Around his 12th birthday, David began to develop some obsessive nighttime rituals.
He wouldn’t go to bed before he had brushed his teeth many times; the water had to be the exact same temperature and the toothpaste a very precise amount. The whole process would take a good 15 minutes. Then David would insist that all the TV channels be set in a certain way.
Every night the rituals became a little bit longer, a little bit more elaborate. And every night his father — the only one who could settle David down — had to stay at home a little bit later, which posed a problem because he worked as a club manager at night.
Frustrated and bewildered, David’s parents eventually took him to a therapist.
“It seemed to us that David was carrying a secret,” says Janet Reibstein, who treated him. “It also soon became clear that his parents had problems in their marriage,” says Reibstein, a psychologist, psychotherapist and lecturer in social and political science at Cambridge University, England.
“Once his parents came to treatment for themselves, David suddenly got better. He didn’t have to keep his father at home.”
David had seen his father with another woman, Reibstein says. He was not quite sure what was going on, but instinctively felt she was taking his father away from his mother, and David wanted to keep him at home as long as possible.
“Nobody had mentioned the affair — the mother wasn’t even aware of it — yet, it seemed like David was bearing the symptoms.”
Julia Cole, a psychosexual therapist and counselor with Relate, the largest relationship guidance service in the United Kingdom (www.juliacole.org), is not surprised. Children rarely remain unaffected by their parents’ affairs, she says, even when the liaisons are kept secret or at least hidden from the children.
“Children are sharper emotionally than adults give them credit for. They pick up signs — parents might be colder or more argumentative. They absorb the atmosphere like sponges. . . . Some couples I have seen describe the affair as being like a cancer eating away at the heart of their family. A child will have an awareness of that.”
Lisa Novelli’s mother had two affairs when Lisa was a teenager. She and her older brother reacted very differently: “As I hated my father — he was a terrible bully — I was delighted,” Novelli says. “My mother had always been a stoic, silent, long-suffering woman, who had never shown her criticism of him before.”
Novelli’s brother, however, was devastated and very angry with his mother. “He was furious that our family unit was threatened by my mother’s behavior. When my mother left he did not speak to her for five years, and even now at the age of 36 refuses to talk about what happened.”
About the impact of her mother’s affairs on her own relationships, Novelli, who lives in St. Albans, England, says: “I have never had problems of `trust’ or jealousy in any of my relationships, and feel, if anything, I am more likely to stray, looking for the `ideal partner.’ “
People usually think of an affair as a relationship triangle involving a couple and a third person, says Cole, author of the book “After the Affair,” just published in the United Kingdom. “But it’s more accurate to describe an affair like a stone being thrown into a pool. It creates ripples: Many other people are affected — parents, in-laws, friends — and those who are affected the most are the children.”
Cole’s views are backed up by a recent survey of more than 1,000 British men and women conducted by Relate and the women’s magazine Candis. More than half of the respondents to the survey believe their children would be distressed and damaged if they strayed. (A quarter admitted to having had at least one affair. Among men, however, a third say they have had a liaison.)
Of those who have had affairs or observed them in others, 35 percent noticed that the children became withdrawn; 31 percent of the childrencried more often, and 25 percent became more aggressive. Others reported problems such as truancy from school, eating disorders and running away from home.
The impact of an affair on the children will depend on the type of romance, the circumstances, how parents handle it and the age of the children, Cole says. “But typically young children will regress. They may go back to wetting their bed and being clingy. Older children might become aggressive or withdrawn.”
Reibstein, however, believes that it is sometimes possible for people to segment affairs and marriage so successfully that children may not be affected, just as spouses may not. “Some parents can really keep affairs sealed off. I can think of a number of people who told me, `I was astonished to find out when I grew up that my father or my mother had an affair.’ “
Children, of course, will be distressed by marital disharmony, Reibstein acknowledges. “But then it is primarily what is associated with having the affair — be it depression, preoccupation, discord, loyalty struggles or a threat to the marriage’s survival — which upsets children.”
When the affair bleeds into the marriage, however — either that the liaison is discovered, the marriage is becoming unstable or the children instinctively know that someone else is taking their father’s or mother’s affection — the impact might be devastating and long-term, Reibstein warns.
“Young children will be affected because their need for time and attention might be subverted by their parents’ marital drama. Older or adolescent children will be affected in more subtle ways: Their trust and belief in stable partnerships might be shaken.”
Even adult children might be affected by discovering their parents’ affairs, Reibstein points out. “They may feel deceived and angry by their parents, duped by them into thinking they had a kind of marriage that they did not.”
Affairs — more than separations — open up fundamental questions about what a marriage is supposed to be, Reibstein explains.
“It is a crucible for questions of loyalty, fidelity and boundaries around the couple,” she says. Whether parents have affairs might influence how their children will conduct their own marriage, Reibstein says. “It is a script that has been laid down and they will play it in their own lives, however they interpret it.”
For example, she says, citing a case from her 1993 book “Sexual Arrangements: Marriage and the Temptation of Infidelity,” Michael is angry at his father’s flings, and the memory of having to comfort his mother still haunts him. Yet he feels his father’s behavior “made him want” to have affairs as well, although he feels very bad about them. Other people may react to their parents’ affairs the other way and avoid them at all costs, she adds.
“The script is still with them, but each script may call for a different denouement,” Reibstein says.
Cole also believes that parents’ affairs influence their children’s own relationships in the future. “The building of trust between children and their parents is the foundation to learning how to trust other people, and it will affect how they develop their own relationships later.”
She adds: “If your parents have problems trusting each other — and affairs are primarily a breach of trust — when you grow up, you may have problems on your own.”
You cannot escape the fact that problems between parents will affect their children,” warns Cole. “If you say it won’t happen, you are deluding yourself. All you can do is minimize the damages.”
WHAT PARENTS CAN DO WHEN DELIVERING THE BAD NEWS
Whether your children are small, teenagers or even adults, they want to see you as a caring person who would not willingly deceive another.
“So telling your children that one of you has had an affair may be one of the most difficult tasks you ever have to undertake,” says Julia Cole, a psychosexual therapist and counselor with Relate, the largest relationship guidance service in the United Kingdom. But it is much better that they hear it from you than from a friend on the playground who has heard it from their parents. Children may also intuitively feel that something is wrong.
“When children don’t get clear information about what’s going on, they are left with their own interpretations of what is happening. They will feel confused, unsafe and often will blame themselves for the affair whether or not they know what is going on.”
What is the best way to tell your children you or your partner has an affair? Here are a few suggestions from Cole and Janet Reibstein, a psychologist, psychotherapist and lecturer in social and political Science at Cambridge University, England.
– “Be prepared to do it together, don’t blame one another, and don’t involve the child in a loyalty battle with statements such as: `He did this to me,’ ” Reibstein says. Cole agrees: “Tell them together and as a couple. If you tell just one child at a time or leave breaking the news to one partner alone, your child may feel he should take one partner’s side against the other or keep the affair a secret from the other children, which is too heavy a burden for most children.”
– Keep the information simple and put the affair in a context your children can understand — and take responsibility for it, so they don’t have to, Reibstein stresses. “For example, you could say: `We are having a hard time together, but we’ll try to sort it out.’ Depending of the age of the children, you could just name the emotional part without explaining the affair.” Or, suggests Cole: “Explain that you have a close friendship with someone else and that this has caused you and your partner to feel unhappy.” If you have not made up your mind about the future, don’t make promises you may not be able to keep, Cole adds.
– Don’t disparage your partner, however angry or hurt you may feel, Cole urges. “Your child needs to go on having a relationship with both of you whatever you feel. And you should never use your children as go-betweens for the two of you if you are not talking.” It’s also important not to cast your children in an adult role, she adds. “Some children may want to take sides or protect the partner who is left or hurt. It’s not their role.”
– Reassure your children you love them and offer lots of hugs and comfort. “They have to know that even in the worst situations they are still loved and cared for despite of everything,” Cole says.
– If you are splitting up, she adds, keep your children abreast of any changes significant to them. “Your children will ask a lot of questions: `Are we going to leave our school, where are we going to live?’ Adults feel rattled, too, but need to put their children first.”
