This study points hopefully to a pathway to healing for kids of cheating parents. Healing means being able to understand your parents’ affair intellectually, and being able to be honest and open about the affair.

WHICH QUESTIONS DID THEY ASK?

What is the lived experience of parent infidelity? How do people make sense of the experience, and what are its long-term implications?

WHO DID THEY ASK?

Qualitative Study of 6 people ages 23-65 who had all experienced parental infidelity

WHERE WAS THE STUDY CONDUCTED?

United Kingdom

WHEN?

Published in 2021

WHY?

Previous research on children and infidelity has focused on a ‘snapshot’ approach, meaning that it has looked at one particular issue, such as how the kids found out, or the effect of parental apologies. This study used one-to-one semi-structured interviews to obtain data on the breadth and depth of the entire experience of growing up with cheating parents. 

WHAT WAS LEARNED?

Four themes emerged: Adultification, Challenges in Romantic Relationships, The Psychological Experience, and The Pathway to Healing. We will look at each one and their sub themes.

Adultification

• This refers to both the early exposure to adult issues and the taking on of adult-like roles

• Becoming an emotional carer: A heavy burden that includes fear that something might happen to the upset parent, guilt at not being able to help, anger and resentment at both parents for having to take on this role. Often causes the dilemma of having to choose between caring for the distressed parent and the child’s own emotional needs.

• Awareness of parent sexuality: painful and uncomfortable

Challenges in Romantic Relationships

• Fear of abandonment and relationship breakdown: includes difficulty trusting, as well as overcompensating for being labeled damaged goods due to parent’s behavior

• Intergenerational transmission of Infidelity: Either cheating or being cheated on

• Differentiation: The need to strongly differentiate between the child and the cheating parent, or the child’s current partner and the cheating parent as a reassurance that the relationship is stable.

The Psychological Experience

• A painful experience that persists over time and can touch many aspects of a child’s life making it feel life changing.

• The sense of self: personalization of the infidelity as being somehow a reflection on the child and that there must be something wrong or unlovable about them if they had a parent who cheated, or shame that the affair was somehow their fault. 

• Loss; detachment and disconnection: this includes choosing to distance from the unfaithful parent, as well as the unfaithful parent choosing the leave the family or to not have a relationship with the child, and distance from other family members like siblings and extended family because of the affair and people choosing sides

The Pathway to Healing

• Restoration through destruction: parent infidelity can be positive, either by managing the tension in the partnership or by ending it. It can also foster personal resilience and teach about what a healthy relationship looks like

• Perspective: In order to intellectualize the infidelity, children understand both the difficulties in their parents partnership, and difficulties that parents had in childhood or before the partnership that might have lead to the affair

• Honesty and Openness. Negative consequences of having to maintain secrecy about the affair in any way are solved when the parents cultivate honest discussion about the infidelity.
  

THE TAKEAWAY IN ONE(ISH) SENTENCE…

IF YOU ARE A THERAPIST, TEACHER OR HELPER: Encourage your clients to find a way to intellectually understand the affair, and to manage the secrecy in the family, as having to keep secrets about the affair has proven to be one of the most difficult for mental health.

IF YOU ARE A PARENT INVOLVED WITH INFIDELITY: Having honest, open conversations with your kids about infidelity is key. The most hopeful sentence in the entire article came from one participant who described …”holding her mother’s openness about infidelity, solely responsible for her not having had any difficulties with trusting others.”

IF YOU ARE AN ADULT WHO GREW UP WITH CHEATING PARENTS: This study is the first to point to the life-long implications for kids of parents who cheat. Go easy on yourself if you struggle with it for a long time. 

Reference:

Lutfiye Salih & Sara Chaudry (2021): Exploring the lived experience of parental

infidelity, Journal of Family Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13229400.2021.1956997