When your parent cheats, and you’re a teenager or young adult, there’s a special pain. Although it is not your spouse, you looked up to and listened to your parent.
You spent your formative years under their guidance. When they turn around and cheat, you feel betrayed and lied to. I remember asking myself questions about many things. I wondered if they lied about other things.
If all those ‘talks’ about leading a good life and setting a good example was all hogwash. You may have had a decent or even good childhood, yet when your parent cheats, the stability of that childhood is on shaky ground.
If your parent was like mine, they took the attitude “They can handle it!” The assumption is that since you are a teen or young adult, that you can understand and handle their cheating. In other words, they assume that you will more likely ‘tolerate’ what they did.
Instead of just hating what they did, you’ll smile, say ‘that’s all right’ or ‘I understand that you have needs.” or some other platitude and go on with life. Yes, you are expected to go along and not question them or what they did.
If you do, you’re labelled as being ‘rebellious’ or unappreciative. Never mind that they rebelled against their marriage and family, you, being younger will be the one that is given the label.
Just because you have the ability to compartmentalize and tolerate more moral ambiguity does not mean that you are accepting of the evil of an affair.
The real tragedy is that your parent does not realize that with their affair, they showed you that they can not be trusted and depended on. They don’t keep their promises.
Years after the affair, they may even wonder why you seem so distant or why you don’t trust them. They may even be oblivious to what is obvious to you.
They don’t realize that they’ve betrayed your trust. They’ve destroyed your family and then wonder why you do not trust them.
Your parent may act like they want you to talk to them, yet you know and they know that what that really means is they want you to feel free to talk about anything BUT the affair or its consequences. The topic of their affair remains “VERBOTTEN” for many years.
If you are a parent, you may think that since your teen or young adult has gone on with their lives showing toleration of what you did, that all is well. You would be mistaken.
The affair has destroyed not only your marriage, but also the bonding between you and your child. Just because you do not see any visible damage does not mean that all is well.
Hurt and distrust are often unseen weaknesses in that bond. You may want to blame your child claiming that they have just not forgiven you, rather than realize that you were the one that betrayed the sacred trust that they put in you.
You can learn more about the effects of affairs on family in the last section of the “Affair Recovery Workshop“, which you can download.
Best Regards,
Jeff
