To me, the biggest takeaway here is that parents do not need to be so afraid to confess infidelity to their children. Children are often generous and understanding of their parents’ behavior.

WHICH QUESTIONS DID THEY ASK?

What common reasons do adult children give for why their parent cheated?

WHO DID THEY ASK?

A qualitative study with participants with the following characteristics: parents had to have been married at some point

• at least one parent engaged in infidelity

• ages 19-50

• 38 people, 16 men, 22 women

• 84% White

WHERE WAS THE STUDY CONDUCTED?

Participants were solicited from three Midwestern University in the United States

WHEN?

Published in 2012

WHY?

To better understand how adult children make sense of their parents’ infidelity.

WHAT WAS LEARNED?

There are five categories for how adult children understand their parents’ infidelity. Implicit in each of these reasons is a belief that the cause of the affair was either something that the parent could control, or something the parent could not control. 

1. Dysfunction/Deficiency: Infidelity is a result of something wrong in the marriage, often because each parent grew up in a dysfunctional family of their own. The affair was a result of each parent’s inability to manage differently, for example, the cheating parent cheated because they had learned it from their own family, and the faithful parent could not interrupt the cheating because of what they had learned in their family. This is a way to understand the affair and a way to distance the parents from any ownership for bad behavior, as the reason for the affair was beyond both parents’ control.

2. Justification/Excuses: Children often justify an affair if the parents stay together, and particularly if they partnered or married very young. Again, it is a way to understand an affair as being outside the parents’ control. It was natural given their age or stage in life.

3. Restoring Credibility/Character: Related to justifications/excuses, many children feel the need to speak positively about their parents when discussing their infidelity, pointing out what a good person the offending parent is, or what good parents they are, or how things changed for the better after the affair. Speaking positively in this way is a backhanded way of acknowledging that the affair was outside of the parents’ control. Meaning, they are good people so the affair happened for lots of reasons that is not about their character.

4. Blame: Blame is different for the cheating parent and the faithful parent. Children typically blame the offending parent for their lack of character or good qualities, which were the reason for the affair. Blame of the faithful parent typically focuses on what this parent did to drive the offending parent to cheat.

5. Denial of Parent Involvement: Children also blame external factors such as alcohol, a job, or another person. Again, this is a way to understand an affair as being outside of a parent’s control.

THE TAKEAWAY IN ONE SENTENCE:

IF YOU ARE A THERAPIST, TEACHER OR HELPER: This language and these categories may be helpful to use with children suffering the effects of parent infidelity to help them speak about it more easily.

IF YOU ARE A PARENT INVOLVED WITH INFIDELITY: To me, this study points to the way that children have a much more nuanced understanding of all of the factors that go into a choice to cheat then they are often given credit for. 

IF YOU ARE AN ADULT WHO GREW UP WITH CHEATING PARENTS: Recognize that even though ‘flip-flopping’ is perceived as a negative thing, your understanding of your parents’ infidelity will change over time, and you may go through all 5 of these categories at different times, or all at once.

Reference:

Parental Infidelity: Adult Children’s Attributions for Parents’ Extramarital Relationships

Allison R. Thorson 

Chapter in Communication Family Crisis