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’m the poster whose DH learned about his father’s affair from a middle school bully in the middle of the cafeteria. I have a question for those of you who believe in not telling kids: do you think how he learned (which was painful and traumatic) is preferable to a quiet conversation with a loving parent?? I cannot understand that world view whatsoever. It seems phenomenally cruel. [/quote]

The pp who did it at the psychologist did the right thing.

Loving parent or not, it's difficult to have a "quiet' conversation when you are angry, hurt , betrayed and bitter( and rightfully so if your spouse cheated on you and destroyed your mutual vision for the family).

And people really overlook the selfishness of cheaters. While the non- cheating spouse is telling the child what happened,  the cheater will tell a very different story to defend themselves. If they are capable of cheating and all the lying and gaslighting thst comes with it, they are more than capable of trying to defend themselves to the children. This too will be cruel and confusing to the child.

With both parents and a professional present, an appropriate conversation is more likely to happen.

[/quote]

Sure, tell them with a psychologist, but you are still recommending telling them. What I am wondering about is the view of the people in favor of hiding affairs. Do those people think it is better to learn about cheating from a middle school bully or proactively from parents or in a therapist’s office? Because my impression of the “never tell” people is that they actually think it’s better for a child to learn from his middle school bully than to hear it proactively, which I find astonishing. [/quote]

I think you are misunderstanding their opinion. They are not necessarily in favor of hiding affairs.  They think that the chances of messing up in the process of telling the kids is much higher than the chances of the kid being messed up by finding out elsewhere.

You might disagree with their assessment, but claiming that they are in favor of hiding affairs is an misunderstanding of their position.

I don' t tell my kids about my sex life with their dad. It dies not mean that DH and I are hiding our sex lives. It's just not an appropriate conversation to have with them. [/quote]

Some of them yes but then others think never tell and have 30 year olds that don’t know and think an argument is somehow the same as cheating. I think one of the people is European and it’s commonplace there. The rest of the world ha always been more understanding of sex outside marriage and is more accepting of the patriarchy so their views are posted as if they are typical American views but they aren’t at least in the middle and upper middle class homes I grew up around where people had standards and valued honesty. [/quote]

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