Reply to Disagreement regarding telling our kids we are divorcing

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I regret protecting my XH b/c I've been keeping his lies (the truth) from my kids which makes me feel like I'm a liar. I wish we'd told them the truth from the beginning. [/quote]

Yep. People are missing this. I have a relationship with my children. They saw me heartbroken. They saw their dad move out. I wasn’t going to continue the habit of gaslighting others so protect my abusive ex- and that included our kids.[/quote]

I'm a mom who kept Dad's lies and cheating a secret - for 15+ years now.  During that time, the kids had a reasonably good relationship with their Dad but for the fact that he took no custody, often cancelled visitation, and ultimately married a woman for her money (what he told them) and sometimes cancelled significant events with them and made it clear in other ways that he was not their priority.

I regret keeping the infidelity a secret.  They couldn't have understood it when we separated, because they were both under 5, but at a some point it would have been better for them to know.  When kids don't know why something happened, they often fill in the blanks with their own answers which tend to be extremely negative and self-blaming.  When DS was young, I know he was really puzzled by his Dad's abandonment and negligence and took it as a reflection that there was something wrong with himself.  I think it would have been helpful if I had been able to disclose the infidelity and essentially say, "look, this is a long pattern of your Dad's -- he isn't really able to empathize with other people and because of that he does what is in his self-interest not yours.  I don't ever really see him changing or being able to stop that.  I know that's really hurtful to you, and I think you are a great kid and deserve more from your Dad.  But, it's important to realize that he's like that because of a flaw in him due to his own genes and environment growing up (mom was an alcoholic, and both he and his mom have serious mental illness), and he is not like that to you because of anything you did or your inherit worthiness.  So, my advice is to take what aspects of a positive relationship he is able to offer and find other fatherly support from your uncles, grandparents, other family and family of friends.

Now that my kids are older, and they have experienced their own romantic relationships, each of them got into relationships that were emotionally abusive in different ways, and, from my perspective, that is because they normalized dysfunctional aspects of their family of origin life -- both their Dad's abandonment and neglect and my normalization of his abusive behavior towards me in order to do the things advised, "co-parent, not argue in front of the kids" so as to provide them some semblance of a family.  That trade off (normalizing him) had profound negative consequences.

In retrospect, it would have been better to parallel parent, grey rock him, and be honest and draw boundaries (even in front of the kids) when his behavior was bad.  [/quote]

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