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

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=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. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics