Bevy –
Our conversation on ladies chat stayed with me all night. I don’t know where you post, so I’m posting this to many boards hoping that I catch you.
I’m not sure how far from d-day you are. We never got to that part of the conversation when you, for whatever reason, left chat. Nor am I sure where you are in recovery. You said that you and FWH are in reconstruction, rebuilding and recovery . . .
Again I urge you not to tell your children, adult or not, about their father’s affair.
Yes dealing with the consequences of ones actions is part of dealing with the fact that you’ve cheated. But if they did not discover or know about the affair prior to d-day then all your informing about it now is just further destruction . . . hasn’t there been enough?
What are your motivations to tell your children: For their support or for revenge? In our brief conversation I got the impression it was for the latter, and you may not realize that yet.
I told you about how my feelings and view of my Dad have changed since his 8 year affair ended. How I no longer see him as a moral person, even though his A has been over for 11 years now. I don’t know if I related to you how the damage done has affected me all these years. You are under the impression that your children will not go to their Dad for issues of moral consequence, but will continue to seek his opinion and guidance for everything else. But that damage goes well beyond the narrow walls you beleive and it eats up most anything that they went to their Dad to before.
I found out about my Dad’s A while it was going on. In the end my sister and I had to make a stand because my mother was not strong enough to. You want to tell your children, all adults or young adults if I am correct, after the fact because you feel they have a right to know? Correct?
Do they?
No
Yes, your H’s affair effects them and it has hurt them. My H’s affair has hurt his children, his brother, etc. etc. and none of them know. But Myad knows and it is part of what he has to heal within himself. He failed them and all that they think and believe about the person he is – and whether they know or not, he knows and he wants to get back to being that person. A person that not only they, but he can respect.
It is an internal battle.
Your children only have one Dad .. and there is a special bond there. While your husband may deserve to loose that bond, your children do not. Once that bond is destroyed it may never come back ... no matter how upright your husband becomes, and you may come to regret the destruction you brought about.
Yes I say YOU brought about. HE had the A and HE did a lot of damage and destroyed many things … but if you are both in reconstruction now the only thing that this revelation does for the children, for him, for your marriage and you is destroy.
Your children, even as adults, do not have the right to every piece of information about your husband and your relationship. Even if when they were young and something happened where you all were forced to live for a few years in a 30ft Jayco trailer or you were to loose all their inheritance in a failed investment, they still do not have a right to know all the information and the details.
You may choose to tell them, but they don’t have a right to know. Too many parents have become too open with their children, giving them information and burdens no child should have to carry or know, no matter the age. Or do you tell them what sexual positions you and he like best?
My apologies for being crude but it is to make a point. You don’t tell them things. You and your husband have secrets between you two that no one else knows. Yes it is a possibility that he violated that during the affair – but then again he may not have.
Do you know what MAD is/was? It was a policy during the cold war between the US and the USSR of Mutually Assured Destruction.
After d-day #2 in this house I said vented that I would tell everyone about his A and all the secrets of his that I kept. I wouldn’t have in reality, but I was angry and hurt. It did scare him though – through the years we have been each others best friend and shared secrets that we have shared with no other – including my OP or his two Ows.
(we just got lost from each other)
The revelation of those secrets, including the affair would have done so much damage to both of us that it would have been basically a scorched earth policy. There would have been no rebuilding. Knowing this one of our first re-commitments to each other was to “sign” a non-MAD treaty.
The non-MAD POJA basically said that no matter what happened between us, our secrets, those things shared between a husband and a wife, between best friends, would never be used and would always be kept safe.
It was really our first solid act of rebuilding. But it only came after there was a recommitment.
This non-MAD POJA included revelations to our children about our As. I didn’t want my children viewing either of us the way I viewed my Dad – I knew the harm that it did, even when the children are adults.
I said to you before you left that I only revealed the A to two and then three people. Why? Because I wanted the best chance for us to rebuild – and that, in my view wouldn’t happen if everyone knew, if he had to deal with looks and whispers, a loss of respect etc.
Now I would have told more people if he hadn’t turned around. If the affair hadn’t ended I would have told more people about it (but only about the affair). But it ended and he turned around and I wanted to end the destruction. It was now time to rebuild.
As it was I only told 2 people in the beginning – both women, a friend of mine and my sister. I really wanted and was dying for a man’s perspective, someone who knew both of us. But I didn’t go to my Dad, he had lost so much in my eyes. Six months ago I told the best man at our wedding.
Initially Myad was angry. I apologized for I had violated the POJA but I explained that with his A#2 I have done without all the support I had during his A#1, when my parents, sister, family and friends all knew and were supportive* and I just needed a man’s perspective. Myad accepted my explanation and his anger dissipated.
When my Dad’s A was first found out it supposedly ended. When I dealt with Myad’s A#1 my Dad was right there, angry as all get out that one of his girl had been hurt. And supportive as ever. I had hoped, wrongly, that Dad understood the hurt he brought about to my mother, by dealing with mine.
I was wrong. Unknown to us he went back to his mistress. The final end of his A came when my sister and I made a stand some two years after Myad had his A#1.
While I could accept my father’s counsel as someone who had fallen himself, learned from it and rebuilt his marriage. You know the voice of experience, wisdom and learning. I felt even more betrayed by him the next time.
IF your children one day go through what you have gone through, let your husband come across as the voice of wisdom and experience. He may actually stop them from having an affair. But that can only happen IF your children have a relationship with their father that they feel they can go to him for wisdom and guidance. He will be the voice of experience and wisdom.
You may think that by observing what you have gone through would be a big enough deterrent for your children. But it’s not. Both Myad and I saw the destruction of our parents affairs and yet when we got depressed and lonely we had them. Many FWS here on MB will sadly tell you that they didn’t learn from a parent’s wrong example either.
By the reconstruction and rebuilding you both do now you can show your children, if their spouses ever have an A, that you can survive it and have a good if not great marriage.
Or you can leave them with the impression of continuing distruction and loss of faith in their father. And revealing this to them may back fire on you too.
They’ve gotten to see both of you while growing up. They know what both of you have done that has pushed each other away and damaged your relationship to one another. If you reveal this to them, they might just recount all that they witness that you did to help create the environment for the affair. Wouldn’t that be sobering.
You have the power right now to end the destruction or to keep it going. Your husband sounds like he wants to rebuild – how about you?
Way2
<small>[ November 04, 2003, 09:12 AM: Message edited by: way2 ]</small>
