Reply to 10 year old told me he thinks spouse is cheating on me -- advice?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. I just spoke with DS again. He was looking at DH's phone without permission. He saw pictures/porn. He has begged me not to tell his father because he's not allowed to play with our phones without permission. I've told him over and over that he's not in trouble, no matter what.

But, he is afraid that his dad will be angry with him, he's afraid that the family will "blow apart" and it would be his fault, it's all just awful. He feels terrible. He said it was an app called kitkat (but he said it was not spelled with a ka? I'm not even sure what that means). He wants me to check DH's phone and see what's going on (should I tell him that's the same advice I got from DCUM? kidding....)

Added to that, I don't know exactly what my DH did. Was he looking at porn? I'm not going to divorce over that but I will still be extraordinarily pissed off that he allowed DS to see. Or is it more than that?

I don't know how to have DH reassure him somehow when he's begging me not to tell DH that he saw anything in the first place. Ugh.[/quote]

You should thank you son for telling you.  You should reassure him that you will not be telling his dad what he did or saw.  You should also tell him that marriage is between two grown-ups, and now it is your job to figure out what to do with that information.  Just like the information your son told you was private and will not be shared with dad, the conversation you have with dad will be private between dad and mom and not be shared with DS.  Grown ups decide about the parameters of their relationships, and no matter what you and dad decide to do about staying married or not, you are both committed to being good parents to DS.  Whether or not your family stays together, now or in the future, it will never be your DS's fault.  Adults decide whether or not to stay married.  [/quote]

Disagree with PP. Do you trust your husband to put the child first? If so, tell your son that [b]families don't keep secrets about important things[/b]. That you will look into what he saw, and get back to him (hopefully with both parents together, calmly, telling the truth).

Of course, given the child's age, the person at fault is your husband not the son. Imagine how you would feel if a stranger or neighbor left pornography out for a 10 year old to see. That can be quite traumatic.

You had better talk to your husband soon, because the kid is going through alot. Ideally, you and he can get on the same page.

IF, however, you think your husband's instinct will be to punish/yell at your son. Then I would not tell him. I might lie and say I had seen it. But this is not ideal. Lies breed lies.

So sorry that he brought this on the family.

Men can be very selfish.

[/quote]

There is a difference between keeping secrets and respecting privacy.  Keeping secrets is bad.  Keeping a discussion private is OK.  If you want your kids to ever come to you and talk to you about anything, you need to let them know that you will respect their privacy by keeping conversations confidential unless they give permission otherwise.  The exception to that rule is when someone is involved in something dangerous or that has a huge negative impact to someone else.  In fact, the DS has followed that rule by alerting Mom to something that would normally be kept private, but which he knows is being kept secret because it is something that will have a huge negative impact on mom (and all of them).

Personally, I would not bring the son into it at all.  If the husband is indeed behaving inappropriately, then he isn't putting anyone else in the family first and can't be depended on in any way.

I would look into this myself -- looking at the dad's phone when I could over a number of weeks as well as tracking all other activity -- credit cards, bank statements, where he says he's going and what evidence backs that up (car mileage, gps/phone locator, etc.)

Then and only then would I ask the spouse anything, preferably with whatever other evidence not derived from the son is available.  
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