Reply to At what age would you tell a child about an affair?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
The PP who said that "What happens in a marriage and why a marriage ends is private between the two people in the marriage" is 100% dead wrong, horribly misleading, and borders on grooming your children to accept victim-blaming disordered thinking.  It's like blaming a rape victim because of what she was wearing, where she was walking, or how much she was drinking.  The fact is that when it comes to infidelity, it ALWAYS constitutes a breach of trust and poor decisionmaking skills.  Always.  There is literally no valid excuse for the behavior that can not be countered with "You should have ended the marriage first."

The fact is that a marriage is between two people UNTIL one of them makes the unilateral decision to open up the marriage to a third person.  Telling yourselves and your children that marriages begin and end with no outside influence is simply not compatible with reality.

Yes, I do have a bias here.  My husband of 16 years had an affair with his secretary, which led to the end of our marriage.  She was also married with children.  At the time, I had absolutely no interest in telling my children the cause of the divorce - they were early elementary school aged.  We just told them that we were getting a divorce and it was daddy's decision, and they accepted that.  It's been a few years now, and the older one is approaching middle school and he asks more questions.  I've still held the line that it had nothing to do with them, we both love them, but the reason is not something they will understand right now and is "a suitcase too heavy for them to carry" at this age.  They seem fine with that.

However, I do need to tell them soon what happened, and I'm not happy about it.  About a year or so after we split, the secretary moved 20 miles across northern Virginia and bought a house 2 blocks away from my house, enrolling her children in the same school as mine.  My ex husband doesn't even live that close to me!  Her arrival set the rumor mill on fire as neighbors whispered about seeing my ex hanging out at the secretary's place with her kids - so now, we've lost control of the narrative.  The odds of my kids hearing about their dad's affair (or who knows what version of the story) from someone other than me has increased exponentially.

Some of you may react differently to the situation, but I have decided that I would rather proactively tell them the truth in as healthy and constructive of a way as possible than have them experience the hurt, anger, and confusion of hearing rumors about it from strangers.  
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They don’t need to know the timing of it. That’s just you wanting to “win.” Pathetic. [/quote]

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