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]Because I want nothing to damage my kid’s relationship with my ex.

I don't understand why your need to help your ex trumps your own relationship with your kids and your own relationship with yourself. [b]Why do you keep needing to help your ex?[/b] If the kids see him/her on their own and you made the divorce not about them what difference does it make? I really don't understand how hiding something someone did helps anyone. This is where we differ. If we really want our children to accept us as who we are and accept themselves as who they are, we have to actually be who we are.[/quote]

She's not helping her ex. She's helping her kid, who is better off if they have a good relationship with her ex. And she cares about her kid's wellbeing more than she cares about hurting her ex so is comfortable doing something that will be good for her child, even if a side effect is that it will help her ex.

Your lack of understanding that is truly at the crux of the argument between the two sides here. [/quote]

But she's not helping her child. She's presenting a false world.[/quote]

I literally do not understand this take. The marriage is between mom and dad. Marriages end all the time for a lot of reasons. The parent relationship is between the kid and parent. The parents have autonomy to decide if they want to continue to be in their marriage. They can leave at any time for any reason. And the reasons are almost always complex.

A child, even a 15 year old, does not have a full grasp on complicated long term romantic relationships and marriage. They just do not. So any situation where you are providing intimate details and selling a side is like...putting a physics proof on the chalkboard of an english class. Maybe they have some ideas/understanding depending on their age, but they really do not have enough of a grasp on your marriage to get something meaningful out of telling them something in isolation.

And again, as people have said over and over, by getting into the weeds with the kid, you're passing on responsibility to act to them. You're asking them to have an opinion or reaction to that that is tied to how they feel about you.

I know the cheated upons don't want to admit this because they have shown here for the last 20 pages that they live a life of sweeping generalizations and stereotypes rather than in a nuanced world of flawed human individuals who are all different, when someone decides to leave a marriage, they do not also decide to not be a parent. Certainly their relationship with the child is EFFECTED, but it isn't DETERMINED by the ending of a marriage. And a CHILD is better off when both parents are loving and committed to their wellbeing and facilitate their having a loving relationship with the other parent.

So by ensuring your kid knows what's important for THEM (ie, the marriage is ending because of something very serious that occurred between mom and dad but something that has nothing to do with you, child, and you will be fine because this is where I am going to live and this is where Dad is going to live and this is when you'll go back and forth and we just want you to know we both love you very much) versus what is important for YOU (your dad slept with his secretary MELINDA so im KICKING HIM OUT) you are not creating a false world. It is only false if you make it so. Plenty of divorced couples live in a way to make that first version 100% true. It is only false if you decide its more important for the kid to hate the other parent then to grow up feeling stable and loved. [/quote]

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