"Exposure" vs. "Shame"

[saffie]

25yrs,

I know you directed your questions at Sara but I wanted to explain a bit to you about my children.

They realised what was going on, as when my H told me of his A things got VERY vocal in our house and there was no hiding what was going on.

My elder girls decided on that night that they were taking 'my side' and that was what resulted in my 13yr old phoning the OW. For reasons too hard to explain on here my 13 yr old ended up with her father's sim card and so had the number. I never wanted her to contact the OW and neither my H or I knew anything about it at the time.

Very quickly we sat down with all our children and explained to them that they were very much loved and came first. We also explained to them together that there are two sides to every story and that they should not judge their father unfairly and take sides. We told them quite clearly that I had contributed 50% to the M breakdown- I may not have gone out and had an A, but I hadn't been as loving and kind a W as I could have been. For some time I had emotionally been checked out of the M.

They saw things they shouldn't have - a suicide attempt amongst them- but they did come through and they love their father hugely. They might not fully understand what exactly went wrong but they do know that the A was a symptom of the M not being right and that we all needed a new chance together.

I worry about my son who was 11 at the time and who refused to talk to anyone about it. Even now, when he sees me look sad ,he comes up and gives me a hug on the sly. He seems to try and measure the M temperature the most and is the most protective toward me, but having said that he has an amazingly good R with his dad.

I hope that we have proved to our children that M is not an easy thing, that one does need to work at it, but that one can survive these things and go on and enjoy a good M again.

BTW, as an aside, my psychiatrist who I ended up seeing after the suicide attempt, made it very clear to my H that he needed to make clear, decisive decisions for both my sake and the children's. He said no try at 'cake eating' and no fudging the boundaries. That the children saw it in black and white at their ages and that my H had to be completely committed in what he did. He was and things have gone from strength to strenght.