For Adult Children: What to Do When a Parent is Cheating

I can summarize what you will learn from an extensive on-line search about how you as an adult child should cope with a cheating parent in one sentence.

Tell your betrayed parent what your cheating parent is up to so the betrayed parent doesn’t hate you, and then simply recognize that it is your parents’ issue and get on with your life.

I completely disagree. Because the assumptions that result in the two parts of this advice are not true. 

To break things down:

The first part of this advice (that you as the adult child are obligated to be the one to tell the betrayed parent what the cheating parent is up to) assumes that children, especially adult children, need to take some responsibility for their parent’s partnership.

What does it mean when you insert yourself between your parents and take responsibility for a relationship that in reality, you have no control over?

For example:

Let’s say that you are a 23-year-old woman who suspects that her dad is having an affair because you happened to see a stray sext from another woman come through on his phone. With a little online sleuthing, you become convinced that your dad is indeed having an affair, and that your mom does not know. 

Many people would say that you owe it to your mom to tell her. Indeed, she may be angry with you if you don’t, and it may hurt your relationship in the long-term. Perhaps there are added complications, like your mom’s mental health is not great, or you have a younger sibling still at home who relies on dad’s income to eat. 

So, now you are in the position of having to risk your relationship with your dad, or maybe even your family’s financial stability by telling your mom, or your relationship with your mom by staying silent. Not to mention the very real physical and emotional stress of having to keep a secret.

That is a really, really tough spot to be in. You are officially in the middle of your parents’ relationship. Which, as any good therapist will tell you, will make you miserable. Not to mention that research shows it will damage your relationship with your parents for the long term.

What to do instead:

Sit down with both parents together. Even if it is awkward. This tactic ticks a few boxes:

It gets you out of the middle and forces them to deal with each other. The underlying assumption here is that your parents are indeed capable of handling their own relationship without your taking sides.

It releases you from having to keep a secret from wither of them.

It places the responsibility for the relationship on the only two people who have any control over it. Your parents. It holds them both accountable for how they are going to solve their problem. Which is not your problem. 

Because honestly, you have your own problem, which is working through your own feelings and reactions to the affair. 

Which brings me to the second part of the advice above, the part that says that you are an adult so you just need to get over it and move on with your life.

This advice is also wrong because it assumes that because you are now an adult, your parents' relationship no longer affects you. Nothing could be farther from the truth. 

The reason that a parent affair hurts children (of any age) so deeply is that they have also been betrayed. When your parents marry, or maintain a committed partnership, that commitment automatically extends to the children. The entire family understands that commitment as the reality and trusts that it will continue. When one parent lies and breaks that commitment, the betrayal is family-wide.

The understanding of your parents' commitment to each other does not stop just because you are an adult. You are still a family. 

Just because you are an adult, you do not stop loving your parents. 

What to do instead:

The first step is to stop trying to get over it. Allow yourself to feel all of the pain, anger, hurt, betrayal, sadness, confusion. All of it. (blog post on emotions) Because the only way to get through it is to admit that the pain is real, and that you have a right to feel it. 

Only then can you start to heal from the betrayal, and establish a relationship with your parents that feels good to you.

Want to know more?

I am working on creating a resource for adult children who are coping with a parent’s affair and I need your help! What help do you need? Email me or hop on a call with me and let me know. Not a sales call, I promise, I want to be sure what I offer is what you need.