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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's like when a father (or mother) is an alcoholic. You don't pretend they are not drunk. You have to be honest with your kids. If their father/mother is doing something that is destructive to the whole family unit... bring it to light and deal with it. Nothing is good that is kept in the dark, it just is toxic to the children's emotional well being.

Get them therapy so they can say they hate their dad to a therapist instead of you... they will try to protect you and say it's okay or even say it sucks when it doesn't.

Let them have a safe person to talk to.

It's clear in this post how damaged some of the kids of divorce, now adults have become people pleasers ... like they have to or something... like ... I have kids and they "must" know their grandfather... why? It's sad. [/quote]

My exDH cheated extensively.  He had a chance to stop and make amends.  I gave him about 2 years in therapy and in the marriage.  He was unable to stop.  I asked him to leave.

I have never discussed the reason why their Dad and I split up, and I always encouraged his visitation and for the kids to have a good relationship with him.  10 years down the road, I can see that that approach has actually done a lot of damage.  It's sort of like hiding a person's alcoholism.  Cheating is a reflection of a lot of personal flaws (in our case -- mental illness, substance abuse, family history of substance abuse and mental illness causing poor parenting, etc.).  When you cover up these issues, it just causes more problems down the road.  Personally, now looking back, I think it would have been better to let the kids know about the causes of the break up, including the infidelity.  I could have done so calmly but while still allowing visitation and with more explicit healthy boundaries.

Even though I took the high road, it's clear that the kids are struggling but they don't know exactly why because no one has discussed the issues with them.  Now that they are in HS, I am starting to discuss more about substance abuse, family history, etc.  But, frankly, it's too little too late.

I agree with the PP about not keeping things in the dark.  Kids have a good therapist with whom they can discuss painful aspects of Dad's behavior and get validation.  I was always in the position of trying to encourage them to see Dad and encourage them not to see what he was doing as so bad (even though it was quite painful).  There is so much pressure not to speak ill of the ex-spouse, but I think there is a way to be honest about problems and still "not speak ill".   [/quote]

There’s a difference between telling kids about infidelity by a guy who is otherwise a good dad and denying kids’ own experiences of their dad’s limitations and inability to be a good dad to them.  If it was only the infidelity and not caused by a character trait or mental illness that affects the kids’ relationship with dad, then they don’t necessarily need to know.  Though some kids may need to know because otherwise the divorce seems random, which is scary in and of itself.  The point is to answer kids’ questions honestly and simply in age appropriate ways and to not add in a bunch of detail or anger or bad blood that they don’t need to have to deal with.  Honest and sympathetic to the extent possible.  People make mistakes.  People grow apart, people are weak to temptation and some people are awful to live with even if they were faithful!  If the ex was awful even without the infidelity, then what you’d tell the kid is different than if the ex was kind and loving and involved with the child but cheated.

Not all people who cheat are also terrible abusive people in the relationship/family.  And you can’t treat those situations as the model for OP.  You just can’t.  [/quote]

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