I am having a new and scary problem. I just found out that my oldest son, who is 12 has a myspace account (that says by the way, that he is 15). My sons tends to lie to me about anything and everything. He just opened this account on the 6th. There wasn't anything to worry about just yet, but he's only had it for about 10 days.

I have already sent the message to myspace that he and his friends on it are actually only 12 and I am sure when they get home today they will not be happy. I looked it up and you are supposed to be 14 or older to have an account. One of his friends was trying to say she was 17.

I am scared about this because of our situation. I feel like he really is his father's son and my WH is his father's son. His dad had 1 PA a long time ago, they worked it out and are still happily married.

My son also looked at pictures of women online. I am not sure what to do with this information. I know I have to have a talk with my son, but I don't want my WH finding out HOW I found out. He would then know that I am watching the computer. I don't want him to know that just yet, I have a new program that he doesn't know about, just got it yesterday. That's how I found out about my DS.

What do I do? Is this a trait that follows the family line? I don't want this pain to be carried on.

The boys do not know about their dad, and I don't want them to unless we don't work out. Which by the way looks like we're getting closer to not working out.

Any advice? Has anyone else gone through this?

take control of son's internet access from home .... the computer stays in the family area, and is turned so that you can see at a glance what is going on

being on line is a privilege for a teen

YOU, the parent with common sense .... construct a set of rules son must follow

and the FIRST time the rules are violated .... loss of privilege for 1 week

add a week for every violation

make it stick

"I caught son doing (example) on internet. Let's get the computer rules down on paper and both enforce this, so son has knowledge of what is and is not acceptable behavior in our home."

POJA the rules with H

make this work to your advantage

just say "I caught him"

History has a much better shot at repeating itself UNLESS people (& children) are given the opportunity to learn from their own history.

Discussing the truth about your situation and your husband's inappropriate behaviors in an age appropriate manner is the right thing to do. It is the truth. Without the truth, children have the uncanny ability to ALWAYS inappropriately take family problems and attribute them to, um, themselves. Unresolved self-blame and guilt is then carried forward into their adulthood and, so often, comes out sideways as inappropriate behavior.


As far as porn and boys.

To some extent boys WILL be boys. But they need to be talked to by BOTH of you (or just dad) about how disrespectful it is to THEIR MOTHER for that material to be looked at and brought into your (mom and dad's) home. There is plenty of material on the internet about how to appropriately address this subject with boys.

An overriding rule....children should not be allowed unlimited and unsupervised access to the internet. They should KNOW it's keylogged and maybe the computer should remain in full sight and not tucked away in bedrooms. Limit privacy and access to a REAL, NATURAL temptation to young men.


Mr. Wondering

How close are you to your son? Do you have 'real' talks, where he really confides in you, or are you a 'surface' parent where he just talks on the surface with you? That can make a difference in how you approach it.

If you have real talks, I would start by pointing out that what he did, being dishonest about his age, not disclosing with you that he made the page, etc., can have a big effect on who he becomes as a man. Because it is the little things that make up a person, how he deals with each and every choice in his life - honestly and openly and accepting consequences along with the accolades, or dishonestly and trying to get what he can out of life with no thought to who he affects. Ask him to picture people in his life who he admires; why does he admire them; what would they do if they had a chance to sneak or lie? Ask him honestly what he thinks about things like turning in money he finds on the street, stuff like that. Tell him that it's your job as his mom to help him see how to become the kind of person other people will admire some day. So, to bring it back around to setting up the account without your permission and trying to be someone he isn't (15), ask him to question whether it's worth it in the long run to start making those choices that take him down the slippery slope of lying. Point out people like Michael Vick, who, once very respected, not only did something despicable, he also lied about it and now is going to prison for lying. Reiterate that it's all the little choices - all the little lies he choose to make or not make - that will define him as someone you as his mother will be proud of him for.

Children above all want their parents to be proud of them. It's a powerful tool of yours.

If you're not that close, let me know, and I'll prepare a different offense for you.

I will say that my H is an extremely negative person. At least 90% of the things he says are negative. I've worked extremely hard, therefore, to make sure D17 doesn't take up his negative sensibilities. She started to, and when she was about 10, I started noticing it, so I ramped up my effort to point out ways for her to become an optimist, not a pessimist. It worked. So you can counter any sensibilities of your H in your children by actively watching for signs of it and countering it with logic and wisdom.

Hi confusedwife2007

You have two different issues. One is the behaviour of your 12 year old and the other is the problem in your M.

Your 12 year old is doing what 12 year olds do. You should be very glad you discovered what is going on and under no circumstances tell any of them about the keylogger ever.

Tell H that you happened to notice something unsuitable on the screen which is why you are concerned.

You and your H need to have 'the talk' to both your boys about safe behaviour and the internet.

Then quietly continue to monitor.

Consider putting a good hardware content filter on your network to block unsuitable content. Effective ones are expensive but they will help to deal with the problems that you are going to encounter over the next few years as your boys go through adolescence. A software content filter will not work as this will be too easy for them to disable.

And while a cheating parent does make a child more predisposed to cheat, that is not what you are dealing with here. You just have a normal adolescent getting interested in girls.

The second problem is harder. My view is that your children know far more about what is going on than you think. Just as you probably sensed the A before you had evidence, they have been living with the bad atmosphere all this time. My children were very relieved when I told them as until then, they had somehow thought the tension at home was their fault. I don't think you solve any problems by keeping them in the dark.

However, the truth must come from you both, you must keep to outline facts and then answer questions and (most importantly) you must resist the temptation to lean on them for emotional support after they have been told. They should be protected from that.

Later on, whether your M survives or not, teach them the MB principles so that they do not do what their father and grandfather did. Oh, and tell their future partners when the time comes. If my WH's family had done that, we would not be in this mess today.

Thank you for your quick replies!!!!

We just reformatted the computer and didn't have the certain internet sites blocked yet. Actually I forgot. I didn't think that was an issue yet. Obviously I was wrong about that. The computer is just off from the kitchen and is pretty visible. I just happened to be doing laundry in the laundry room at the time he logged into the myspace yesterday.

As to the history, I am just not ready to tell the boys about it yet. I haven't even begun to really deal with our situation. I am trying hard to keep myself together. I am doing good when the boys are around.

And I guess the other reason I don't want them knowing yet is that I feel like if they know what happened and see that we worked it out like my WH saw that his parents worked it out that it kind of says it's ok to do this because you can work it out.

Maybe that's just crazy thinking but I that's how I am.

As far as my son and I being close, in some ways yes we are. We can laugh and talk and just hang out just the two of us. I am not sure why though, but he just doesn't tell the truth. We have had many long disscussions about it and just the other night I told him "just tell me the truth, even if you think I will get upset about something, just tell me the truth and give me the chance to be your mother and understand". I told him that I can't be the mother that I should be if I am having to address the lies first everytime.

I'm sorry, I tend to ramble on while typing. Again, THANK YOU for your replies.

[/quote]As to the history, I am just not ready to tell the boys about it yet. I haven't even begun to really deal with our situation. I am trying hard to keep myself together. I am doing good when the boys are around. [/quote]

being truthful in the fact that you and DH are having troubles that you are working on is absolutely something you should do because kids do pick up on things and being left in the dark can be very unsettling. ideally you do this as a combined effort. afterall you are still a parenting team.

do not lie, do not promise you will work things out because you don't know that yet. but don't give them info that will force them to have to make judgement calls as to who they should side with.

IMHO, giving specific details to 10 and 12 yr old children is wrong and puts them in the middle of something they just don't belong being in. my parents did this and it was very harmful to all of us. our ages ranged from 13-8 (i was the 8yr old).

of course no one here is an expert, you would be best to read up on this topic from various sources or if you have a theorpist you see and trust, talk to him/her about it.

Being truthful with your children is how you break the cycle of lying. Then it will no longer "run in the family".

Please consider this.
Mulan

Please do not tell them "truths" about your husband's behavior, whether or not you work it out with hubby. That is blatant parental alienation. I stick with "Never bad mouth your ex in front of the kids - it ruins the moment when tey figure it out for themselves."

Saying something is true doesn't make it right for you to tell your kids bad things about their parent.
My ex cheated, lied about me to many, stole money, hid assets during the divorce - all "truths," but nothing my kids need to hear. She even tells the kids to hide info from me and lie about me. You will do them more good by being the best you can be, and helping them do the same.

Mulan, i'm just saying this is NOT how it happened for me during my childhood. knowing all the "truth" caused NOTHING but so much turmoil inside us four children. that is my real life experience. being in the middle of the war was VERY damaging to all of us. we are talking about young children, 10 and 12, they should be protected.

I really liked this quote: "Never bad mouth your ex in front of the kids - it ruins the moment when they figure it out for themselves."

i figured out lost of stuff about my parents. BOTH of them were to blame for the pain they put us kids thru.

Set_You_Free, that's a very odd screen name for someone who advocates hiding the truth.

No, a parent should NOT say, "Daddy is a lying creep who scr*ews other women."

Yes, a parent SHOULD say, "Daddy has a girlfriend. Everyone knows married people are not supposed to do that. That's why we can no longer live together."

Telling kids the truth shows respect for both them AND for the truth. This is how the generational cycle of family lies gets broken.

Mealy-mouth baloney like "We just aren't getting along so we need to be apart for a while" only leads kids to believe that people just fall out of love for NO reason and that spending too much time together is bad for marriages.

What a terrible idea for kids to grow up with.

Have some respect for your children and tell them the truth. "Daddy has a girlfriend and that's why we cannot be together." They will understand INSTANTLY and will no doubt feel greatly relieved to have the ugly cloud of doubt and uncertainty and gut-wrenching confusion no longer hanging over their heads.

Nobody is under any obligation to protect liars and homewreckers, and that includes parents.

Telling kids the truth is not "bad-mouthing" anyone. "Daddy has a girlfriend" is a FACT. It is the TRUTH. What, isn't Daddy proud of having a girlfriend? Why would he want to hide it from ANYONE? Wouldn't he be happy and proud to let his children know this? I don't understand what the problem is.
Mulan

Age appropriate Truth

Delivered without grandiose details

POJA'ed with your husband

and

delivered to your children

TOGETHER.


I should think that even if you two MAY be splitting up your husband still doesn't think he made good choices.

Paental alienation????...sigh

Mr. Wondering

mulan, i'm not sure you saw my post as we were posting at the same time. i personally still believe that while things are still in an unknown state, keep the kids out of it. if it comes to the family is seperating then i agree, the kids will obviously know, especially if he marries the OW (which was the case in my family).

i also acknowledge that my mom did more then tell us the "truth" she handled it all very poorly. she put us in the war. it was actually my dad that tried to keep us more out of it, however, given he is the one that did the cheating and all, he wasn't really someone for us to bond to either. not to mention that my step-mom was pretty much a cold-hearted person. leaving us with no one but ourselves.

IMHO there are no circumstances in which it is right to lie to your children about anything. It teaches them that it is ok to lie. Neither is it ok to say nothing when things are wrong. This teaches them that it is ok to pretend everything is normal when it isn't.

Nobody is more sensitive to the relationship of parents than their own children.

Even your body language will give you away.

My DD knew that her father was cheating long before I did. She was so relieved when I told her as she had been trying to pretend it was not happening. I wanted us both to tell her together but WS was too ashamed. I stuck to the facts and made it as brief as I could. She mourned for the father she thought she had and has now built a new relationship with the one she has.

lied_to_again,

i just wanted to say you post was very powerful. it sounds like you did such a wonderful job with DD, I assume DS and your other DD were handled well too. thanks for sharing.

Thank you, l_t_a. You said it better than I did.
Mulan

Thank you everybody for your posts. You have given me alot to think about.

You would have to go back to see my other posts to know my story and I don't expect anyone to do that. In a nut shell, married 13 yrs ago now, he's in the military. He has had 2 ONS (1st in early 1999 and 2nd Feb 05) and 1 Brief PA Jul 05, NC since Aug 05. Between those times and since then at short intervals he has chatted online, looked at porn and things like that. He has not that I can tell had any other kind of relationship since.

I have been trying to deal with it, but I think until Dec I had just basically pushed it aside. I had thought things were really good between us. Then in Dec I found that he was looking at (light, not hardcore) porn online. This upset me because it was one of my requests that he stay away from that kind of thing.

Anyways, that brought back everything that I had pushed aside. The hurt, betrayal, anger, everything. We have only had one big argument, that was the day I let him know that I had found out about his online activity.

I talked to my oldest son about a week later and asked him if he had heard anything, he said he didn't. I told him that day that sometimes married people fight but that it was not about them (the kids) and that we still loved each other.

I do still love my WH but with everything I am feeling and the way I let it go, I am now finding myself to care and love hime just not in love with him and that is what we are dealing with now. If or when the time comes that we end our marriage, we have agreed that the boys will be told the truth as to why and not just because people sometimes don't get along.

All this started because of my son's usage online. I will be talking to him when he gets home from school today as that is a good time because it is just us. Regardless of the future, whether his dad is here at home with us or not, he will need to be comfortable talking about these things with me.

Thanks again for the posts!!!!! I really appreciate the feedback to things I am feeling and to know that I am not alone!

So, lied to, you want her to come out and say, "Hey, daddy's a cheater?" There's no way to candy coat that.

I guess in your world I should tell my kids all the bad things about my ex.

Come on, wake up! Nobody is saying lie to the kids, just saying not to tell them bad things about the other parent. No matter what one might think, that is disparagement, and damaging to the child. These are things good parents make sure the children do not have to deal with.

Now, if a child asks, "Who's that woman daddy is kissing," it would be ok to say "That's his girlfriend." It would NOT be ok to say daddy is sleeping with her.

The one extreme or the other answers just don't fit in real life, unless you are out to hurt the ex, which ends up really just hurting the kids. Where's the compassion in that?

Confused, I wouldn't go to the kids asking questions or offering info, but would be open to their questions, within age-approprite reason, of course.