SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Just discovered my husband of 31 year’s infidelity a few weeks ago. When I found out, my (adult) children also found out, as one of my son’s got several of the messages pushed to his computer for some mysterious “cloud” situation. When confronted, both my husband and his mistress adamantly denied everything other than they were “best friends”....my husband continued to lie for several days until he couldn’t anymore. I spent Thanksgiving week with my oldest (26yo) son, and also have a 23 and 20 yo. The two oldest live in different areas of the country. My husband and I are reconciling—he could not be doing more to reconcile to the point where he came clean at work (it was a subordinate co-worker) and lost his job. He immediately cut off all contact with her and wants nothing more than to restore our relationship and our family. We are attending counseling separately and together.

My children do not want anything to do with their father. They are very angry with him for hurting me so deeply and also for lying to them so adamantly. Other than this, he has been a wonderful father who I believe worked so hard (leading to the affair) so his kids would never want for anyhing. They refuse to come home for Christmas—husband has even offered to stay with his family so they don’t have to see him but can see me. I need advice on how to help my children heal and start moving forward, giving my husband the opportunity to re-establish trust. Please help!!!

Give it time. I do not see why you should do anything. It is is mess he created and he should sort it out.He needs to work on re-establishing the broken relationship with his children.

They probably feel very betrayed and angry at the moment and do not want to be near him. Totally understandable.

Go to them at Christmas.

I need advice on how to help my children heal and start moving forward, giving my husband the opportunity to re-establish trust. Please help!!!

It's not up to you to help your children heal. Their dad can help some, by sincerely apologizing. But the truth is, your kids are going to need time to deal with all this. Their dad is not the person they thought he was, and right now, their worlds are spinning just as much as yours.

Re-establishing trust will take effort, and won't happen overnight. Right now, I'd say give your kids the space they're asking for. It's such early days since you all found out, and even processing what happened takes more time than just a few weeks.

I don't mean to sound harsh - but in hindsight - I remember being so worried about what my children felt for their father....Unfortunately HE should have thought of that before he thought it was okay to f*ck around. It's not your mess to clean up. Take him up on his word - let him stay away so they can be with you for the holidays. Let him feel the effects of his poor choices. It does sound promising that he realizes what he's done but let him REALLY FEEL IT!! I know you want your world to be turned right side up and everything to go back to normal but that would be rugsweeping and making this all go away won't change the fact that it happened. Resist that impulse to make everything easier for your children and your husband. This has happened... don't make excuses for him and don't minimize it. I'm sorry you are here.

This is so hard! My adult children didn’t know everything but enough to be hurt and angry at FWH. I echo what others have said about giving it time. I think they need time to see that R is happening and will take cues from you on being able to trust. This could take a long time. I remember a few months out from dday an adult son said he was so glad to hear me laugh again. I think they not only are dealing with their pain but also worry about what their mom is going through. I think he was relieved to see I was surviving.

One thing that helped us is that after we went to Retrovuille, they could see we were happier and communicating better. I also just kept up my relationships with each of them independently. FWH met with each of them independently and apologized for causing them and me so much pain. That was just a first step though. It’s taken years to build back those relationships. I think at this point I could say FWH has R’d successfully with each adult child as well.

I was a young teenager when my dad had an affair and I clearly remember the hurt and embarrassment I felt. It took me years to deal with it, sadly I didn’t have much outside support or help. I did come to love my dad again and we had a good relationship.

I think you have to respect where they are at and at the same time be united as a couple in the R process. Could be tricky at times, especially with the holiday plans. Sadly this is the fallout from infidelity that cheating spouses don’t realize will happen.

I am so sorry your family is going through this and hope your kids get the support and help they need to heal. I know some of our kids went to counseling on their own. It’s heartbreaking as a mom to see our kids experience any pain and the fallout from infidelity is just beyond comprehension. This is truly something we can’t fix for them. Balancing comforting your hurting child (even as adults they are still our babies!), and taking care of yourself is exhausting!

Hang in there - one day at a time.

It isn't your job to run interference for your cheating husband's relationship with his kids. He screwed the pooch bigtime and part of R and all this is him doing the work to fix what he broke.

And respectfully, they might not be ready to 'move forward', and a very real consequence for your ch is that they might not ever be ready for it. I can tell you for sure if my mom had been cheated on when I was an adult, I would find that extremely hard to forgive.

Just as an aside too - I know you are so close to DDay. I think it is a completely normal thing for a BS to want to move straight to R. You just want your normal back and that is very understandable. But in order for real R, you need to see waaaaaaay longer than 3 weeks of acceptable behavior. Just know that you might get a few months down the road and not want R anymore, and if that is the case it is perfectly ok. Also please prepare yourself for the dread trickle truth (TT). It is extremely rare for a cheater to come clean on the first go-round, so there is a higher than likely probability that you don't have the whole story yet.

This is when parents fall off pedestals. Kids generally start looking at their parents sideways when they are teenagers but they still have their parents as role models. They are going to have to reconfigure in their own minds who he is. He isn’t their hero anymore. The best thing you can do is to heal yourself, and then if he is still working on it, heal your marriage. You cannot fix this for your children. You are only at the beginning. There are going to be times when you are so angry you want to chop his head off. They are going to be times when you are so grief stricken you cannot get out of bed. This is brand new to you. Work on you. He will have to heal himself. I would imagine on top of screwing up his family the loss of his job is going to hit him at some point. Your whole family needs therapy for the foreseeable future.

This is between him and them.

The best thing you can do is go about the business of being the fabulous you that you are.

IMHO - practice a few lines [customize to make them more you] but when talking to your adult children and/or your WH - use a few of the following and don't take the bait - no matter how tempting it is.

"This is between you and your father - he does love you"

"I'll answer questions you have as they pertain to me, but I can't speak for your father or the future - I hope you can one day discuss with him"

"this is not the time or the place - please pass the mashed potatoes"

"I love you - I know you are hurting - I am hurting too. I'm taking the time I need to figure it all out"

"I'm hurt too - it is OK to cry"

@pinkjeeplady we are seeing therapists, but have a retrouvuille happening in our area in January....How was it? I am not particularly religious—can you give me some feedback?!

Thanks!!

TrustedtooMuch,

Sounds like you are still TRUSTING too much. You haven't had time to heal from the TRAUMA of his affair yourself. Do you know if you have the full truth? A full timeline? Don't give him so much yet. 3 weeks out isn't that long. True remorse is shown over time with actions. It is good that he quit the job. But that is only one small step in the right direction.

Did you see a NC letter to OP?

You need to be taking care of you right now.

Your adult children will need to work on their own healing while you work on yours and hopefully will still come be with you on the holiday.

Of course the children are angry....he was their role model and now he's just another selfish POS that abused their mom. However, for their own long term happiness they need to process their anger in a healthy way.

Dad should pay for IC for them.

You should consider IC too. And just throwing this out there ....how about a group therapy session for your entire family?

@Robert would love to have group counseling as a family, but even tele counseling is difficult as I have one in California, one in Canada and one on the east coast! :(

@catsntats I don’t understand your abbreviations (NC letter to OP???)

NC is no contact and OP is other person. Has your husband sent a no contact letter to the other person stating there will be no future contact?

I remember seeing the hurt and anger my two kids (in their20's at the time) were going through and wanted so badly to take their pain away. But, like me, they had to do their own healing. Both kids stopped all contact with their father for several weeks. When I told them I was considering R I asked them how they felt. Didn't want them to think their pain meant nothing to me - after all - he cheated on them as well as on me. They both said they would support me in whatever I decided - but they definitely took a wait and see approach.

Your husband is solely responsible for attempting to mend the relationship between him and his kids. He caused the shit storm. Just like he needs to prove to you - he needs to prove to them he is truly remorseful and will never hurt you or them again.

There was a distance between them for a long time - he apologized repeatedly - they could see he was genuinely working hard to make amends - they began to slowly come around and have now re-established contact with him.

Unfortunately, infidelity not only changes the dynamics of the marriage - it changes the dynamics of the entire family.

We really liked Retrovuille - I found out about it from a friend here. She told me it can be a little awkward but just do what they say! We are not of the hosting religion and found it to be techniques to incorporate regardless of any or no religious beliefs. I highly recommend it. We were over a year out which worked well for us.

We learned to better communicate but what really helped us was the couples who were the guides (I think they are called that?). Anyway they were so honest in sharing their experiences - all the good and bad. What impressed me is that they had survived and had so much love and respect for each other. It gave us hope and I had a change of attitude for my FWH.

It’s really a unique experience that’s hard to describe -

@nanatwo thanks for the clarifications!

He did send her a message saying that he was done, and wanted his wife and family back, then blocked her number, email, linked in profile, etc. He is not on any social media so that is a non-issue.

I have a similar situation, although I made him tell our grown kids what he did. I think they now have answers as to why dad was so distant with them. He’s tried buying their love back but they’re always going to have bad feelings about what their father did. It’s up to them to forgive and move past it but just like you it will always be there. It’s their decision and he’ll need to do the reconciliation not you.

Hopefully with time and if he repeatedly shows remorse to his kids. He cheated on them too.

ETA - I second the idea of him paying for the kids therapy. Do not recommend family therapy. It is a shit show unless you have a very special, rare person doing it.

My friend’s daughter hasn’t spoken to her in like twenty years. The other daughter does but this one just can’t reconcile with her mother. It was truly a deal breaker for that child.

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 8:25 PM, December 9th (Monday)]

I agree with the others. He broke it, it’s up to him to fix it. Don’t stress yourself out about healing their relationship. Just worry about your relationship with them. It’s up to your wh to fix what he broke. If your kids need to discuss it with you, do that and don’t lie. Tell them what they want to know and be honest about your feelings. If they push for you to divorce and you don’t want to, make sure they k is that your marriage is your business and you get to decide in your own what is best for you. If they push for r and you don’t want that, same answer.

If they don’t want to discuss it, don’t. Tell your husband it’s his problem to fix and you aren’t assisting. You have more than enough to handle with your own healing to have to heal his relationship with his kids.

I also wanted to add, our son was an adult when he found out. I told wh he needed to speak with our son and he was too scared to. I left it in their hands. It took a few years but our son eventually exploded in him and my wh was finally forced to deal with it directly. They worked their way back to each other and have a good relationship now. I refused to help wh.

This is exactly why people who say a’s just affect the husband and wife or it’s just the husband and wife’s business are wrong. It affects everyone in the family including friend of the m.

[This message edited by deephurt at 9:33 PM, December 9th (Monday)]