life is pretty shitty and lonely now. There is no justice.

DP. My DH is the child of a cheater too. FWIW, after we had kids, he revisited the "he's a good dad" approach to his cheating father. He says that having his own kids made him realize just how vulnerable he was as a child, and that what his father did wasn't what a good father would do. He didn't cut his father off, but definitely de-prioritized him. Our kids didn't see their grandfather much, in the end. It wasn't exactly hatred. More apathy than anything.

I guess what I am saying is that the perception of the kids can change over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So you dad told you who he is, and is not, having sex with? Otherwise how exactly did he lie to you?
As to putting energy elsewhere: his romantic sexual energy has NOTHING to do with his children, and your mom did not want this energy, therefore nobody in the family was cheated of anything.
Again, it's YOU who has some weird issue here, confusing an adult's sexual behavior with their child relations. These are totally unrelated (excluding incestuous pedophiles).

You sound like a narcissist with terrible reasoning abilities. In our society, kids who live with married parents generally assume their parents are in a monogamous relationship. When they find out that’s not true and one parent secretaries tge other, it rocks the kids’ world. This really isn’t hard to understand. Stop pretending that everyone’s life is full of neat little boxes, just because that’s what you need to do to rationalize your crappy behavior.

That "assumed married in monogamous relationship" includes a reciprocal presumption that parents are, you know, actually having sex with each other. Because people are not monogamous with a sexually inactive partner. If, as you believe, kids CARE about their parents' marital sexual status, then their world should be equally rocked when told one spouse is sexless, which totally explains why the normal libido spouse is going elsewhere.

Stop pretending that kids really know (or care) what goes on with their parents' sex life.

You truly are a tool.

It is not about the sex you simpleton. It is about the lies and deceit. That is what will have an affect on your children.

[Anonymous]

I am the PP and I am a man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So you dad told you who he is, and is not, having sex with? Otherwise how exactly did he lie to you?
As to putting energy elsewhere: his romantic sexual energy has NOTHING to do with his children, and your mom did not want this energy, therefore nobody in the family was cheated of anything.
Again, it's YOU who has some weird issue here, confusing an adult's sexual behavior with their child relations. These are totally unrelated (excluding incestuous pedophiles).

You sound like a narcissist with terrible reasoning abilities. In our society, kids who live with married parents generally assume their parents are in a monogamous relationship. When they find out that’s not true and one parent secretaries tge other, it rocks the kids’ world. This really isn’t hard to understand. Stop pretending that everyone’s life is full of neat little boxes, just because that’s what you need to do to rationalize your crappy behavior.

That "assumed married in monogamous relationship" includes a reciprocal presumption that parents are, you know, actually having sex with each other. Because people are not monogamous with a sexually inactive partner. If, as you believe, kids CARE about their parents' marital sexual status, then their world should be equally rocked when told one spouse is sexless, which totally explains why the normal libido spouse is going elsewhere.

Stop pretending that kids really know (or care) what goes on with their parents' sex life.

You truly are a tool.

It is not about the sex you simpleton. It is about the lies and deceit. That is what will have an affect on your children.

Different poster but I agree with PP: kids do not and should not care about their parents’ sex lives whether marital or extramarital.
A cheating spouse is deceitful to the spouse—not the child.
Marriage is between husband and wife. Not parent and child.
A reality check of what is pretend and what is not is not just with cheating.
Stop making marriage just about faithfulness or lack thereof. It is more complex.
Some people cheat to leave. Some people cheat to stay in a marriage. Regardless, sex has nothing to do with kids. People who involve their kids and disclose an affair to purposefully harm the relationship with the other parent is far worse than a cheater.

[Anonymous]

My dad cheated on my mom, they are divorced. At the risk of being cruel, some of you are snowflakes. My parent's marriage isn't mine. Yes, the holidays are a hassle, I see them both less, they see their grandkids less, I probably see dad less than mom because dad's AP is a real peach of a woman.

Here's the thing: I have no idea what my parent's bedroom was like, whether dad was denied for years, whether mom was good in the sack, all of these questions are beyond my brain's ability to process. I know that whatever black and white thinking I had as a child about good and evil sort of vanished when I got out of college and I haven't seen many people rush to erase MLK day when the news broke he was a serial cheater. And I don't see how my life would have been more authentic if dad up and left earlier to take up with his peach prior to getting caught or whatever happened. The result is the same.

People are human, even our parents, they screw up sometimes a lot and I their errors don't dictate my happiness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So you dad told you who he is, and is not, having sex with? Otherwise how exactly did he lie to you?
As to putting energy elsewhere: his romantic sexual energy has NOTHING to do with his children, and your mom did not want this energy, therefore nobody in the family was cheated of anything.
Again, it's YOU who has some weird issue here, confusing an adult's sexual behavior with their child relations. These are totally unrelated (excluding incestuous pedophiles).

You sound like a narcissist with terrible reasoning abilities. In our society, kids who live with married parents generally assume their parents are in a monogamous relationship. When they find out that’s not true and one parent secretaries tge other, it rocks the kids’ world. This really isn’t hard to understand. Stop pretending that everyone’s life is full of neat little boxes, just because that’s what you need to do to rationalize your crappy behavior.

That "assumed married in monogamous relationship" includes a reciprocal presumption that parents are, you know, actually having sex with each other. Because people are not monogamous with a sexually inactive partner. If, as you believe, kids CARE about their parents' marital sexual status, then their world should be equally rocked when told one spouse is sexless, which totally explains why the normal libido spouse is going elsewhere.

Stop pretending that kids really know (or care) what goes on with their parents' sex life.

You truly are a tool.

It is not about the sex you simpleton. It is about the lies and deceit. That is what will have an affect on your children.

Different poster but I agree with PP: kids do not and should not care about their parents’ sex lives whether marital or extramarital.
A cheating spouse is deceitful to the spouse—not the child.
Marriage is between husband and wife. Not parent and child.
A reality check of what is pretend and what is not is not just with cheating.
Stop making marriage just about faithfulness or lack thereof. It is more complex.
Some people cheat to leave. Some people cheat to stay in a marriage. Regardless, sex has nothing to do with kids. People who involve their kids and disclose an affair to purposefully harm the relationship with the other parent is far worse than a cheater.

You are a tool too and completely missed my point. Kids are going to be affected by the deceit. It is not complex.

It is not about the sex it is about the lies. Children look at, process and understand the world differently than adults. When they hear that mom and dad are no longer going to be married because mom/dad has chosen some one else. All children see is that mom/dad don’t love me and would rather be with another family. Children do not care about sexless marriages or low libido spouses or built up resentment. What they will care about is the one person who is suppose to protect me I can no longer trust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad cheated on my mom, they are divorced. At the risk of being cruel, some of you are snowflakes. My parent's marriage isn't mine. Yes, the holidays are a hassle, I see them both less, they see their grandkids less, I probably see dad less than mom because dad's AP is a real peach of a woman.

Here's the thing: I have no idea what my parent's bedroom was like, whether dad was denied for years, whether mom was good in the sack, all of these questions are beyond my brain's ability to process. I know that whatever black and white thinking I had as a child about good and evil sort of vanished when I got out of college and I haven't seen many people rush to erase MLK day when the news broke he was a serial cheater. And I don't see how my life would have been more authentic if dad up and left earlier to take up with his peach prior to getting caught or whatever happened. The result is the same.

People are human, even our parents, they screw up sometimes a lot and I their errors don't dictate my happiness.

Thank you for posting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So you dad told you who he is, and is not, having sex with? Otherwise how exactly did he lie to you?
As to putting energy elsewhere: his romantic sexual energy has NOTHING to do with his children, and your mom did not want this energy, therefore nobody in the family was cheated of anything.
Again, it's YOU who has some weird issue here, confusing an adult's sexual behavior with their child relations. These are totally unrelated (excluding incestuous pedophiles).

You sound like a narcissist with terrible reasoning abilities. In our society, kids who live with married parents generally assume their parents are in a monogamous relationship. When they find out that’s not true and one parent secretaries tge other, it rocks the kids’ world. This really isn’t hard to understand. Stop pretending that everyone’s life is full of neat little boxes, just because that’s what you need to do to rationalize your crappy behavior.

That "assumed married in monogamous relationship" includes a reciprocal presumption that parents are, you know, actually having sex with each other. Because people are not monogamous with a sexually inactive partner. If, as you believe, kids CARE about their parents' marital sexual status, then their world should be equally rocked when told one spouse is sexless, which totally explains why the normal libido spouse is going elsewhere.

Stop pretending that kids really know (or care) what goes on with their parents' sex life.

You truly are a tool.

It is not about the sex you simpleton. It is about the lies and deceit. That is what will have an affect on your children.

Different poster but I agree with PP: kids do not and should not care about their parents’ sex lives whether marital or extramarital.
A cheating spouse is deceitful to the spouse—not the child.
Marriage is between husband and wife. Not parent and child.
A reality check of what is pretend and what is not is not just with cheating.
Stop making marriage just about faithfulness or lack thereof. It is more complex.
Some people cheat to leave. Some people cheat to stay in a marriage. Regardless, sex has nothing to do with kids. People who involve their kids and disclose an affair to purposefully harm the relationship with the other parent is far worse than a cheater.

You are a tool too and completely missed my point. Kids are going to be affected by the deceit. It is not complex.

It is not about the sex it is about the lies. Children look at, process and understand the world differently than adults. When they hear that mom and dad are no longer going to be married because mom/dad has chosen some one else. All children see is that mom/dad don’t love me and would rather be with another family. Children do not care about sexless marriages or low libido spouses or built up resentment. What they will care about is the one person who is suppose to protect me I can no longer trust.

You are still not getting it. Cheating has nothing to do with kids. They can still trust a parent.
You seem to have a narrow idea of what cheating looks like. Many do not divorce. Many are not caught. I think it is relatively rare where a cheating spouse leaves and immediately takes up with another partner. That happens but it is more rare than you think. That happened to my uncle/cousins. Kids are adults now—guess what? Everyone turned out fine—kids successful, well-adjusted adults now. No one resents their dad. All still close. Kids get over this even in the worst scenario, which for some reason you assume is the norm. It is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact you ladies dislike my position does not make me angry, emasculated, overweight, or in need of therapy. I could make the same pointless claims about you. Consider that the behavior of society at large supports me, so perhaps YOU are on the radical side here?

One more time, for those in the back: if you aren't divorced and not having normal sex with your spouse, you MUST ASSUME they are getting it elsewhere. To further claim "oh I did not see THAT coming!!" is just adding to your craziness.

I don't know why you pretend cheating is driven by denial of sex at home. Many, many cheaters continue having sex with their wives, who know nothing. Many, many other cheaters have lost interest in sex with their wives (although wives remain willing) because having sex with the same person gets boring. Still many others cheat when marital relationship has some strife and return to the marital bed when strife dies down. You're doing yourself no favors by distilling complicated lives to a simple mechanism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 teens amd I am a serial cheater. I demand discretion and have never been caught. I won’t get caught as I am ultra careful and leave no evidence whatsoever. How do I not think about my kids? Simple. That is not part of their lives.

My dad was like you. Found out later in life. Only so long you can hide it. It destroyed my relationship with both my parents, especially my dad. I no longer trust him and think any of the good in my childhood was a shame.

There is something very wrong that you would be so heavily invested in your father's sex life and I suspect you struggle with relationships in general.

It's not his sex life, it's his capacity to lie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 teens amd I am a serial cheater. I demand discretion and have never been caught. I won’t get caught as I am ultra careful and leave no evidence whatsoever. How do I not think about my kids? Simple. That is not part of their lives.

My dad was like you. Found out later in life. Only so long you can hide it. It destroyed my relationship with both my parents, especially my dad. I no longer trust him and think any of the good in my childhood was a shame.

There is something very wrong that you would be so heavily invested in your father's sex life and I suspect you struggle with relationships in general.

You are a sociopath. It has nothing to do with sex life, it's about lies and putting energy somewhere other than your children... you could have used the time and energy on your kids, but you didn't.

You will never understand since you are too f'd in the head.

So you dad told you who he is, and is not, having sex with? Otherwise how exactly did he lie to you?
As to putting energy elsewhere: his romantic sexual energy has NOTHING to do with his children, and your mom did not want this energy, therefore nobody in the family was cheated of anything.
Again, it's YOU who has some weird issue here, confusing an adult's sexual behavior with their child relations. These are totally unrelated (excluding incestuous pedophiles).

You don't know whether her mom didn't want it. He could have cheated and continued to have regular sex at home. Many men do.

His romantic sexual energy? Well you need time to expend it, and you need money, usually, and since there are only so many hours in the day and dollars in the bank, it has to come out of somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Stop rationalizing and admit to yourself that cheating can (and when the cheater is exposed almost always does) affect the lives of the cheater’s kids. Accept your character flaw, and the fact that is how almost every single person in your life who knows about it now or eventually finds out about it will view it, most importantly your kids.

Many affairs are never detected. Stop letting your own fears about infidelity color what other peoples lives are actually like there are many cases of people cheat and kids never find out I know does nor does anybody else and it has nothing to do with the kids. Discreet sex can be discreet sex. Sex with in a marriage does not affect kids and sex outside of marriage does not affect kids—it’s the same thing.

Smart people don’t tell anybody and they never get found out. Even if they did who cares? Marriage Probably wasn’t going to last anyway and it was about everything else other than sex.

Everyone who cheats think they are smart. Yes there are cases that never come out. But there are also cases that come out when the cheating party hadn't wanted them to come out, with much destruction all around. I mean my DH probably thought it would never come out until his AP told me. That was fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Stop rationalizing and admit to yourself that cheating can (and when the cheater is exposed almost always does) affect the lives of the cheater’s kids. Accept your character flaw, and the fact that is how almost every single person in your life who knows about it now or eventually finds out about it will view it, most importantly your kids.

Stop acting like 2 adults having sex has ANY effect on their children. Most cases the so-called cheater isn't even cheating: their spouse lost interest in sex and the normal libido spouse is simply meeting that need elsewhere in order to keep the marriage together for the benefit of the kids.

You keep covering for cheaters but fail to realize that your sex life is absolutely your kids business. Your kids have a right to know that you only have sex with your spouse and then only on times when it doesn't take away from them. If they find out their parents aren't perfect and one of them cheated, they will be decimated and will never trust another person again. So your obligation as a parent doesn't end when they are adults either and you must lower your desire for your needs to theirs. That's called being a parent and if it means you must be celibate because your spouse looses interest in sex, then that is what you signed up for when you procreated. Cheating is devastating for kids, just as divorce is. Own it.

You're taking it a touch too far. Actually coming to terms with the fact that your parents aren't perfect but human is a sign of true adulting.

I mean my parents have been married forever. If I found out that there was cheating at some point (and statistically there probably was), it would change nothing in the way I feel about them or in my ability to trust.