Obviously the level of detail is age dependent, but in general I think children should be told.

It’s a parent’s job to prepare their kids for life. Part of life is knowing that people wear masks and you have to be aware of that because a high percentage of people engage in infidelity, addiction, financial impropriety, etc.

Encouraging your kids to be starry eyed and to believe fully in happy ever after isn’t beneficial to them. People with that mindset are the ones who get crushed and struggle to overcome the betrayals they might experience from partners, friends, colleagues, family members.

Anonymous wrote:Don’t dump on your kids. Their home is already now broken.
Plus it low key makes kids pick a side.

Hard to hide affair baby half-sistsr.

Anonymous wrote:Speaking as a child of divorce, you need to tell your children gently but truthfully why their family is ending. Hiding the truth only leaves room for kids to blame themselves, and they will. The advice not to tell kids is from an adult perspective seeking to avoid shame and difficult discussions.

This. If they don't know, and you're still with that person or they know that person in their community, they'll still perceive that something is weird and wrong and lurking below the surface. It was a big relief to me to find out and have the awkwardness be for a real reason.

But I will always wonder if I actually know everything, since my parent is not truthful and cannot be trusted.

Don’t dump on your kids. Their home is already now broken.
Plus it low key makes kids pick a side.

Anonymous wrote:Speaking as a child of divorce, you need to tell your children gently but truthfully why their family is ending. Hiding the truth only leaves room for kids to blame themselves, and they will. The advice not to tell kids is from an adult perspective seeking to avoid shame and difficult discussions.

m

+1

People here often confuse cause and effect when it comes to cheating. My marriage fell apart long before my ex cheated. Soni see no reason to say more than "we grew apart " My kids would be devastated if they knew the details about their mom.

This advice not to tell the kids is usually given by the cheater who wants to maintain their image.

09:49 here - One more thing, if you don't tell your children and anyone else in the world knows apart from you and your husband, then you're risking that somebody else will tell them. That's what happened to me when I was 11 years old. I would have much preferred to hear it from my parents than to hear it whispered by other kids whose parents had talked about it in front of them. I carried that shame for decades with no one to talk to about it because I wasn't supposed to know.

Speaking as a child of divorce, you need to tell your children gently but truthfully why their family is ending. Hiding the truth only leaves room for kids to blame themselves, and they will. The advice not to tell kids is from an adult perspective seeking to avoid shame and difficult discussions.

Anonymous wrote:Your kids have nothing to do with. No reason to tell them. If you want to discuss when they are adults, fine.

If they explicitly ask, I’m not going to lie.

What if kids ask? Should you lie? Say “ask your father?”

I was that kid. I didn't want to know the exact reason. The marriage over long ago. The two had no business continuing to live together.
My dad told me when I was grown. I already knew, and he cheated first if I had to guess.
I told him that I didn't care who did what, but it was hell living with them. I had asked them to separate when I was 9.

Anonymous wrote:You don’t tell your kids this. My God.

Keeping secrets in the family is a bad thing. You should tell your kids. They have the right to know. You can’t teach your kids transparency and lie about such a major event in the family.

I found out on my own at 16.

I think it's better that they know. Otherwise they won't truly understand their own family and be able to make informed choices about who to trust. I certainly am much happier knowing, because it makes a lot of things make sense that I would otherwise not understand.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kids have nothing to do with. No reason to tell them. If you want to discuss when they are adults, fine.

This. Don’t emotionally dump on them. The reason for the divorce doesn’t matter and they shouldn’t be thinking and worrying about it. If they ask as adults, say what you want. But they likely would have put thongs together on their own by then anyhow

I think after they're very young, maybe 9 or so, children have a right to know that one of their parents cared so little about their lives that they were willing to blow them apart. Cheating is on the whole family.