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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think there are two questions here. [b]The first one, do you proactively tell your children that a parent cheated? The answer to that, to me, is no. [/b]

Your kids should not be in the middle of their parents fights. And they shouldn't feel responsible for picking a side. And the moment one parent decides to put the burden of that knowledge on them, they will feel that. Just like your kids might know you're not wealthy but shouldn't know how much is in your bank account and when the electricity bill is due, they can know that the marriage is struggling but don't need to know the details if both parents expect to play active present roles in their kids lives.

When a marriage ends because...the two people just fell out of love or something more ambiguous and harder to grasp you don't give your kids your marriage counseling notes. They just don't need to know that.

That said, the second question, 'should I tell my kid's that I/their parent had and affair when they ask me directly?' I think the answer to that is to be honest in a way that doesn't make the child feel like they should cut off the other partner. If they have figured it out, then lying to them is in fact gaslighting. But again, the primary goal should be avoiding inserting the child into the fight as a player vs spectator.

And perhaps a third question is, 'if my spouse had an affair and just bounced out of our lives, should I be honest with my kid?' And in that case, where one parent either abandoned the kid or truly put them on the 'first family' back burner, you should be honest with them about what happened and validate their feelings and not push them to try have a relationship with an absent crappy parent where they end up continually crushed with disappointment. [/quote]

So I guess you are advocating for them to learn the truth from someone else, someone who has no motivation not to be cruel.

Do you really think the truth of an affair will remain hidden? [/quote]

Lets say you have two BFFs. And you guys are very tight (Susie, Lauren, and you, Jojo). Susie and Lauren have a bad falling out because Susie stole Lauren's necklace and pawned it. If Susie tells you this story, you will feel like she is telling you to drive a wedge between you and Lauren. If Lauren tells you this story, and apologizes, you will feel like Lauren is trying to make amends and while you might be upset with her, you will be able to make a decision about your relationship with her apart from Susie's feelings. If Scott, the guy who sits behind you in homeroom tells you, then you will probably feel betrayed and confused and mad at Susie and Lauren for keeping you in the dark.

So what does this metaphorical anecdote say? That the kid in this situation is in a delicate position and every adult involved should be trying to ensure that they feel like they are respected, loved, and not responsible for choosing sides.

So if Dad cheated with say, the kid's soccer coach and everyone in the city limits knows the story, then Dad should find a way to tell the kid in a compassionate way. If Mom was flying to California once a month to cheat with a colleague on the west coast and no one knows except mom and dad, then no one should say a word.

The two worst outcomes, in my opinion, and honestly probably equally horrible for the kid are

1) Wounded parent talking about how the other parent is evil and talking about this constantly in front of the kid for a sustained period of time 
2) Kid finding out because the whole school/whatever is talking about it and their family is the subject of the gossip mill

The kid should exit any divorce (at least any divorce where one parent is not abusive or in the process of becoming absent) feeling like both parents love them, and both parents want them to love the other parent. And there is no way for the wounded spouse to deliver that message in a way that won't come off as 'be on my team'. There just isn't.

A kid asking directly as a teen/adult is a different situation though. [/quote]

Sure, but what I’m seeing in this thread is that cheaters believe that their situation is hermetically sealed such that their kids could never find out when it’s far more likely in real life that other people do know about it. And people talk, they always talk. It is far more likely that a kid finds out accidentally than not, especially if there was a full-blown affair and not a single Las Vegas one-night stand.

And kids ask directly precisely because they’ve already found out from somebody else, or they saw something that gave it away in the home. In that situation, you are actually lucky that they even asked. A lot of kids would not bother to ask — why should they, when the parents have already proven untrustworthy — and will just reach their own conclusions. In other words, if a kid asks, it’s because they’ve already been told or figured something wasn’t truthful. The harm has already occurred by that point.

It is wild to me how many people in this thread seem to not understand the basics of human communication. Maybe that’s why they cheated, idk. I’ve never cheated or been in a relationship with a cheater, just seen the fallout in various friends and family, and one thing that is constant is how deluded the cheater usually is. [/quote]

I am not divorced. I am the child of an acrimonious divorce where one parent acted like the other one was lazy and incompetent and checked out (and THAT was the parent that cheated! I found out, many many years later). I think there are like, two essential truths to these conversations.

1) Cheating is (IMO) generally a symptom of a failing marriage rather than the cause of its failure. Of course some people are completely blindsided, but generally there are large issues in the relationship and the cheating is a result of them. And that isn't saying the cheating is justified, just that it is usually not as black and white as people want to make it out to be.
2) Parents are human beings and imperfect and flawed, and children see you more clearly than you think they do, and don't need your help in seeing the flaws in their other parent.

And generally, because both people in the relationship are human beings, and because cheating is usually a symptom not the cause, both parents have some role in the problems. And kids grow up knowing their parents pretty well, and eventually, post teenage years, understand their parent's human foibles, good and bad. When I found out the parent that cheated cheated, it was not a surprise, because that parent acted badly and selfishly in 100 other ways. And the damage between me and that parent did not come from the cheating or the divorce but because of the personality flaws in them that led to those poor choices. And it didn't take my other parent crap talking them for me to figure all that out. And it would not have been right for me to be angry at that parent because of the marriage ending, whatever, that isn't really my business, but because all of the bad things that happened between the two of US.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that in these situations, if its a personality flaw that caused the cheating, the personality flaw will damage the relationship with the kids, and the pain will be in realizing their parent is a piece of crap. And if one parent is a bitter unhappy horrible person who cannot be happy unless their kid supports them, then that is a personality flaw that will damage their relationship with the kid.

You can tell them there was a divorce without telling them the specifics. And let them grow up in the new reality, see their parents for who they truly are as they age, and put the pieces together or not, and answer their questions honestly when they come. And that is respectful of them. What is ALWAYS traumatic to children of divorce is when one or both parents put them in the middle, asking them to be a jury and a punisher and an evaluator of wrongs. So I do not believe a cheater should believe their crimes should be sealed, they did something wrong and there will always be the possibility that it comes out and bites them later in life, but the CHILD is better to not be in the middle of their parent's relationship. And the parents get to decide if the kid is being put in the middle. If you were cheated on, and you tell your kid, you are putting them in the middle. I think honestly the only exception to this is if, upon cheating, the spouse then up and abandons the family, in which case you owe the kid as much honesty as they can muster so they can come to grips with the trauma. But a divorce is traumatic enough to a kid, don't make them your marriage counselor too.

At the end of the day the cheating hurts the kid, and it hurts the spouse. The spouses work it out one way (divorce, whatever). The parent has to work it out with the kid too if it comes out. And the wronged parent honestly shouldn't have a part in that. Like a surgeon performing a procedure on a family member, they are simply too close to be confident they are making good decisions in the best interest of the kid.

- signed, someone who has no problem with divorce but generally thinks most divorced parents are selfish pieces of crap who try to offload their emotional baggage onto their kids
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