Just for balance, although I don't want my kids to know either... I've spoken to a lot of adult friends whose parents went through this. They agree that the worst was not knowing what was going on. They attached to the more attentive parent, regardless of who was "wrong". They wanted the opportunity to discuss with a parent rather than a therapist (though sometimes therapists were helpful with dealing with known information).
Let me clarify. I didn't want my kids to know that anything was wrong as long as H stayed in the house and acted like a semi-attentive H. After we told them, we have been very honest with them. D16 was the one who asked H straight out if he was seeing someone, and to his credit he admitted it. And that was said in front of all the kids, so they have all known that from the beginning. They know they can ask me things and I'll tell them real answers. There are some things I feel aren't appropriate to talk about, and I won't bad-mouth their dad, but I'm not hiding anything these days.
