My husband and I have been in a very good recovery for almost three years. It was a lot of hard work but it has been well worth it to both of us, we are closer then ever before. Our problem is our 19 year old daughter. She quit school a few months before graduation, she lies about everything, and a few weeks ago she just stopped coming home. We found out that she has moved in with a girlfriend and her grandmother. The girlfriend is someone we do not like, someone that we do not trust, and have told our daughter this over and over again. My daughter e-mailed me last week to tell me that she loved us but need to be on her own and that she never wanted to hurt us. When I e-mailed her back and told her that her lies not only hurt us but also her because we could never believe anything she told us she wrote back and told me that I had been lying to her. She told me that she knew about my husbands affair and that she felt she should have been told. That she has not felt close to her father since she found out and that by my not telling her she has a right not to be truthful to me. I told her that what did or did not happen between her father and I was our bussiness, that she was the child and all she had to know was that her father and I loved her and have worked out any problems we had in our marriage. Since I wrote her that e-mail she had no contact with us. Did I do the wrong thing? When my husband was involed in his affair she had just turned 16, I didn't tell her or her older sister because I did not want them to turn against their father. Was I wrong to keep the truth from them? They knew that something was wrong, but they also knew that we were going to MC to fix the problems. As long as we were working on our marriage what was the point in hurting them or my husband more by telling them what he had done. Sorry this is so long but I would really like to hear some opions on how to handle this.

Ellyn,

I wouldn't have hidden this affair from the kids because they should feel bad about their dad's behavior. But...that is in the past. Hiding the truth from them doesn't make him a better man, it just gives them a false perception of him and sends a mixed message. The affair was about their lives, too.

HOWEVER, I also think she is using this in an attempt to divert attention from her own behavior. I wouldn't let her get away with it by becoming defensive. Keep her focus on her own behavior and don't let her succeed in distracting you. His affair has very little [if anything] to do with her poor choices today.

Thanks Melody for the input. I don't feel that I hide his A as much as just didn't feel that it was something that I wanted to share with my kids. I also feel that she is using this information to keep the heat from her. She is using the fact that I kept this from her as an excuse for her lying to us. I still feel that I made the right choice in not telling the kids about the A, I don't think it would have changed anything between my h and I but I do feel that it would have led to bad feeling between my h and our daughters.
ellyn