SidLyon Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 It's now been 5 months since I found out. Since then H and I have been on an emotional roller-coaster. We have had highs and lows as we try to re-connect and recover a working marriage. Underlying it all for me has been a sense of pure misery though. He has been quite supportive but it's now obvious that he thinks we should be focussing on the future and not obsessing about the past. He's right in many ways as clearly it is not helping me when I crash into some sort of emotional hole when I get overwhelmed by thinking of his betrayal and deception of me. Our 2 teenage sons have always been 'nice' kids - very much loved and secure in their lives. Now one of them is angry - he's told me that he's angry at his Dad for what he did but he seems to take it out on me - the other son has become more protective of me. I worry that the angry son is concerned that if he lets his father know, then his father will leave. Frankly I don't think my H wants to leave - he maintains he has never wanted us to break up. H has agreed to talk to both sons individually and if necessary answer their questions and say he's sorry. We told them broadly 5 months ago as I was in tears all the time and they needed to know why. Since then they've seen us argue and go off to a private room to discuss our issues and also that we have been making time to just hang out together without them. We are trying but it's difficult. Does anyone have any experience of what to say to teenage boys about their father's infidelity - is it likely they will want to know details about how many women, how often, what was done and the reasons it all happened How long before I will start to feel better and less fixated on what happened and my own reactions to it? This is destroying me and making it difficult for both me and my H to move on. S Link to post Share on other sites
Athena Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Does anyone have any experience of what to say to teenage boys about their father's infidelity - is it likely they will want to know details about how many women, how often, what was done and the reasons it all happened How long before I will start to feel better and less fixated on what happened and my own reactions to it? This is destroying me and making it difficult for both me and my H to move on. I have experience of telling teenage son and daughter about H's infidelity -- but only after he had done it several times, over a period of many years... and my kids said THEY KNEW!!! This surprised me because we had kept it 'secret' so it just shows kids are perceptive and very aware. Back when I spoke to both kids, I told them what the issue was in broad terms without giving details, frankly, the details you ask about above, are none of their business. Thats my take on it. But the kids didn't ask me this. I did tell them it was something H and I would sort out on our own, and that it had nothing to do with them and that I did not want them to take sides or try solve anything (exonerating them of trying to take sides, stick up for one of us, etc) How long? probably about two years... but it does ease up slowly before this, just that there are a lot of backslides when triggers are set off and you get hurt. A hell of a lot depends on whether your H is telling the truth consistently and is patient with you -- thus you can heal faster if he is helping you. Link to post Share on other sites
bentnotbroken Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 My kids told me. My youngest acted out toward me a little, but my oldest(who wasn't a teen but still at home)became very protective. They both have been very angry at their dad and have told me so. I think you should be honest only to a point. It doesn't matter all the details, but don't lie. I did use this type of thing a lot." trust me and God to handle this. I need to know you are okay and then I can handle anything even if I am sad". I know it is hard, but trust your gut with your children, you will do great. You are only a few months out from d-day. Some experts say it could take as long as 3-5 years. If your H is doing all he needs to do to help build a new relationship, your recovery will come a lot easier and faster. Stop rushing the healing. Let it get done the right way instead of the easy way. Link to post Share on other sites
beyondsad Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 How can we all have such similar stories. My boys since we discovered the A are very protective of me. Many long talks with them about honesty and they saw how much pain I went thru, I think has made them realize lying is lying and is never right. I think if anything they have lost respect for dad. The older has talked to me about IF it happens again he feels there should be no second chance for him. They will always love him but don't feel he deserves me if he cheats agin. The younger one will watch him when hes on the phone and if he gets weird vibes will come tell me. H knows how they feel and hopefullly would never put us thru this agin. But if he does I have made a indian promise to my kids that his ass is kicked to the curb!!! Link to post Share on other sites
Chrome Barracuda Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 My dad was an F-ing idiot who ran the town and had many illegitimate children, bastard spawn as you will. I wish he told me as a man and not hid around the bush like a coward. it was very painful to know who he was growing up, the idea of family didnt mean squat to him. Link to post Share on other sites
Trimmer Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 I have experience of telling teenage son and daughter about H's infidelity -- but only after he had done it several times, over a period of many years... and my kids said THEY KNEW!!! This surprised me because we had kept it 'secret' so it just shows kids are perceptive and very aware. Back when I spoke to both kids, I told them what the issue was in broad terms without giving details, frankly, the details you ask about above, are none of their business. Thats my take on it. But the kids didn't ask me this. I did tell them it was something H and I would sort out on our own, and that it had nothing to do with them and that I did not want them to take sides or try solve anything (exonerating them of trying to take sides, stick up for one of us, etc) I think this last is especially important. As seen here, kids will willingly take on the parental role of protector, comforter, etc., but I belive that depending on what age/stage they are at, this is a burden that can interfere with their proceeding through normal, age-appropriate developmental stages. Thus, I agree that keeping the details to a minimum, and deflecting detailed inquiries (how many, what happened, etc.) with the best, honest reassurances that you can muster might be best. It is OK to draw a boundary between what is an adult, private thing for the parents to work out, and other things that are open family business, IF you can reassure them of the love that both parents have for them, and their emotional safety. If you can do this, it releases them from the need to jump into those parental roles, and gives them a safe environment to continue through their normal stages of development. Now, I'm not saying that's an easy line to walk - keeping them assured that they are safe and loved in that environment. But if you can release them from the responsibility they feel to soothe your feelings on this matter, or protect your emotional safety (note that both of these are rightly spousal responsibilities in this situation - how healthy does it sound for your teenage boys to be stepping into that role?) then you release them to go on with the job of living life as growing teens. Link to post Share on other sites
Snowflower Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 It's now been 5 months since I found out. Since then H and I have been on an emotional roller-coaster. We have had highs and lows as we try to re-connect and recover a working marriage. Underlying it all for me has been a sense of pure misery though. He has been quite supportive but it's now obvious that he thinks we should be focussing on the future and not obsessing about the past. He's right in many ways as clearly it is not helping me when I crash into some sort of emotional hole when I get overwhelmed by thinking of his betrayal and deception of me. Our 2 teenage sons have always been 'nice' kids - very much loved and secure in their lives. Now one of them is angry - he's told me that he's angry at his Dad for what he did but he seems to take it out on me - the other son has become more protective of me. I worry that the angry son is concerned that if he lets his father know, then his father will leave. Frankly I don't think my H wants to leave - he maintains he has never wanted us to break up. H has agreed to talk to both sons individually and if necessary answer their questions and say he's sorry. We told them broadly 5 months ago as I was in tears all the time and they needed to know why. Since then they've seen us argue and go off to a private room to discuss our issues and also that we have been making time to just hang out together without them. We are trying but it's difficult. Does anyone have any experience of what to say to teenage boys about their father's infidelity - is it likely they will want to know details about how many women, how often, what was done and the reasons it all happened How long before I will start to feel better and less fixated on what happened and my own reactions to it? This is destroying me and making it difficult for both me and my H to move on. S Hi Sid, Wow, I feel like I could have written your post; your experience is so similar to mine. It has been just over 4 months now since I found out about my husband's infidelity. I have posted my story on another thread, Which is worse an EA or a PA. Actually, my husband are doing very well with our marital recovery as it is often called here. And I give my husband so much credit for trying to rebuild our marriage. He is really trying 200% to help me through the pain and is giving everything he has to our relationship, which he has never done before-even back when things were pretty good between us. But, back to your question about your teenagers. I am facing a similar situation myself with our own teenagers. I have a teenaged boy and a girl and my husband told both of them on his own right after he had confessed to me. Even now, I'm not sure how I feel about him having told our kids. He has always been an excellent father and despite the fact that I hate what he has done, I hate the fact that the kids know-like your situation, it is very broad details but they know enough. How do you feel about your kids knowing? I guess teenagers are old enough to understand what is going on. My kids knew we were having some very serious problems. Now that we are working to rebuild our marriage, unfortunately we have had to take some time to be by ourselves away from them--in other parts of the house, just like you were saying. Since they are teenagers, they tend to be independent but I know they still need our attention. I agree with what others say here that broad details are enough--unless your kids happen to know more for some reason. Ex: saw text messages, met the OW, etc that would need to be explained somehow, perhaps. But otherwise, it is really none of their business. I don't know about you SidLyon, but I worry how their father's actions will impact my kids' future marriages someday. Sometimes infidelity seems to run in families-I know it was an issue in my husband's family in the past. At some point in the future when I am feeling stronger myself, I am going to sit down with each of my kids individually and explain how wrong infidelity is--they have witnessed the pain of it first hand. I don't want them to experience it again in the future with their own relationships. Link to post Share on other sites
Snowflower Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 It's now been 5 months since I found out. Since then H and I have been on an emotional roller-coaster. We have had highs and lows as we try to re-connect and recover a working marriage. Underlying it all for me has been a sense of pure misery though. He has been quite supportive but it's now obvious that he thinks we should be focussing on the future and not obsessing about the past. He's right in many ways as clearly it is not helping me when I crash into some sort of emotional hole when I get overwhelmed by thinking of his betrayal and deception of me. S I can completely sympathize with your pain. Let me share something with you that I figured out only recently. At some point, I have to move on from this. My husband is completely committed to saving our relationship and it sounds like your husband is too. Our MC said that it is often easier for the WS to move forward from the A and work on the marriage if they are committed to doing that than it is for the BS to do the same thing. So, of course they probably want to move forward. Syd, you and I are at about the same point in the timeframe of recovery, 5 months for you, 4 months for me. No matter how bad we feel about what happened, there is nothing we can do about it now or our husbands can do about it either. We have to all go forward and trust me, I know how hard it is to not think about it and repeatedly ask "why." I am trying to take little steps and follow my husband's lead on this and not obsess about it all the time. I am trying to actively not think about the betrayal each and every time it pops into my mind-which is a lot. In my case, when I begin thinking about "it" and I start to feel overwhelmed, sad, or whatever, I try to make myself stop thinking. Distract myself with anything: get up and walk around my office, put a rubber band on my wrist and snap it (the old stand-by trick to redirect your thoughts), anything that will work. I can't do it perfectly every time, sometimes my thoughts still race in the direction of what he did, but I think with practice, it will get easier. Yes, you have to allow time to process things and grieve-this is very important but I know how it can consume you if you let it. I guess I am getting to the point where I am sick of thinking about it all the time so I am trying to figure out ways not to. Yes, there will be a lot of times where you will still need to talk about it but I think from my experience that you also need to take a break. Last weekend, we tried taking a break from the talking, the obsessing in my mind and the feelings that go along with this. My husband and I just simply enjoyed our relationship as it is NOW (which is turning into an even better one than we had before) and went and did something fun with one of our kids and just didn't talk about the big issues for a day. Let me tell you, it was such a nice mental break and probably did a lot to help us heal our relationship and work on the new one that we are building. Sometimes not talking about it will help more than you think. Just my 2 cents! Link to post Share on other sites
Athena Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 But if you can release them from the responsibility they feel to soothe your feelings on this matter, or protect your emotional safety This is KEY in my opinion. And it really does release them when you directly TELL them that you can handle it, and that you both will sort it out yourselves and that you do not want them to worry about it and think that they have to 'do' anything about it. That they do not need to punish the WS or 'take sides' or protect, defend, criticize, etc because their parents are in charge and are handling it!!! Link to post Share on other sites
Athena Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Sometimes infidelity seems to run in families-I know it was an issue in my husband's family in the past. Although I knew about infidelity occurring in our families' history, it wasn't quite as clear as when I took a poster size board and drew the family tree on both sides of H and my family to our grandparents... THEN I saw every male on his mother's and father's side having cheated on their wives, and on my side of the family tree were a few too, yes, but mainly ALL the women were left on their own for long, long periods of time to raise kids on their own (eg Captain at sea for a year at a time, death of H, away at war two years, grandfather emigrated to a country ahead of W & kids 15 years on his own there before the family joined him!!!!).... So no wonder H and I are repeating our familial history by him working away from home, cheating, and me raising our kids on my own for the majority of the year -- it's a 'normal' pattern for us in our lives we saw our own parents' lives, and heard about our grandparents doing the SAME thing!!!! ie This is how married life is for US. Link to post Share on other sites
Author SidLyon Posted March 26, 2009 Author Share Posted March 26, 2009 Thank you to all that responded. In some ways my own views about how long this will take was validated by your experiences. It seems it will take a while but I can consciously do a lot to facilitate that. As for giving information to children - it appears we must always be honest with them but at the same time not give them "the gory details" but also try to reassure them that it isn't their fault, that they are still loved by us both and that we are sincerely trying to make it work for all of us; and it is not their responsibility to "fix" it for us. Arrgh - I hope we can manage this. I'm about to go out but will try to remember to stat a thread on infidelity running in families - it's certainly been a big issue in my H's family. S Link to post Share on other sites
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