As you can tell I was confrontational in my style. I had been through hell and back with 6 years of unacceptable behavior from my son, and had finally come to the idea of not enabling him by hiding his behavior. So when I went to cocktail parties with all the other moms from the pretty ritzy suburb we lived in, while they bragged about their kids and colleges, I talked about the heavy drinking and other rotten exploits of my son. Startled a lot of people, especially my son. He knew I couldn't be counted on to keep his secret. So when my husband started with his bad behavior, I kept up the same tact. I do not keep anyone else's secret that hurts me. I told everyone. I told the kids. Another reason I told the kids was that they are involved in relationships of their own. At the time they were 24, 21, 17. They all had been in love at least once. I wanted them to know about marriage. What happens in marriage. To be able to form their own judgements about what is acceptable and not acceptable, and how to deal with it. So we talked about it, just as I talk to people here. The kids are adults now. They have adult relationships and they need to see what goes on.
On the other hand, my daughter was about to graduate college. And we were planning a trip to be there for graduation. He tried to get out of going. But I told him no, that he had to be there for his daughter's graduation. By that time we were trying to reconcile. So, the 3 of us had a lovely little vacation celebrating our daughter's achievement. Something that he would never have with OW, and I wanted him to see that.
In our case, I do believe that a lot of the stress in the marriage came from the difficulty of raising our oldest son. The strain nearly destroyed us just before the end of the crisis. I outed my husband's affair on November 30, and on December 5, my son moved out. Maybe he left because he knew we couldn't take any more. But whatever the reason, things have been good ever since. In the long run, the crisis was a good thing for the family.
