My husband had an affair which he ended after I confronted him. He had been a devoted father and we had a good marriage until a number of crises affected our lives. At first, I did not feel I even wantd to work on the marriage and so I was very ambiguous about the reason that dad may be moving out. Later, however, as we began to try to work our way through this mess, I felt it was very important that our 16 and 13 year old children understood what was going on (they already sensed something was terribly wrong because there had been such tangible love in our home). I have always tried to teach them to be responsible for their actions and to be aware of consequences that can hurt others. So, my husband has sat down and talked to them about his dishonorable and hurtful behavior (very simply and vasically without all the gory details!). My 13 year old seems to be just going along...but my 16 year old has had much of the same response as that of a grown woman. She feels that she still loves her dad very much and recalls how strong our family unit had been for most of her life. She now feels, though, that the man she always felt was "different" from other men and a "role model" is now a hypocrite in her eyes. She recalls how critical he had been many years ago when a friend's spouse has conducted himself in this same way and that he "promised" her he would never do anything like that "no matter what." My daughter now says that he now has no right to criticize anyone...certainly not any of her boyfriends. We have talked openly about all these feelings and I really believe it has helped her to understand my crazy behavior during the affair (I was aware of it) and the difficulty I am having in trying to piece our marriage and family back together. She has said that she was glad we finally explained the situation because she felt we had not been giving her or her brother any credit.
<p>My husband and I are (again) a parental team in trying to deal with what's going on with our kids. We just want to continue being honest with them and help them to learn that there can be devastating consequences to such self-centered and ill-thought out actions.
<p>Does anyone have any words of wisdom for us now?