My ex-husband and I were married for 15 years. We separated nine years ago after he had an affair, and then divorced. We tried very hard to reconcile but were unable to, in part because I felt he never took responsibility for the affair.
Our two children are now teenagers. Several of my friends have insisted that one day I will have to tell my children that their father was unfaithful to me. They believe that our children won’t ever really know or understand their father and their own lives without that information.
I disagree. Their father and I are cordial co-parents and the kids have not experienced a lot of conflict between us. Together we celebrate holidays, attend their events, make decisions about the kids and present ourselves as a united front. Plus, the kids don’t ask about the divorce anymore. On the other hand, I understand that people deserve to know the truth about the things that have profoundly shaped their lives.
My kids both struggle with anxiety and depression (as do I), and I feel like if I told them about their father’s infidelity, it would cause them to lose a trusted parent whom they both love very much. Moreover, their father would be angry at me for doing so, and it could cause a rift that puts the children in a much more contentious situation than the one they are in now.
What is the emotionally healthy thing to do? Even if I don’t tell the children anything now, if they begin to ask questions when they are older, is it best to tell them the truth or can I continue to tell them what we have always told them: that their father and I fell out of the kind of romantic love that people feel in a marriage?
From the Therapist: In order to answer your question, you’ll need to define what you and your friends mean by “the truth.”
You’re working from the assumption that your version of the end of your marriage is the one and only truth: Your husband’s betrayal — and his unwillingness to take responsibility to your satisfaction — caused the split. While your perspective is true to you, I imagine that your husband has his own perspective that’s equally true to him.
Perhaps in his view, the two of you were in a precarious place even before the affair — maybe one or both of you had become disconnected, couldn’t communicate well, avoided bringing up issues that needed to be addressed, stopped treating each other with care, didn’t know how to deal with the impact of one partner’s anxiety and depression, or felt profoundly hopeless and lonely. The affair could have been his way of coping with what he saw as an already dying marriage.
In other words, the cause of most marital breakdowns is a nuanced web of two subjective narratives, both of which contain painful truths. So your question then becomes: If you share one of the causes that led to the divorce — the affair — would you also need to share all the other reasons the marriage didn’t work? And if you did, how would your children’s having this knowledge support their continued emotional well-being, which includes maintaining strong relationships with both of you without becoming the arbiters of which parent hurt the other more?
What your children need is honesty, but that’s different from unsolicited oversharing. Parents aren’t obligated to discuss their marital issues with anyone outside their marriage — including their kids. While secrecy can become toxic, privacy can be protective. If and when your children come to you with more questions about why you divorced, you can say something like: “There are always layers to a relationship that outsiders aren’t able to grasp, and there’s no easy answer that fully captures what happened between us. Your dad and I tried very hard to make things work. But we’ve agreed to keep the specific details between us. That said, I’m happy to talk as much as you want about the effect the divorce had — or still has — on you.”
Of course, it’s possible they’ll hear about the infidelity from someone else, and if that happens, you can still be honest without oversharing. You might say: “Yes, that happened. And it was very painful. We tried to heal our marriage but ultimately prioritized becoming solid co-parents instead.” If they want details about the affair, you can reply, “If that information is important to you, I’d suggest asking your dad, since I feel like that’s his story to tell.”
He can use his judgment on what is or isn’t an appropriate level of detail, keeping in mind that sometimes the question the kids are asking might not be what they’re seeking an answer to. For example, questions like, “Who was the affair with?” or “Where did the affair take place?” might be their way of understanding core questions like “Didn’t you feel guilty that you were lying to Mom?” “Did you ever lie to us?” and “How do we know you’ll be honest from now on?” He might help them parse this difference by asking, “Do you know what you’re hoping to gain from knowing these details, or are you wondering more about how I could have done what I did and whether you can trust me?”
At the same time, be sure to reflect on the intention behind any marital information you share, either now or when your kids are adults. While your friends insist that disclosing the infidelity would help your children know their father and understand their own lives, I’d suggest a different framing: One motivation behind sharing the infidelity might be to fulfill a wish for you to have your suffering acknowledged. There may be a righteous part of you (or the friends who love you) that wants the kids to know that their dad was the bad guy who caused this mess and that you were the injured party who took the high road for the stability of the family, which you believe their father didn’t when he chose to have an affair. But this serves neither the children nor your own healing — and healing is your task, not your children’s, to manage.
So no, you don’t have to tell them. But if the time comes and they ask, you can be honest in a way that’s emotionally generous rather than emotionally burdensome.
That’s the kind of truth that will benefit them.
Want to Ask the Therapist? If you have a question, email [email protected]. By submitting a query, you agree to our reader submission terms. This column is not a substitute for professional medical advice.
Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and the author of the best-selling book “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.” She offers readers advice on life’s tough questions in the “Ask the Therapist” column.
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