Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talk to the experts about it and stop getting advice here. This is too important.

I told my children the standard, "when parents get married they make promises to each other, and your father broke those promises" line.

I was given this line by several psychologists, and it worked well. It gave my children enough information, accurately and truthfully, without letting them know how terrible their father really is.

It also helped them to stand up for themselves with him several times.

This was a long time ago, and they are both doing well and thriving.

This is terrible advice. If used in situation with cheating wife she would say husband caused cheating by breaking his promise first by being controlling or whatever and it would devolve into he said she said. Affairs don't happen in a vacuum and women get a pass more often in our society because they say the husband drove them to it.

Anonymous wrote:Talk to the experts about it and stop getting advice here. This is too important.

I told my children the standard, "when parents get married they make promises to each other, and your father broke those promises" line.

I was given this line by several psychologists, and it worked well. It gave my children enough information, accurately and truthfully, without letting them know how terrible their father really is.

It also helped them to stand up for themselves with him several times.

This was a long time ago, and they are both doing well and thriving.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talk to the experts about it and stop getting advice here. This is too important.

I told my children the standard, "when parents get married they make promises to each other, and your father broke those promises" line.

I was given this line by several psychologists, and it worked well. It gave my children enough information, accurately and truthfully, without letting them know how terrible their father really is.

It also helped them to stand up for themselves with him several times.

This was a long time ago, and they are both doing well and thriving.

I totally agree the OP needs to get professional advice on this because it is crucially important. But, as an adult child of divorce where there was an affair with my parent's marriage, I am surprise you got professional advice to spill the affair to your kids (what you said was cryptic but obvious and I don't mean to be insulting, but it seems passive aggressive and begs the question of "what promise did dad break?) I absolutely loathed when my mom would feel the need to tell me it was my dad's cheating that wrecked the marriage. It made me cringe so deeply to be dragged into their bullshit, I eventually would just walk out of the house when she brought it up (I moved out on my own when I was 17 to avoid them).

Thing is, I have no idea why my dad cheated, and as an adult who is now married I know affairs don't happen in a vacuum. But I know my dad remained a great dad after the divorce, and how I hated my mom for burning into my head that he was the reason my home was broken.

Anonymous wrote: In my parent's case there were mistakes on both sides. However, it was obvious that my dad was cheating while they were in separate bedrooms in the same house (and possibly when they shared a bedroom). My mom never told us details and always encouraged us to have a good relationship with our dad. My relationship with my dad was always difficult until I was married with a young child and finally we had the talk and he admitted that he made mistakes in his relationship with my mom and didn't handle things well. Here is the thing, for me to move forward and not hold resentment and anger I had to be able to recognize that someone can love you as a parent but be an imperfect person and make bad choices/mistakes in how they handle things. I had to be old enough to not have my parents as the sole authority and have enough experience in my own relationships to be in a place to understand it.

Anonymous wrote:Talk to the experts about it and stop getting advice here. This is too important.

I told my children the standard, "when parents get married they make promises to each other, and your father broke those promises" line.

I was given this line by several psychologists, and it worked well. It gave my children enough information, accurately and truthfully, without letting them know how terrible their father really is.

It also helped them to stand up for themselves with him several times.

This was a long time ago, and they are both doing well and thriving.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The affair and finances are adult issues, no matter how old your kids are. I'm sorry you are going through this.

Ok, but how is OP going to explain that the college fund went poof? If she has told her son there is money, and suddenly there is not, he is likely to ask why. What should she say? OP should not have to lie to her son to cover up his father's misdeeds.

Anonymous wrote:Dad had an affair when I was little (5-7ish?). Mom stayed with him, but they never worked through the issues. When I was a teenager and my Mom could tell I was getting closer to Dad, she told me about his affair. Made things weird between Dad and me. But the real damage was how it affected my dating life. Don't do this to your children, no matter how much it would make you feel better.