Ripken - WW filed for divorce and already moved on

[Georgia Bulldogs]

Like it or not your children are learning lesson about life as your wife continues her affair, lessons that, I presume, you don't want them to learn.

Here's 3 such lessons:

1. How [NOT] to deal with emotional pain.

Children whose parents are experiencing marital strife are riddled with guilt, confusion, sadness, loneliness, sadness, fear, worry, abandonment, and many other hopeless feelings. When a child is losing the security of their parent's marriage they are in pain.

So what is such child supposed to do? How are they going to gain control in an uncontrollable situation? Out of the need to cope with these uncomfortable feelings derives a new rule about life, to wit, if a problem arises it is better to deny that there is a problem than to face it and feel the pain.

So your kids THINK: "I'm hurting but everyone around me is going to such lengths pretending it's all going to be OK so I better pretend too. Maybe this is how married people live. Nothing is really wrong about this situation. There really isn't a problem here. Just look the other way."

Your children learn to defend themselves from emotional pain by using the tried and true [unhealthy] defenses of denial and justification. Later in life, when your children face crucial problems instead of facing and solving those problems, they would deny their very existence and look the other way as it would grow and eventually overwhelm them

2. How to lie.

In order to maintain a secret second life, your wife needs to keep up the deceit. Your wife will soon be telling your sons not to talk to dad about OM. Your wife will explain to them that it is better that dad just doesn't know "because we don't want to make him upset." Your kids may recall how upset you were at mom for the divorce and decide not upsetting you is worth lying about. So with this newly learned habit of lying for mom, came a second rule about life, lying is allowed if it spares another from pain or spares yourself from punishment. They will also learn that lying is also allowed when it protects your privacy. Your wayward wife is likely already teaching them that everyone has a right to privacy in their life, even if it involves hurting people behind their back. Your kids will be told over and over by wayward mom that it is not dad's business to know what mom does. This was meant to justify the fact that mom was lying to dad. Although your wife was probably very honest and open person before the affair, she has now become quite an expert at deceit and privacy. Your kids are soaking in this model every step of the way.

3. How to be thoughtless.

Your wife is teaching your kids that doing what you please regardless of how it affects other people is an essential ingredient to "being happy". Your kids will learn how to take advantage of her friends and family when there was something in it for them. They will learn how to disregard others' suffering because they have a right to enjoy life to the fullest. All wayward spouses hurt the people they care about the most. Wayward spouses rationalize that they had to look out for themselves, take time for MEEEEEE, which is why they developed the relationship outside of their marriage in the first place. Their actions seem to benefit themselves in the short term, but it has disastrous effects on members of their family.

As the only truly responsible parent remaining, YOU have a responsibility to teach your children the importance of honesty and the importance of thoughtfulness. That YOU and THEY need to consider other people's feeling when decisions are being made. To do otherwise and perpetuate/enable lies and deceit is not only terribly irresponsible, but may tend to perpetuate the learning of these rules of deceit and thoughtlessness for generations to come.

This is NOT beyond your control or areas of influence. If your wife is not going to step up, own her mistakes, turn from her sin and make amends, you are going to have to explain and teach this stuff to your kids yourself because you are the only one that can. As long as your wife/stbxw remains on this path, she isn't a good mother anymore....so you're going to have to be twice the father you ever expected to be.

There is sensitivities surely to how to go about addressing these things but you can do it without technically "alienating" your wife and your children's mother. You should research this yourself and figure out the best way to do it. You will probably need to AFTERWARDS (PLEASE do NOT make the mistake of trying to discuss this with your terrorist wayward wife/stbxw...she's NOT co-parenting with you because she's not parenting at all right now...introducing OM to the children as a friend is NOT parenting), discuss what you said precisely with your wife/stbxw. The reason for this is simple. She's lying to your children and you aren't going to sit by and enable such. She needs to be aware of that fact so HOPEFULLY she will apologize to them and STOP lying. Regardless, she'll know that you aren't going to let her spin this story however she wants while you sit idly by. Yes...she'll be furious but you can co-parent after furious whereas when YOU compromise your integrity and start lying to your boys too, neither of you can co-parent at all.


Another thing I discussed recently on another thread. Children are narcissists. They think everything revolves around them. If your sons don't know about OM at all, they should because it's quite likely, despite your assurances, that they believe they had something to do with the divorce. Two young boys and their energy likely drove their mother a bit nuts at times, especially while she was conducting her affair and trying to live an alternate life of awesome fantasy waywardness behind everyone's back. Your boys likely FEEL their misbehavior had something to do with it. They NEED the truth so they stop blaming themselves and then they can put the blame wherever the truth leads them. Alienation rules and laws in no way require you to lie on behalf of your spouse/stbxw. How your boys FEEL and REACT regarding the truth is a consequence of adultery...NOT being honest.