Lately, there have been several posts about nearly adult children and their wayward parents. I've read the various responses and still feel a lot of questions. 2/3 of my children are bigger than me. I feel the dynamics of big kids with their wayward parent is an issue I need to think about.

If small children are involved in an A mess, they really don't have a lot of options. They are picked up and carted around without weighing much of an opinion. A 2 year old might get accustomed to having 2 houses that they are schlepped between. However, there comes a point where if a kid doesn't want to do something, you need to really start considering their point of view.

I believe that kids need to know their parents. Unless the parent is a molester or dangerous, you get the drift, a child should have a chance to be with that parent. We must validate our children's need for their other parent.

I believe that kids should honor their parents. Sure, it's one of the 10 commandments. I also believe that the flip side is that parents need to honor their kids. Honor is also earned.

Parents should act like they are older and more mature than their kids.

I believe kids shouldn't be put in the middle. I struggle with this all the time. We shouldn't be asking them questions about their WP. We shouldn't ask them to relay messages. We shouldn't use them as a support system. We also shouldn't take a lot of garbage off of them.

We need to give our kids a firm moral grounding. That would mean telling and showing them that affairs are wrong. If we condone certain behaviors from our WS then we normalize that behavior in our children's eyes. It also means that we need to hold to those standards.

We must protect our kids from the consequences of the A. Children should not be exposed to the OP. They certainly should have OP rubbed in their face. Children should not witness fights. Children should not listen to their parent being slammed. (No matter how much that parent may deserve it...) Children should not be punished financially because of an A.

When the mothership abducted our spouses, it also abducted our kids' other parent. If our spouse has been so changed, can we expect that the parent part has remained intact? Personally, I don't think so. I really wish to be wrong but I just don't think a wayward parent really treats their kids the same again. Myabe it just takes a long, long time.

We need to acknowledge that our children are thinking, rational, decisionmaking human beings. They will want to spend time with their other parent. We need to be prepared for our kids for a different set of rules and values. Sometimes they will have the horrible realization that their parent is a jerk. Maybe they will like or dislike the OP. That is the kids' decision.

We need to let our kids know that they are irreplacable, priceless and can never be forgotten. We are always their parent. We are consistent. We are loving. We are THERE. Kids might feel like their WP has pushed them away. They may not like the person their parent has become, what they do or who they hang out with. We need to honor that.

As my kids become adults, they are going to have to sort out their own relationship with their father. It's up to them but they know I'm with them all the way. Too bad their dad has made it such a tough row to hoe.

Any other chime ins?

Grapegirl,

I completely agree with all that you said.

WH has been over from Japan visiting the children for their birthdays and he has introduced OW to them this weekend. In his fogged out brain he asked if I wanted to meet her too?? Ahh......... that would be NO.

I have been trying to decide what to say to the girls about OW and I have decided to say nothing until they start asking me questions.

We told the girls that we will be getting a divorce and that Daddy has decided to live in America and now I am waiting for the fallout and to catch the pieces when it happens.

All I can do is show them all the love I can, that I am here ALWAYS and let them define the relationship that they have with their father.

I am so sad for them that he has decided to be so far away.....he has said that he will always regret not taking this job in America if he doesn't go!!

What he is yet to realise is that he will always regret the decision to abandon his children like this. I wonder if he ever will?

Considering half of my kids are teens and the other half are toddlers (15, 13, nearly 2 and nearly 1), this idea of "how to handle the kids" has taken on two totally different meanings for me. On the one hand, my 15yo son spent two months after D-day detesting OW and his father because of the pain I was in. He made an INCREDIBLE leap from child to young adult in that two months, mentally preparing himself to be the "man of the house" should something happen to tear my M apart. Then there's the other hand--my 13yo daughter has fallen apart at the seams. She gravitated toward OW (who was a very close family friend) and turned against me, lashed out at her dad, and created a dramatic fantasy world to live in (probably her method of coping) where everything was overexaggerated and sent her flying off the edge of an emotional cliff...heaven forbid I ask her to change her clothes, that was a personal attack! We went to church with the OW's family and DD13 had a REALLY hard time letting go. I forgave OW and did my level best to keep my inevitable ugly thoughts from surfacing and being nasty in public. DD13 didn't understand anything I was doing, she just wanted everything back to normal where OW's family was part of ours. Just not a healthy situation.
Then there's the other two hands...the babies...their future played a role in my decision-making; it HAD to. Consequences of the A could have changed their lives for the worse and they would never fully have understood why. Staying together and being miserable "for the sake of the children" wasn't an option. What I wanted my children to learn from this whole sordid mess is that even the "best" Christians can sin--some just fall harder than others; and that victories in this hard-fought battle come because Dad and Mom are making MUTUAL sacrifices to work things out. I want them to understand the pain--I've not hidden all the tears from them, but I do shelter them from the emotional torrents. I want them to see that adultery causes lives to be shattered, but that marriage is worth fighting for.
I do my best not to engage in any public Dad-bashing--or even OW-bashing. I just don't do it, nor do I allow it. I keep my nasty thoughts inside, or I voice them to one of two people I can trust to keep those thoughts private (unless, of course, someone hacks into my email account), and it has helped me remain outwardly calm to have an outlet for the venom. Both of the older kids have voiced some very ugly opinions, and I've used those times as teaching moments to reinforce the fact that hate and bitterness are never okay, no matter how badly someone has hurt you.
I also do all I can to point out things that their father is doing NOW that they can respect, because by and large they lost most of the respect they had for their father because of his A. While he's still here and we're working on rebuilding our marriage, the dynamics between father and children have changed forever. It's going to take YEARS for that relationship to recover, but I know that the way I treat him will affect the way my children see him.

Nothing like kids to keep you humble, huh?

GG,I agree with you 1000%. Children should not be exposed to the sleazy underbelly of affairs or allowed to be introduced to the OP. They should not be used by the affairees to normalize their affair, lest they grow up morally confused. I think it is a huge mistake to allow children to be dragged into an affair just to keep the peace.

Camoknightsswife wrote:


Hopefully, you reinforced to them that they SHOULD hate evil and injustice. Decent people are, and should be, outraged at injustice. Your children will naturally have "ugly opinions" about ugly, immoral acts; that is a healthy, normal reaction that should be encouraged. There is no virtue in standing silent in the face of gross indecency and injustice. Moral neutrality truly is "ugly."

Thanks for the excellent post, GG.

SAD TO SAY BUT TRUE...


It is very important that our sons not find out who the FOW is...my H agrees with this...

They are very protective of their "MOMMY"...and saw what I was going through...continue to be angry about the potential LOSS OF THEIR FAMILY...trying to learn about FORGIVENESS...their childhood naiveness is forever tarnished...

If they met her TODAY, I am sure that I would have to be consulting an attorney afterwards...if you know what I mean...

This is sad to say...

WHAT A TRAGEDY....

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Mel, I've taken MANY opportunities to reinforce to them that they should hate evil and injustice and untruth. The biggest problem I dealt with in my older kids' "ugly opinions" was my son's vow to hate his father forever if we divorced--he even TOLD his dad this. I told them they can hate what their father DID, but they are still bound to honor him per Biblical command. Hating an act, a behavior, an attitude, is far different than hating a person. I have had countless discussions with my children about all of this, that hating a person will not do anything for them but eat at their soul. Hating a sin--well, that's something I've taught them from babyhood. It's separating the sin from the sinner that is the hard part with children. Heck, we adults have a hard time with it!

Mimi, my son knew who the OW was, she was part of our life. His best friend is her oldest son. There was no getting around having to deal with their family; we went to church together, lived a couple of blocks away, and shared common friends. He had a very hard time with the fact that he still wanted his friend to be part of his life, so on top of his own family being in total chaos, he was losing a friend too. If he'd not known who OW was, I would have kept it from him. But he didn't even have to ASK after the kids found out what was going on post-D-day.

CKW, don't you think its normal for children to hate someone who devastates their family in such a grievous fashion? He would not be normal if he didn't. And of course, he won't seperate the sin from the sinner, we are defined by our actions. Our actions are an expression of our character. He has every right to hate his father. Honoring our father does not mean that we honor their evil or that we have to like them when they do harmful, cruel things to children.

I believe it is adding salt to the wound to shame children into unnatural feelings towards parents who are hellbent on an evil path. His feelings are very normal and should not be dismissed. Children have natural instincts about right and wrong and when they are denied or shamed into silence by adults, it creates great self doubt and confusion.

How sad that your children have to watch this sleazy affair up close. That is exactly how affairees use children to normalize their affairs. Dragging the children into it gives it a false air of respectibility and causes enormous moral confusion in children. How very tragic.

Mel, I'm not totally sure how you came to the conclusions you did...maybe you're thinking the worst? Perhaps you have mistaken my admission of keeping my OWN feelings and nasty thoughts to myself as meaning I expect the same of my children, but that's not what I said. I am trying to impart the knowledge of the love of God in my children. If I encouraged them to hate anything, I would only encourage hatred of what God hates--sin--and I HAVE encouraged that hatred. Do I think it is "normal" to have hateful feelings toward someone who devastates my family? Yes, but I'm not looking to raise "average" children. I'm looking to raise exceptional children who know how to forgive, especially when someone is repentant. Their "moral confusion" will continue to be something that I work with them to re-orient. I've had to re-orient my own moral compass during my adult lifetime, and honoring my parents was soemthing that came very difficult for me since I came from a physically and mentally abusive FOO. I want my children to have a little more help and spiritual direction than I did.

I have not EVER "shamed" my children into unnatural feelings. My husband is not hellbent on an evil path, nor do I believe the OW is. I have never dismissed my son's (or my daughter's) feelings. I have allowed for free expression of feelings and emotions but we discuss these things in depth and most especially we have discussed how, gone unchecked, feelings develop into something that will compromise one's soul.

One thing I will definitely have to disagree with you on is that our actions define who we are. This is something I have REALLY fought my entire adult life to overcome. I thought when I married at 16, pregnant, that people were right that I'd "always" be nothing more than a statistic, that my actions defined me forever. I have made it beyond the stigma of my actions, and I believe every person with actions they regret can do just that, provided they are willing to do the work to change their behavior and take responsibility for the effects it has on others. My son could well "hate" me for bringing him into a life where he's already got two strikes against him, but he knows from seeing what I've LIVED since his birth that my past sin does not define ME. If it did, wouldn't that negate the saving power of the blood of Christ?

It IS sad that my children had to be "up close and personal" during the time this affair occurred. Believe me, I have beat myself up for nearly seven months over that fact. However, what my children are witnessing now is a recovery in process. They are seeing their Mom deal with pain in healthy ways, they're seeing their Dad try to make things right and overcome his sin, and they're seeing that family is worth fighting for, even when it hurts. I'm sorry you somehow got a skewed view of what's going on in my family.

I posted this on Maingirl's thread before I noticed this one, here are my thoughts on the subject of children and A's....

No easy answers for any of this, and I bring up these points for discussion purpose....some things for us all to think about....and I'm not saying that you haven't had open discussions about this....

"the younger ones go with him when he askes for them"

"I can't force my older ones to hang with him, they are old enough to make their own decisions."

It's important that the younger ones have a relationship with their father, but are they also encouraged to have a voice regarding whether or not they go with WXH & OW?

Kids often do what is expected of them because they don't want to "disappoint" a parent...they put on a happy face because they see that is what both parents are doing on visiting days and so they figure...well, everyone else seems ok with this, I can't show them that I am confused about this"...

and although it is important that everyone is speaking in a respectful manner about WXH, do we allow the kids to express any anger they may feel about the situation? Or do we equate anger with disrespect? At some point everyone needs to be honest about how they feel, and why would it be so wrong for the younger ones to know how their older siblings feel and why? Maybe it would validate for them some of their own feelings. It must cause some confusion for them when they see them not spending time with their father...

I think we often go overboard "Normalizing" the whole situation and this causes the kids to go underground with their feelings. They may think something is wrong with the way they feel because everyone else seems to be ok with this new deal....

I also think that "normalizing" divorce also leads to a trend in society's thinking that Divorce is just no big deal... Haven't we all heard that? If we don't discuss openly and honestly with our children about the pain and hardships of divorce, how do they learn from it. They may feel it, but never have the words to express it....it becomes another one of those things that "no one ever talked about it"....

Are they aware of the Infidelity?

At what point should they know? Or do we just let them wonder all their lives? There needs to be a lesson learned in all of this, so that their own future relationships can be based on the truth of what they know and what they've learned...it's even more confusing when older siblings know and younger ones don't.

My youngest (D5 at the time)was aware of her father's affair when he left us. When discussing it, I would be honest and simply state, "Daddy's aren't supposed to have a girlfriend when they are still married", which explained why mommy & older siblings were sad...
She also knew that the OW was married & was getting a D because she had a "boyfriend".
Complicated? Sure....but I'd answer her questions simply and factually....
She still loved her Daddy and was excited whenever she saw him....I didn't call her Daddy names or vilify him....we did however leave a family event when WH showed up unexpectedly with OW. Older S was visibly upset and I wanted to send a clear message that this was NOT OK! You don't show up with an affair partner to a famiy wedding while you are still married and expect it to be no big deal!!!
What kind of message does this send to ALL of the children there?

One day, I was explaining that we were going to our divorced friend "Jane's" house, who's divorced boyfriend "Joe"'s children had been visiting the last time we were there. I told her that the girls weren't going to be there this time, they went home to their mothers'.

D5 exclaimed, "Joe is MARRIED and is dating Jane?"
"Oh no", I explained, "Joe is Divorced and the girls live with their mother".
"How come they are divorced" she asked. I said, "because Joe's wife had a boyfriend while they were still married...and Jane is Divorced because her husband had a girlfriend when they were married"

"Oh,like Daddy and "OW"....
"Yes", I said.

She thought about it for a minute and then firmly said, "What a MESS!"


AH, my darling girl, it most certainly is!

Not a lesson that any child should have to learn, but unfortunately that is the reality of our life!

Well, those are my thoughts on the subject....as usual I can get carried away!!!

CK, I am sorry if I misunderstood your intent, but I gathered that you were requiring your children to honor a parent who is committed to a path of evil. [and yes, adultery is evil] And if he is pursuing an illicit affair, that is exactly what he is doing. As a Christian, who is committed to a higher spiritual path, I strongly believe that Christian principles dictate that we don't value or honor evil or those who practice evil. I think children will naturally think ugly thoughts about ugly practices.

Granted, it is a horrible predicament to have to watch your own parent live a life that is so flagrantly immoral and disrespectful. And while a child is required to treat his parent with respect, it is most hard to do when you are not able to respect their actions.

However, I would disagree that our actions don't define us, they most certainly do. That does not mean that we cannot change, however, if one is not defined by their actions, then by what? As actions are only an extension of who we really are. And when we change inside, our actions change.

Shugah, this is an extremely important point that I would like to emphasize. When I was a little girl, I was often exposed to my father's latest OW. He would pick me up and take me his hotel to meet his latest ho. I sensed there was something extremely wrong with this but since all the adults around acted like nothing was wrong, I concluded that I must be a stupid girl.

I began to have great doubts about my instincts and figured something must be very wrong with mem because I could apparently not see what others plainly saw. My feelings about this were never validated, leading to self doubt.

I cannot describe to you the moral confusion this caused in me. I grew up extremely confused because there was no adult in my life who would sit me down and say "this is immoral," and validate my instincts about right and wrong. I concluded when I was in my late teens that my moral foundation was strictly contingent upon what "felt good." I knew nothing better than that. This, of course, caused huge problems well into my adult years.

This is why I am so adament about parents not exposing their children to affairs. This confuses them greatly when an adult does not do stand up against it and do their best to protect them from inappropriate situations.

Mel, while I understand where you're coming from, being unaware of my circumstances probably made it seem to you like I am requiring something of my children that I'm not. My H's affair is over. We have, since D-day, moved thousands of miles away from OW (per the military's order). We are recovering.

Granted, while one is IN sin, one is considered a sinner. In that respect, yes, I agree with you that the actions can "define" the person. About giving honor, though...am I to honor my parents as the Word of God instructs regardless of THEIR moral situation? My own parents are not Christians. Am I therefore released from the command to honor them because they are bound up in sin? Honor is an interesting thing--I don't have it all figured out, I'll be the first to admit that. But I also believe you can honor someone without condoning something they are doing that is evil. My husband, a member of the US Armed Forces, has had to salute many an officer who he did not respect. That salute, he explained to my son, was a show of respect for the rank, not necessarily the heart or the character of the man wearing it.

Thankfully in my own situation with my husband's affair in the past, most of the work we're doing is damage control. I can't imagine how much harder it would be to deal with the kiddos while there's an active A going on. I'm pretty sure there's NO way I'd allow my children around H if he was still actively involved with OW if I could at all avoid it. I couldn't even stand being around it myself. Makes me sick enough that we (my kids and I) were all exposed to way too much of it before I knew what was going on.

Camo, thanks for the clarification. That does make all the difference. As a person is defined by their actions, they are very much defined by their repentence. I do agree that children must show their parents civility, regardless of how wayward they are. They might not feel any respect [rightfully] but they must be civil.

I agree with what is being said but we also have to realise that our court systems in the us don't consider morallity a factor in what is happening. I just get told I am bitter not that i am trying to prevent the moral cruption of my children. So I am stuck weather I like it or not.

I think parents greatly under-estimate what kids observe on their own. They are masters of figuring out body language and overhearing conversations. Personally I think its better to be honest and upfront with them so at least they have the facts striaght, and then be there to support them. Of course it depends upon age. My 5 year old has no idea what an affair even is, but my older girls definitely know that type of behaviour is wrong.

Miker