When it comes to whether you should tell your adult children about the affair, that’s a tough one! You really have to know your children, as to whether they could handle such information in a non-destructive way. And you need to be very prayerful and careful with whatever you decide to do. It could drastically change how they view the parent who had the affair and change how they interact with them in the future.
But it can also be a good thing to hear it from their parents rather than from someone else. These kinds of things have a way of shooting out of the darkness into the light. Your adult children may feel betrayed if they were never told from their parents and had to hear about it elsewhere.
This is something we’d like to hear from you as far as what you think. Have you been in this place yourself or do you know of someone who has? Tell us briefly what happened and whether you think it’s a good idea to tell your adult children about the affair. It could possibly help someone else who is faced with this dilemma.
Before doing so, we’d like you to read an article that appears on the web site for the Beyond Affairs Network (which is directed by Anne and Brian Bercht). It might give you a few additional insights. This web site can be found at www.beyondaffairs.com.
To read this particular article we will provide a link for you below (and then arrow back afterwards to leave comment, if you desire to do so).
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(USA) This is a question that I know I need answers with, but my situation is a bit different. Back in 2002, I started noticing more and more that my husband was not taking showers, not keeping himself clean. He has always been a rather sweaty person, but because he put on weight, he sweated more, and the odor that came from him was sickening. I would try to talk to him saying things like, “honey, lets take a shower together”, stuff that would not seem criticizing. He refused to, and that went on until finally I came out one day with telling him that I really miss you, but I cannot “be” with you if you don’t clean up. Well, he took that as criticizing, and I then noticed that he would go WEEKS without washing. He also started going online, printing out naked pictures of celebrity woman and wrestling “babes”. I found the pictures one day when I was cleaning; I got this nagging feeling that I should check his bottom drawer of his dresser, and their they were, plus, a prepaid cell phone.
I confronted him about it (one or more of the sites had viruses which infected my computer and I ended up having to junk it), and he got very angry, telling me that he is a grown man and that he is paying the bills, and it felt like I was his mother looking over his shoulder at everything he did. I then asked him why did he have the prepaid phone, did he have an affair? At first he said no, but then he turned around and said that yes he did, with a woman who sold insurance to the city workers, (he is a retired cop).
Well my feelings were crushed as I tried to figure out why he did it. Note this; I am not perfect, I do and have done my share of wrongs, but I repented and asked God for forgiveness of each offense and sin that I had perpetrated against others in my life. Anyway, after he told me who the woman allegedly was and where she lived, I insisted that he get an AIDS test done. He said there was no need to do that which puzzled me a lot.
During that time my children were old enough to understand, and they both came into my bedroom when they heard me scream out after finding those pictures. Both of them asked me what happened and I told them. It was not hard to figure that out; the pictures were all on the bed of the naked women. My daughter was a teenager and my son was preteen. After my husband confessed to the alleged affair, I broke down into tears and depression sank down on me deeply, even the music director at the church I had attended said that he felt it. He prayed for me, but I was too far gone mentally and emotionally. I spoke again to my children and told them that daddy said he had an affair with another woman and that is why you see mom crying so much.
My husband said he was sorry, and because I was so depressed he said that maybe I should go and “talk to someone that specializes in marital discord”, but he refused to go, saying that he did not need to, that he was not depressed, but he said that he would be glad to drive me to them. A couple of years later, I found evidence of another cell phone by way of the bill coming to address, and realized again that my husband was lying to me. This time he said that the cell phone was for use with when he was at work, which he claimed to have used it for the coworkers alone, but did not tell me. His brother knew he had it though. Apparently he purchased the cell phone around the time that I found the other prepaid one.
A few weeks later, I got another strong feeling that something was not right with his story about the affair, so after seeking advice from a couple of my choir mates, I confronted him about it, and I told him he best tell the truth because I was going to file for divorce if he did not (I had already started taking steps in that direction anyway). He said “truth; I never had an affair with the woman I claimed to have, I made it all up because you told me that I needed to take a shower, so I stayed dirty and stinky on purpose to get back at you. I wanted you to think that if you did not want me regardless of how I smell and how disgusting I look, that there was someone out there who would.
My husband, was driving me to those meetings for me to TRY to get over an affair that my husband never had, and when I did ask him why did he let me believe for so long that you had an affair, he says he does not know, but I knew; as long as I felt that there was someone else, he figured that I would continue with my marital “obligations”.
My kids, now both grown up, daughter 20, son almost 17, would hear me crying late at night, and finally (also because they could hear my husband and I arguing) my son came to me and told me that he was old enough to hear what was going on, and asked me to please tell him what happened. I felt it better to tell them so I sat down with him first and let him know, and then my daughter. My daughter got angry, but for more reasons than that; I had her from a previous relationship, my husband is her step-father, and she already felt insecure about her biological dad abandoning her. My son however, kept his feelings to himself for a while, but later on he made it very clear to my husband that he did not like what he did to me. My son became closer to me, while my daughter accused me of trying to break her relationship with my husband up. She changed her tune after a while, realizing that I did not bring this on myself.
Since all that has transpired, my relationship with my husband is strained. I have forgiven him, but I still remember the hurts, and still feel like he played me for a fool. I don’t trust him anymore; and I question everything that he does. The hurt that I feel from what he did is still in my heart and I don’t know if it will ever go away. There is no intimacy between us and has not been for about four years now, and even after all that took place, he still will not wash up; he will wait for about a week before he showers, and just being around him makes me sick, physically sick. Because we have adopted abandoned and neglected animals over the years, it is not that easy to just pick up and move on, plus I have no job, got several medical problems that derived from what took place between my husband and I, so I have no other place to live.
I was horrified. I got played by my husband, and made to look like a fool. My body could take it no more, the depression sank back deeper than before, and I put on massive weight, all without eating. I barely ate so how could I get so heavy? Then because of the rapid weight gain, my ankles started swelling up, and my knees started hurting. My beautiful hair fell out, and I just did not want to go on.
He was told that he needed counseling, he refused to go with me nor alone. Finally, one day he did go to see the shrink with me. When he got there, they let him know this; you are insecure about how you look, you don’t like yourself, you are jealous of your own wife because of how she looks and the attention she gets while on the flip side, no woman is looking at you and when you look in the mirror at yourself, the truth has turned you ugly on the inside about yourself which you then put on your wife by hurting her.
The bottom line is this though; he is still bitter over the fact that I told our kids what happened, yesterday he made no bones about the fact that I should not have told them, that it was none of their business which I totally DISagree with, and he blames me for his relationship with his son being so distant. He was told by the shrink to stop placing blame on others when he needs to hold himself accountable for the things he did, but he is still angry and bitter.
Me, I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand being in the same house with him, yet at this time I have no choice. I try to be civil, but arguments still do break out. I don’t know if anyone has every gone through what I have, but I could sure use some advice.