DMK trendUp for discussion is a response from our DMK community to trending social issues and online stories.

Dad tells teens their mom was unfaithful to him for three years when asked why they are divorcing

We're continuing the online conversation about a story of a dad who, at the time he and his wife announced they would be divorcing, told his teenagers his wife's infidelity was the reason they were splitting up.  According to his post on the AITA forum on Reddit his wife did not attempt to [immediately] disclose the secret of her infidelity when telling the children about their divorce. 

After three months her children still do not want a relationship with her.

The trendUP question is:

Should dad have told his teens about their mom's infidelity as being the cause of the divorce?

The online responses vary from the father being vengeful to "honesty is the best policy".  So far, it appears most side with the dad in that the teenagers would be better off knowing the truth.

We further the trendUP discussion with three more questions:

• Should honesty prevail if sharing the details of the breakup at the time of the divorce announcement causes the children additional emotional turmoil?
• Was it right to tell them knowing his wife did not want to disclose the details of her failed marriage to her children?
• Was it the right time to share the specifics?

DMK Initial Reaction:

A right way and wrong way 

The right way to announce a divorce to your children is to agree on how and what to tell the children about the choice to end a marriage and stick by your agreement in an effort to put your children's emotional needs before your own. 

The wrong way is to disregard the best interest of the children in an effort to put the blame where it may very well belong, but ultimately making it harder for the children to cope with the immediate crisis.

Here's our opinion, take what you want from it

Those of us on the "been there done that squad" all agreed that while the dad was probably right about his teenagers deserving to know the truth, his parental duty should have prevailed over his own pain in choosing when, how and why to do so. 

More details should have been shared about the divorce, the right way and at the right time with each child (based on the individual child, his/her needs and coping ability).

In a perfect world, the specifics could have waited until each child was ready and perhaps in a therapy setting so that feelings could be explored, and healing could be the primary benefit of such an honest discussion.  

It's doubtful each teenager had the maturity level and emotional capability to accept so much news in one day and in the way where both parents were not in agreement that doing so was in the best interest of the children. 

It would have been obviously better to consult with professionals first as to what would be beneficial to share during their announcement about the divorce.

Each child is different

Children eventually reach an age and maturity level where learning more details of their parent's divorce is less painful than when originally faced with the news.  Most of us would like to eventually know what stole our parent's love for one another.  

The details should be shared in a tactful way when dad or mom felt it would benefit the children to know.  And, by benefit we mean it should be something that would provide some closure or significance helping them heal from their loss of a nuclear family. 

However, dad telling them painful details at the time of the divorce announcement seemed more of a means to gain his teen's support, put a divide in the relationship with their mom and satisfy a "it's her fault, not mine" need to deflect any blame for both parent's decision to end the marriage. 

The hard truth for dad

The fact is, he shouldn't have told them for the reason(s), if he's really honest with himself, he decided to share the painful details as to why this terrible thing was happening to their family.  

Honesty is a great policy.  But knowing the difference between being honest with your family and the need for vindication, acceptance and support is important.

He essentially demoralized his ex-wife knowing it would gain his children's support for him.  In our opinion, he used his children as a weapon to return the pain his wife caused to him.  She took her love away from him, so he took actions to take her children's love from her.

Is the morality lesson more important?

It sounds like his intentions were not clearly thought out when faced with his own, obvious feelings of betrayal and pain.   He likely felt his children should know based on his own beliefs and passionate contempt for his wife's behavior.  But this unfortunately put his emotions and needs before his children's ability to accept what he was telling them. 

He failed to immediately realize how sharing the details of his wife's betrayal removed a very important support structure in a parenting system his children needed at that time more than ever. 

It's true they would likely have been upset regardless of who told them, when and how.  But the severity of their pain may have been lessened and their ability to handle the time following the initial news with the support of both parents would have been easier.

Not a good common bond

His sharing of the details also created an unusual bond between him, and his children based on the destruction of his marriage and their damaged relationship with their mother.  He attained their parental siding originating from his behavior and choice that later he himself would question.  This bond based on betrayal may actually cause more long-term damage to his children's relationship with both him and his wife than he realizes.

If he didn't think what he immediately disclosed would affect his children, hurt them as it did him and initiate feelings of betrayal by their mother, why did he tell them? 

"Call it like you want, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a divorce sh*tting all over your life and family and it's gonna leave a mess.  In this case, clean this part up dad."

Moms got some cleaning up to do too, but that's not the point

It may seem like we're being hard on this guy when it was his wife that made a decision that was perhaps the primary reason for divorce. 

But the question here is not about her decision to have an affair, it's about how, when and what the children were told about their parent's decision to divorce.  His decision is our "trendUP for discussion" not hers. 

If it was hers, we would have plenty to discuss about that too!  

Love, loss & blame

Based on many state's laws, various religious beliefs and plain ol' vows of married couples, it's obvious his wife did what many find unforgivable in a marriage and destructive to a family.  So, ya, he and his children have good reason to initially feel a great deal of blame for her and regardless of when they found out, they were bound to have a bad reaction.

But infidelity is an easy reason for children to sympathize with one parent and feel angry with another, when in fact, relationships are complicated and reasons for love loss and betrayal are difficult to explain to children who have no experience with the complexities of marriage and adult relationships.

In a split second, he took advantage of his children's inability to understand why their mother did what she did and obviously, such intimate details of a relationship may never truly be understood by anyone other than the two people involved.

It's quite possible, even as adults, their children will always have the painful memory of their initial reaction based on their capacity to understand the complexities of adultery and divorce, as children.  Meaning that when considering it as adults, they may continue to see it through the eyes of a child, never really able to identify with one or both parents fully based on an adult perspective.

Start the conversation with mutual goals

He said he didn't want to lie when asked by his children why they were divorcing.  The point is that the focus of the conversation shouldn't have been an "air your marital dirty laundry discussion" in the first place.  The details shouldn't have been the primary focus.  It seems as though mom had her reasons for cheating and dad had his reasons for divorce.  Getting into such mature relationship discussion with teenagers would obviously lead to more turbulent complications.  

Parent, mentor, leader

His lack of parental leadership skills allowed his children to direct the announcement based on their emotions and curiosity when he and his wife should have had a unified approach based on what the children needed to know in order to successfully take the next step with them. 

Had they approached things correctly, he shouldn't have had to lie or deflect questions.  

The discussion should have been to inform the children of their plans, reaffirm their love for them, demonstrate a commitment to their co-parenting goals and address their children's concerns about their transition into a two-household family. 

Not good co-parenting

He started an ineffectual and unhelpful co-parenting relationship before the couple even began their divorce.

In the interest of bearing, one's pain with the least number of casualties, sharing the details against the wishes of his spouse was obviously not beneficial to their three children.    

Children can't vote, marry or join the military...there's a reason

Most kids can't understand the complex details of a crap marriage to their benefit.  So, spare them the details. 

They shouldn't need to carry the burden of the dirty details of their parents' emotional, marital garbage before they are old enough to vote, drink, leave the country or get married.  If you disagree, you may eventually find greater detriment in your child's upbringing than value.

If both parents wanted to get into specifics, a trained counselor or therapist would have been helpful in providing some much-needed direction.  

It wasn't dad's transgression to share

If her betrayal led to the rift between her and her kids, she should have been the one who told them what she did, not their father.  It wasn't his right, but moreover it wasn't his responsibility to overshare and thus become part of that painful memory of her children being told about her actions that led to their parent's divorce.  

His behavior was common, but still mostly unhelpful

He flubbed up, but it's never too late to make some corrections and own up to his decision about 'when, why and for whose benefit'. 

He certainly doesn't sound like a bad guy, and he obviously has his own logical concerns he is ready to address.  To get started he should promote his children's recovery from the divorce and help them rebuild what they have lost in their relationship and time with their mom.

Lead with the right intentions and most times things will work out.  

Family destruction and divorce 

It's not all a matter of right or wrong.  Divorce is initiated over "wrongs of a marriage" and usually gets worse before better. 

He wouldn't be the first to let his emotions dictate decisions during such a difficult time.  Emotions can distort our perception over what's right and wrong, what's best for our children, our family and ourselves.  It usually takes most of us years to see the bigger picture. 

Sadly, some of us remain blinded by our pain forever.  The hope is that our children are not among this group.  Parent's behavior, comments, discussions and choices leading up to, during and after divorce can be extremely harmful to children. 

Adults may find memories of going through a divorce difficult, but those same memories for children may not only be difficult to overcome but may actually shape who they become as adults.

If something sounds bad to you or is considered painful as an adult (like the thought of adultery, betrayal or abandonment) know that it is significantly more awful to a child.  

What you do, how you act and what you say matters now and in future years

 

When divorcing, blame is often plentiful while forgiveness and healing much harder to come by.  It's usually a series of rip it apart, tear it out and hopefully rebuild whatever is left.  

Unfortunately, our kids struggle as much or more than ourselves on this journey for which they had little to no influence to affect.  We chose to marry our spouses and chose to divorce them.  The kids are just along for the awful ride. 

As months and years pass, we slowly forget the pain from our divorce since the person we may blame the most is out of our everyday life.  But, for our children, both people who initiated the path to divorce are usually very much in their lives. 

Kids are resilient, but enough can't be said about limiting the amount of emotional turmoil and complications associated with the transition.  Stay as positive as reasonably possible and kids will carry less negative from the experience now and in the future.

So, you made some mistakes

Guess what!  We all do.  What matters is how you get through them.

In a divorce, just like a bad marriage, people do things all of the time they later regret.  They do things that are hurtful to one another and to their children because they are so close to such a painful occurrence in their relationship that they lead with their broken hearts instead of their heads and love for their family.   

It doesn't excuse the behavior or actions.  However, the sooner we realize, admit and accept our mistakes, the sooner we can rebuild, repair and move forward.

This dad's wrong and right decisions

Sadly, dads need for instant transparency from the side of the jilted spouse wouldn't be uncommon and certainly doesn't make him a bad guy.  Just a guy who showed a momentary lapse in good judgement as a father.  Many of us have been there, obviously done that.  But that doesn't excuse it.  We won't be easy on him because doing so doesn't help him or his family.

We too have come to terms with our poor decision making during such a stressful time.  Many of us learned that staying on the wrong path for fear of admitting our choice to take it wasn't the right decision only keeps us headed in the wrong direction.  It's better to stop, as this dad did, consider the possibility that he reacted like many people do, but realizing it may have taken him and his family way off course. 

Counseling

Therapeutic intervention is absolutely recommended.  The children's choices and opinions of their mother should be heavily considered.  She betrayed them too and has a great deal of work ahead of her to repair the damage to the relationship she has with her children.

But as their father, he should represent a positive influence over their happiness rather than a spiteful stance supporting their pain (even if it is based on his values about a husband and a wife).  This situation should not be what provides a bond between him and his children.  Instead, his bond with his children as a single father should be based on positive, forward thinking with their best interest always at the forefront.

Was she otherwise a good mom?

Unless this guy's wife did more than have an affair that would make her unfit to be in her children's lives, he should not come between his children and their mom.  He should help his children in overcoming their pain and learn forgiveness. 

She cheated on him not them.  While he has good reason to end his marital relationship and they may feel betrayed by her actions that contributed to the end of their nuclear family, her relationship with her children is absolutely repairable.  He should realize that sooner than later. 

His support for his children to heal from the divorce and work on their relationship with their mom will continue to strengthen his relationship with them while his children begin a more balanced, positive parental support system. 

These parents should forgive themselves so their children will be more able to forgive and move forward also.

We wish him and his family the best of luck as they start down their path to their family's recovery.  

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