Three Things that Parenting After Betrayal Advice Gets Wrong
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The decision to communicate with your kids about a parent’s affair rarely comes easily. While each situation is unique, experts typically focus on how to communicate with your kids in a way that is loving, boundaried, and age-appropriate. For more help on speaking with your kids about infidelity, check out this post.
While all of these are important, in my experience, they do not go far enough. From the hundreds of messages I have received from teens and young adults about their parent’s cheating, here are three crucial but often-missed factors to consider when speaking with your kids about infidelity.
Not Considering Social Media
I have received hundreds of messages that begin like these:
A couple of years ago in July i was in the car on the way to karate. I was on my dads phone and a notification popped up.
I just found out yesterday that what I’ve believed since I was seven was true…so on my phone I have a family account that me, my stepmum, my dad and my granny is in. With this feature you can see what has been downloaded on all their phones so me being a curious seven year old with an iPad I went to check and I saw a dating app. I kinda dismissed it and I never spoke about it again to anyone, fast forward six years and I am now thirteen turning fourteen soon. I remembered this and I went to go check it again, turns out since then he’s downloaded four more and let me tell you what he did…
Many people out there offering advice on what to tell your teens about the affair lean toward saying as little as possible while still being honest. There is merit in this, both as a way to protect your teen, and as a way to keep a firm boundary around what is a parent’s issue.
That being said, you need to balance what you may not want to tell your teen, and honestly, what your teen may not want to hear, with what you know is circulating in the metaverse. Most teens do not want or need the sexual and physical details of a parent's digressions. It is not helpful to their healing.
However, there are teens that are going to want to know more, and will go looking for it. If you have a teen that is pushing you for more information, consider that you will never be as good at hacking tech as your teen is, and if the information is out there, they will likely find it. Another example is a teen who does not necessarily want more information, but stumbles upon it.
It is always, always better for them to hear information about the affair from you first. Both in the short term, and for maintaining trust in your relationship in the long term.
If you know that there is the potential for your kids to find information online, you are better off giving them as much information as you can. A couple of examples of conversation starters:
I know, or suspect, that there are texts/photos/videos out there that pertain to the affair. I do not think it is in your best interest to go looking for them, or to see them if you happen upon them, because they will be really difficult for you to see, and they will not help you feel better.
While I understand your need to know more about the affair as a way to cope, remember that once you see it, you cannot unsee it. This is not the kind of thing you want burned into your brain. It will not help you, or your relationship with either parent. It also won’t help with your understanding of infidelity, as that is an issue that is really between us as your parents.
Ask them why they want to know this information, and then give them as much information as you can to satisfy that.
It’s also important to take social media into consideration when deciding IF to disclose the affair to your kids. It’s tempting to think, The affair partner lives all the way in London! The kids will never know! There may have been some truth to this back in 1992, but remember how interwoven and accessible our tech world is today.
Not considering the wider community outside the nuclear family
after finding out that your parent cheated & they still chose to stay together, do you feel lonely?
they’re at home but it doesn’t matter because you feel lonely at the end of the day. you don’t feel like a family anymore and at this point, even settling for someone you don’t like just to have someone next to you seems like an answer?
Most advice focuses on the conversation between the parent and the teen, and how the infidelity affects the parents and the nuclear family. But for teens and young adults, a parent’s affair has much longer tentacles.
As they spend less and less time with you, they are going to be looking for guidance with if and how to speak about the affair with other people. What do they say to their friends? What does your extended family know? Your church? Do you have opinions about this as a parent? If you have opinions, it is important to be up front about them.
Realize that if you have expectations about how your kids communicate about the affair, it will potentially translate into your teens feeling like they have to keep this secret for you. If they feel this way, that secret is going to take effort for them, and feel like an extra metal and physical load. There are not strict right and wrong answers here, but generally the more freedom the teen has to talk about the affair, even while they may well not want to, the less burdened they will feel about the affair, and the better your relationship will be.
An added layer to consider is if they know the affair partner. While I totally understand that you do not want to burden your teen with additional information that will make them feel uncomfortable around this person. However, in my experience kids of infidelity have incredibly good sonar so it is worth considering that your teen will sense that something is amiss with the relationship between the affair partner and your family.
Not staying in the kids frame long enough
my dad recently cheated on my mom we found out through deleted texts, but they are trying to work things out. she is heartbroken but so forgiving towards him 😭how do I [15 F] help my mom and give her support, and how do I forgive him? And make myself not feel so betrayed 😭
My Dad Cheated On My Mom And Now I Find It Hard To Trust People: I found out that my dad was cheating on my mom at the height of the pandemic. When that exact moment happened, it was like I was in a movie. Everything stood still. For a second, I thought that I was dreaming and that I’d wake up from this nightmare and everything would be alright. But I didn't wake up, I was already awake, and it wasn't a dream, this was happening to my family.
The frame is a term I have borrowed from David Brooks How to Know a Person, and it refers to a technique that is particularly helpful when having a difficult conversation with someone. During a difficult conversation, we usually have very distinct opinions and feelings about the topic. To help us feel more safe, we spend most of the conversation in our own frame for safety and protection.
When speaking with your teens about infidelity, you will and should have definite opinions about what your kids should know, what you want to share with them, along with what your boundaries are.
But too often this means that the conversation focuses only on the nuclear family and the relationship with the affair partner or parent.
While the reality is, for teens and young adults, a parent’s affair often throws their whole worldview into question. Especially if their parents have been married for many years and have now split. What they understood and believed about love and marriage, honesty and integrity, is all going to hit them at a time when they are getting ready to leave the home and be an adult.
The solution is to see the conversations about the affair as way more than just about your partner’s infidelity. Affairs are about so, so much more for teens than just who did what to whom. So get curious. Ask them what they believe about commitment and love. About what hurts most about the infidelity. What questions come up for them. Equally important, try not to take their responses personally. They will have some big feelings and may spend some time in blame mode. But the more they see that you are willing to help them work through the big life questions that infidelity brings up, the more trust you will build with them over the long term.
Finally, remember that parenting after betrayal is a marathon, not a sprint. It will likely take several conversations over many years to fully discuss and process the experience with your kids. Don’t lose hope! The research has shown repeated that the way that a family discusses the affair has as much impact as the affair itself.