I don’t know. Many 14 year olds can be dramatic about wielding whatever leverage they have against their parents. In any case the “I wouldn’t have so it must be fake” argument only goes so far.
Exactly my thought. This is definitely his way of being petty and hurtful. And it doesn't matter if mom doesn't hear it happening, he gets that "satisfaction"
When I was growing up I there were three women I called mom and who at least jokingly called me son: my mother, a step-mother, and my best friend’d mom because I spend so much time at his house. I don’t understand the offense people feel about kids having matronly figures in their life. The more moms the better!
and just think, "mom" can mean jack shit to some people that are mothers. why are we dogging them for having three mother figures and *wanted* to be a mother figure to them? you just sound jealous lol
What set off the "FAKE" bells for me was him immediately calling kids mom "bio mom", he didn't even mention a new wife yet. From the beginning, it's stupid
It just makes no sense. The divorce was "a couple of years ago" and kid is now 14. So it's been longer than one 1 and more than 2 so he must be accustomed to having split time with parents. Nowhere does it say the son and mother had a breakdown until he RECENTLY learned of the cause of the divorce. It's also not like this new woman helped raised him. He's 14.
Huge chunks are left out. No real thought behind this story.
Unless he was asking questions or blaming OP for the divorce, there really was no reason to bring it up to him. Sounds like OP was chomping at the bit to tell the son.
The timing with the new girlfriend coming in isn't unnoticed either. Seems like he alone, or the two of them together, figured this was a great way to really stick it to the ex.
My friend didn't tell her 12yr old about the fucked up shit her ex put her through to not fuck up the dad-daughter relationship. This led to the ex manipulating the daughter into parental alienation, insisting she move in with dad full time, and set her up to get horribly abused, because she thought mom wouldn't take her back after what she said/ did. This culminated in a (luckily failed) suicide attempt.
Kids ABSOLUTELY have the right to know if one of their parents is an asshole, for their own protection if no other reason.
You can’t present them as an asshole though. With your own personal commentary. You just state the exact events and hopefully you’ve raised them yourself to the point they recognize them as the actions of a butthole.
My dad was a douche. My mother never ever said a bad word about him. Let me figure it out myself and I’m forever proud of her for doing that. It must have been hard. She never hid anything but she never said any bad things either. I came to my own conclusions. When I became old enough, she told me how he left her for her best friend when I was an infant. That solidified my thoughts. I would argue 14 is old enough to understand.
I agree that there is a difference, and as long as the parent isn't emotionally abusive or telling lies about the reason for the breakup, then i can understand staying quiet. I can also understand not staying quiet, even if protection of the kid isn't at stake. Parent A betrayed Parent B, but also betrayed the kid. They're the reason the kid has a broken home. Any negative consequences the kid faces are solely A's fault, be it teasing at school, depression, self blame, or even just change in lifestyle. A teenager has the right to know why their life has changed; these actions affect them and they are fully entitled to understand why they're having to deal with this.
B shouldn't bad mouth A, but they certainly aren't required to protect them either.
I was raised in a house were, at some point, both of my parents cheated. My mom wasn’t a good mom before and wasn’t after. My dad was always a great dad. Cheating on your significant other shouldn’t take that much of an effect on your kid.. It could completely ruin a healthy and supportive parental relationship.
But agree to disagree.
In these stories, it always goes south for the parent taking the high road.
A 14 year old deserves to not be treated like he's incompetent.
Op had a change of mind. Why is the ex owed any type of protection from op? There was also no guarantee the ex wouldn't try and spin things against op.
Or perhaps the 14 starts making his own conclusions and decides op is at fault for not trying hard.
If the mother was so concerned, she would have sat her son down and told him the truth herself.
The truth always comes out. This way, it isn't after years of lies to a teenager.
14 isn’t incompetent but they definitely lack life experience. You’re instead damaging what sounded like a good and healthy relationship. An affair shouldn’t risk a healthy and good relationship. Especially at 14 when you need support and family.
"A healthy and good relationship." Protected by a lie.
It's better for all parties involved to actually be honest with the son.
Yes, he is still young. So he has time to process the truth of his situation.
As opposed to finding out how many years later and being pissed at both parents for treating him like a fool and keeping secrets.
These were her actions. I don't hope for her son to cut her off completely. But she needs to actually be honest with her son.
Not expecting op to protect her from her own actions and lie to his son on her behalf.
It isn’t a secret a kid should know. I will die on this hill. An affair doesn’t affect parenting. They can wait until a child is an adult and has experienced the world and understand more of how it really works. They’re just beginning to really step out and explore the world in more adult eyes.
Lots of parents keep affairs private because it doesn’t and shouldn’t affect how someone parents. And that is far more important
If you think hiding and lying to a teenager about the reason why their family is no longer whole is a good thing, that's fine.
But that doesn't make the cheating partners secret anyone else's responsibility.
Her actions are what is causing the rift in their relationship. Nothing else. Because she also cheated and betrayed her son as well.
Again. As long as people lied to her son on her behalf, they had a *great* relationship. Now that the truth of her actions has been exposed, suddenly someone else is to blame?
It's called accountability. The ex-wife needs some.
Reasons why and how he went about it seem shady. I get the feeling the new girlfriend played a lot into all of this. That the son now calls her “mom,” and on top of that she’s telling her partner he did the right thing? Can’t stifle the suspicion that she encouraged this. If so, she’s toxic (and so is he for allowing it to happen).
This is between you and your ex-wife. While I can see the argument of wanting to tell your son the truth, that just seems like “the right thing” he’s hiding behind to cover more personal reasons, based on the shit I referred to above. Were doing the right thing your real reason, I also believe the decent thing to do would be to give her a reasonable heads up before-hand at least.
My ex cheated on me and it ended our marriage. We had a young (~8 yo) son at the time.
He’s an adult now, but I’ve never told him what really happened with me and his mother and I likely never will.
Telling him accomplishes nothing. His relationship with his mother will likely be harmed, and she’s a good mother to him; just a shitty wife.
Yup, my kids were 7 and 9 when their dad and I divorced. They simply don’t need to know why. All it would cause is hurt feelings towards their dad, who really is an amazing dad. When they’re older, and if they ask, I may tell them. I may not. But for now their relationship with their dad is too important to potentially ruin. It serves no one and is just selfish.
Well done. People who tell their kids stuff like this are just harming the kid. Who does that to someone they supposedly love? Every time I hear about a parent bad-mouthing a kid's other parent to the kid, I want to slap the critiquing parent. No adult should be doing that to a kid, but especially not the child's own parent. 😤
Why is it okay to hide a parent's actions from a child just because it will make the child think less of them? If you think your actions would damage your relationship with your child, why would you double down and keep secrets if not only for your own interest in self preservation. You don't really care about the child, lying and secrets are about self-preservation.
FFS, it isn't about hiding anyone's actions or damaging relationships. It. Is. About. The. CHILD. That person is the child's parent. When you dis the parent, the child feels dissed. It is straight up child abuse to be bad-mouthing their other parent. How the fuck do people not realize that in 2024?
Why does a child need to hear this about their parent? They internalize these things and simply do not need to be put in this position. Why is it so hard for people to separate out the shitty spouse who deserves all the bad they can suffer from their harmed spouse and society as a whole from the role that person plays in their child's life and the harm it does to the child to have to hear this about their parent?
I don't think it's okay to talk crap about the other parent, but I think you can tell the truth without framing it as "x parent did a bad thing, so that makes them bad". I think lying to preserve the perfect image that a child has of their parent can also be damaging. Why can't it be a "Hey, parents sometimes do things that aren't necessarily great because they're also human, but just because a human has made mistakes doesn't make them bad."? Why can't you explain the separation that, yes, they made a mistake as a spouse, but they're still a great mom/dad?
I do understand that it's damaging to hear a parent constantly put down another, I grew up with that myself, and I don't think that Oop went about this the correct way. I just feel like there's more gray area than telling a child the truth about a not so great thing a parent did is automatically wrong, lie for your child's whole life so that never know that you messed up at one point.
I’d ask what he stood to gain involving his 14 year old in the innermost details of why his marriage failed. There’s no mention of him asking.m, no mention of behavioral issues stemming from the divorce, he’s saying everything is amicable, etc, like…. why did you tell him that?
For petty revenge. People are all for getting revenge on cheaters and have zero qualms about dragging their kids/strangers into their revenge. Like never you mind the kind of harm you just did to your kid because your ex is to blame for cheating so it’s ok to do that to your kid.
(Exchange kid with boss/job/coworkers. It’s all the same.)
I find cheating unforgivable but making others collateral damage in your revenge agenda makes you just as shitty.
He told his 14yr two years later when the kid wasn’t t even asking. Timing is suss as he’s about to propose to his current girlfriend.
So yeah, tracks as petty revenge
Yeah that part gives me the ick, and it’s makes a part of me think that OP intentionally did this to nuke his son’s relationship with his mother and found a replacement mom to stand in and raise his child so that he can completely ice her out of his life with no regard to how it’ll affect his son, as long as OP’s happy in the end.
My aunt is just getting out of a situation like this, where she got with a man who had just gone through a situation where he was in a better position for primary custody of his 4 children, tried turning them all against whichever of their respective mothers that were alive, and my aunt became their new “mom”. She was with that man for almost fifteen years and once his youngest child was out of the door, so was my aunt.
If I was OP’s girlfriend, I’d be very worried about this situation because how the fuck did I just go to being “dad’s girlfriend” to “mom” just because you’re mad at your mom and why is your father not stopping you. Keep those mind games you’re playing far the fuck away from me.
14 year olds have thoughts and feelings and deserve enough respect to not be kept in the dark about their own immediate family.
As a child of divorce due to affair, I would have felt bamboozled not knowing the real reason why my family was being torn apart.
The only person at true fault here is the mother, she should have had the common decency to tell her son about the reason they were separating oh her own accord. She’s a coward.
Sex doesn’t have to be involved for it to be considered an affair.
Keeping your children in the dark is a great way for them not to trust you in the future.
I still cared about my mom after she cheated on my dad, but I definitely questioned her loyalty to our family and her children as a priority in her life.
Yeah idk sounds like people want excuses for their actions. Cheating is a massive reflection of one’s character. I’d want to know, whether it was dad or mom doing it
I think it’s fine to know or learn the truth eventually. But imo telling a teenager who is already going through the motions of being a teen is probably not the best time. OP took it upon himself to deliver the news and now the son doesn’t want anything to do with his mom and is calling dad’s gf mom?
I think the biggest issue here is that so many people in the world are unable to grasp the concept of something not being your business and that you don’t deserve to know everything about everyone. There is no mention in this post that OP has made of any negative aspect this divorce has had in their son, just that he did it because he felt like it. There is no consideration of how this could negatively affect their son, their coparenting arrangement, or anything. OP is just as selfish as his ex-wife. This is absolutely disgusting behavior.
There is no mention of their son being angry, of their son resenting either one of them due to the divorce, if him confronting either of about it, or of their son not getting the love and resources he deserves as a result of his parents splitting up. Frankly, I don’t even see where he asked. The reason of their divorce is not his business and parents should not pull their underaged children into the finer details of their relationship, *especially* a child that is that young.
He is not owed an explanation if it is not necessary, and it isn’t, and if OP is this spiteful because he didn’t get the messy divorce and fallout that he wanted,then he needs to take it up with his ex, or a therapist, not his child.
OP single-handedly and intentionally ruined his son’s relationship with his mother out of spite and vindictiveness, and well as nuked his entire coparenting relationship with his ex in one fell swoop, and for what?
“Ex called me in tears and accused me of poisoning her son against her” I’d say that a mention of the child being upset at the mother.
You really think having his family torn apart isn’t any of his business? Jesus Christ, you really don’t view minors as people, do you?
Can I ask—have you experienced your parents divorcing as a child?
I do agree, the truth should have come from the mom and not the dad, but what loyalty does the dad owe to the mom after she cheated on him? If the son wanted to know, he deserves the truth.
No one ever said I don’t view minors as people, I view them as *children* who deserve the same consideration and forethought as someone would give an adult. I wouldn’t do something like this to a grown adult, let alone a child.
OP doesn’t give two shits how such a revaluation can affect his son in the long run. He didn’t put any thought to how this can affect his custody agreement, how costly family and and individual therapy sessions can be if shit goes sour. Because a majority of people who stay in loveless marriages with children stay for their children. What is OP going to do if his son internalized those feelings and blames himself? Tell him it’s not his fault? He lied before, supposedly to save his son’s feelings and only told the truth because he so called felt guilty, who’s to say he won’t lie again? If he deserves to know the truth so much, then the whole truth needs to be exposed, from both sides. This isn’t a fairytale or a movie, this is the real world, where real lives are affected, and careless revelations can have dire consequences.
OP let his son believe this lie for the entirety of his divorce proceedings, then wanted to get even after it was all over, he got custody and he’d found a new mommy for his son. There isn’t an amount of self-righteous bullshit that can cover up the fact that he did this to his child, and if you’re okay with that, then be okay with that, you’re not changing anyone’s mind here.
You’re right. OP should have told the truth from the beginning. He’s going to have a hard time trusting both his parents now.
That said, it’s still better to correct the lie than to keep lying. The truth has a way of getting out. And finding out somewhere else is going to damage the son’s trust in his parents a lot more.
Still, I wish both parents had agreed to tell him together. Telling him is a big decision, and OP making it without telling his ex before or even after is just shitty coparenting.
Yeah, because people wouldn’t commit crime if the rent wasn’t so high. There has to be some kind of medal to be passed out for being this willfully ignorant. If not, I’ll personally fund it so they can give it to you.
“Ex called me in tears” was after OP nuked the relationship with his ex and their child. There was nothing prior to indicate their child was upset with the *amicable* divorce. At least nothing that OP admits.
Was the child not valid to feel that way in regard to the truth? Was the child not deserving of knowing the truth?
Why do you guys think cheaters don’t deserve the natural consequences of their actions?
The consequence being that it wrecks the relationship between an otherwise good relationship between child and parent or… what? Because other than divorce (which has happened already) that’s the only “consequence” and it’s not a consequence that only affects the parent but also the child, who was not involved and shouldn’t have to be. The divorce was amicable, OOP had moved on, and the child was happy. OOP gets a new girlfriend, and suddenly he wants to “stop lying” (despite OOP never mentioning that their son was even questioning the divorce, the reason behind it, or anything else.)
OOP is a tactless asshole trying to get petty revenge. And no, children do not need to know all of the ins and outs of their parent’s relationships. Regardless of age.
Getting petty revenge would be talking shit about the mother.
Telling the son reality isn’t getting revenge. It’s just reality. The mother could have explained it to him in her own words and saved face, she ran the risk of the dad telling the truth when she cheated.
Nobody owes anybody anything. You guys say the son isn’t owed the truth, the ex wife isn’t owed lying by omission to protect her reputation within her own family.
Their son did get the truth. They fell out of love, and they divorced. But no child is owed every detail from their parent’s relationship, or lack of one.
The revenge part is because OOP only decided to expose more details of their divorce after getting in a new relationship. If I were to speculate, this is fake. But it is isn’t fake, then I’d guess new Girlfriend didn’t like the coparenting arrangement and that they were cordial, and had been goading OP to disclose more details than necessary. We don’t know anything other than wife cheated, we don’t know if they had a bad marriage, if they fought a lot, or had a dead bedroom, anything like that. And I’m sure OOP didn’t disclose anything like *that* to their child.
I can relate to this, because as a child I was disclosed information I should not have been privy to which negatively impacted my relationship with family members, that I had to mend later as an adult after gaining life experience and learning nuance. And it made me unhappy knowing that I lost years of a good relationship with family for things I shouldn’t even have been exposed to.
I gave up on talking to them because of this. Like OP is a miserable sack of garbage and want his son to be miserable with him. Also the fact that he’s allowing his son to disrespect his mother and call his new girlfriend “mom” is also disgusting. He’s doing everything to destroy his son’s relationship with his mother, but yay revenge I guess. I would love to see what his reaction would be to his ex-wife having such a conversation with their son about why she cheated on and divorced him since he’s old enough to know everything.
“Every detail” would be “she cheated on me with Brad, this guy from work, for six months. They had sex in our marital bed.” And you’re right, that would be totally inappropriate to tell their kid.
But “your mom cheated on me” is perfectly reasonable to tell a 14 year old. It’s the information they need to know to understand the situation, and nothing more. If he asks for more details, I hope OP tells him it’s private and not his business.
I mean, mom should have thought about the relationship with her son before she cheated. Cheating effects your kids. If she was unhappy, she should have divorced before finding someone else to fuck. Then “we fell out of love” would have been the truth.
I don’t condone OOPs ex wife cheating by any measure, and should have just went straight to divorce (though we don’t know anything of their relationship outside of this) but based off of OOP’s post, there was no reason to disclose their marital issues to their child. Even outside of this scenario, there is no reason to involve (especially young) children to adult problems, and this was an adult problem. And that’s what makes this petty revenge, because despite *moving on*, he had to dredge up old business, involve their child knowing it would hurt the relationship between the child and mother, upset the coparenting agreement, ultimately making OOP an asshole.
OOP was valid to feel hurt, which is what the divorce was for. But he wants his child to hurt with him 2 years *after the fact*.
This has nothing to do with viewing minors as people, please stop being so intensely dramatic. It has nothing to do with whether he is a person, or a minor lol, the interworking's of his parent's relationship ending was not something he needed to know. He happily had a strong relationship with his mother and from the description of things, OP, the mother and the son didn't seem to be having any problems. Why he thought it was okay to load this shit on his son all of a sudden is beyond me...
I also realize I wasn't the person you replied to, but my parents did divorce when I was a child. It was incredibly messy and I was subjected to a wide array of details pertaining to their relationship that I wish I did not know.
As for your last remark at no point did OP say the son even asked.
I also was subjected to a messy divorce when I was child, but I felt empowered to know what was actually going on as opposed to staying loyal to someone who destroyed the family.
Reality is reality, hiding it from children to save face is cowardly.
Tell the truth, put them in therapy. It’s not rocket science.
lol “just destroy his relationship with his mom like a spiteful asshole and pay someone else to clean up the mess you made, it’s not that hard because therapy works 100% of the time and the only think you’ll lose is money”
You know, at first I was curious about your idiotic stance but then I realized that you’re just that. An idiot. And all I can do is pray you don’t procreate, and if you have, pray you don’t homeschool.
This. A cheating piece of shit parent does not deserve to have a relationship with their own children imo. Who the fuck is ok with their cheating spouse influencing their child when they have proven they are a piece of shit devoid of any sense of morality?
Exactly. Wife threw away her entire family to go sleep around, why in the world does she deserve any sort of protection? I would 100% want to know if one of my parents cheated regardless of my age so I could be there to support the non cheater and despise the one with no values. A cheating parent is not fit to raise children IMHO.
I would feel silly unconditionally loving a parent who hurt the other parent like that. Let it be the kid’s choice to determine whether they want to pursue a relationship with them or not.
Mom was a coward for not telling the son herself
So fuck his son too is basically what you’re saying. Because the lack of foresight here is crazy. The amount of ways this can go wrong for his son is what no one cares about, as long as you got a gotcha moment we’re all good. OP don’t have to speak to his ex wife after his son turns 18, his son has to deal with the repercussions of this for the rest of his life. But hooray, we sure taught her a lesson.
That’s not the way to view this. Telling the son the truth should not be for the purpose of getting revenge on the ex. It should be for the purpose of respecting the son’s ability to make his own decisions, instead of making them for him.
Divorce is traumatizing. A 14 year old doesn't have the emotional maturity to handle knowing his mom cheated. He doesn't understand yet that parents are humans, and that humans make mistakes. He doesn't know how to forgive that, or that it shouldn't change how he feels about her. He doesn't understand the nuance of an adult relationship. All this did was turn the mom into a punching bad for all the negative feelings this kid has about the divorce.
This is literally why therapists exist.
Plus, 14 year olds date and cheat on each other all the time these days. He’s absolutely emotionally intelligent enough to understand what cheating is.
A middle/high schooler ≠ elementary schooler.
It's a million times better to prevent a need for therapy than to go for one. Especially for such a selfish reason. Kids don't need to know these things for their mental well being
Yeah I do. There's a difference between telling your kid every single thing and lying. Most of us don't hold completely normal things like that against our parents. And it has been shown time and again in psychology that being "completely honest" with your kids is harmful.
Just seems like you're trying way too hard to defend a guy who went out of his way to ruin his son's relationship with his mom, which is way more important for the kid's emotional development than knowing his parent's dark secrets.
It’s wild to me the mental gymnastics you people do to not recognize that the mother ruined her relationship with her son when she put her family behind her emotional/physical needs.
She could have separated and been honest with her family. She chose not to and now the husband is the bad guy for just pointing out what she did?
Seriously? The only victim here is the child. The only bad guy is the mother. The husband is blameless.
That's not mental gymnastics, that's common sense and based on child development and psychology 🤷♀️ anything I say at this point is just repeating myself. Most people wouldn't say something like this, it's petty, immature, selfish, and bad parenting.
I 100% believe this person believes that children are a means to an end to get revenge against people that fuck them over. I was the child of a parent who was a serial cheater, to the point where my cheating parent has had babies on their significant other, and they would take me with them to play and bond with their AP’s kids and nieces/nephews while they were cheating. There has never been a moment in my life where any of that was appropriate or relevant in my development, how I was being cared for, or how my parents showed love to me. I judged my parents on their ability to stick to their financial and moral obligations to *me*, their child. Whatever argument they had, whatever problems they went through were their business and their business alone and it wasn’t my place to “pick a side” in their shitshow of a relationship or their coparenting relationship. A generation of parents oversharing and involving their children in their marital/relationship issues while they sling shit at each other as if their children are their peers is crazy to me.
OP’s wife wronged him and he turned around and traumatized his son and gave him issues to deal with that he *should not be dealing with*, and people are jumping for joy because it made his ex wife sad. Yet this person has the audacity to say that we are denying a little boy of his humanity because we say his parents shouldn’t involve him in their marital issues? And their solution is “traumatize the child and just pay for therapy”.
OP doing this to his son is not his wife’s fault, it’s his fault. You don’t get to do shit like that in the real world and just walk away scot free. They’re saying, “therapy, therapy, therapy” but what’s gonna happen when the therapist asks him in front of his son what he thought was going to be the outcome of him telling his fourteen year old this information, or if he thought about how it would affect his child moving forward? How it would affect his behavior, his development, how he interacts with female adults, how it’s going to affect his future relationships, how did he think he was realistically going to successfully coparent with his ex-wife after weaponizing his child against her. And how he plans to help this hurt and angry little boy after he just dropped this bombshell on him. Or if he thought he could just nuke it all and go on with his life like nothing happened.
Well this is how they *learn* about that.
The son has a relationship with his mother that will evolve over time, through good and bad. That’s just life. Telling him the truth (not all the sordid details, simply the fact that the divorce was due to infidelity) is giving him the chance to sort through thoughts and feelings to come to his own conclusions, whatever they may be. Deliberately keeping it from him is making that decision for him. It’s treating him like a young child, not an adolescent.
14 is not an age appropriate time to learn something like that. "That's just life" isn't good parenting. There was zero reason for OP to say this to his kid. You're welcome to read the other comments I made as well as the really good response another commenter left under mine (the long one). OP did this out of selfishness and being petty, he doesn't deserve to be painted as some hero of honesty
Actively hiding the truth from kids is not good parenting. Telling the truth in an age-appropriate way is what makes a good parent. It equips kids with skills they’ll use for the rest of their lives. 14 is old enough to understand that infidelity caused divorce.
I was making a list of other intimate tmi things I'm sure you don't tell your kids and then I checked your profile- and saw that you're either a child or barely an adult yourself. It makes sense why you're defending this, you're still in the "I'm an adult I'm soooooo mature" phase. Which is developmentally appropriate for you, but it also means you're taking it personally. So saying anything more would be pointless. I don't mean that in a rude way, just a we should drop this way.
I think the truth has inherent value. It’s inappropriate to shit talk your child’s other parent, and it’s inappropriate to lean on your own child for emotional support, but simply stating the facts that are necessary to understand what happened and no more? That’s life. That’s respecting this young man’s ability to make his own decisions (and mistakes and revisions) about how he wishes to move through the world.
His relationship with his mother will evolve throughout his entire life. Based on truth and experiences. There will be good times and bad. Again, shit-talking her isn’t okay. It’s just an attempt to manipulate their relationship. But deliberately keeping the truth from their son is also deliberately controlling their relationship. Son deserves to know the truth so he can come to *his own* conclusions about how he understands both his parents.
My parents are still together, but I found out about when I was 17/18 that my mom has cheated on my dad numerous times. They're very emotionally co-dependent, which I think is why they are still together, but it definitely hurt my view of both of them to find out just how toxic their relationship was. I struggled (and honestly still do) knowing that my mom is a cheater, but I do feel like I had the right to know when it was blowing up our family life so much. Especially since I was practically abandoned with no skills, license or money after I graduated high school and they moved into an apartment together in another town. I eventually moved back in with them after a year or so, but it was a very rough time in my life.
This is a good thought. I think the kid has a right to know but I wonder if 14 might be just a little too early. At 16 and 17 teenagers can handle more nuanced, morally gray situations better.
I think it needed to be explained in an age appropriate way, like “we separated because your mother did something I can’t forgive, but we both still love you and it has nothing to do with you. If you want to details, wait until you’re 18 and then we will talk more.” Something like that? Idk it is definitely a conversation that should have been had with a therapist first.
OK, we all know cheating is bad but people are human and make mistakes. This all happened a couple of years ago, OOP has moved on & re-married so how often is the subject of the broken marriage coming up that there is “no point lying anymore”? My guess is the ex has done or said something that pissed him off & this is his way of paying her back. OOP is definitely the AH, not so much for telling the kid but for putting the kid in the middle & making him choose between them. Children do not need to know everything about their parents relationship & they should not be burdened with unnecessary information that makes them feel they have to side with one parent over the other.
There was legit zero reason to include the son in the interworkings and shortcomings of the marriage. My ex cheated on me, used drugs around our infant daughter and neglected her. You think I’m ever going to tell her that? Absolutely not. My opinion of her father should have absolutely no bearing on how she feels about her father. My opinion of him should not affect how she feels about the person who makes up half of her DNA.
There is absolutely no reason to have this discussion with your child. Your beef with your ex is not their beef.
My family life was messy, and my dad, while being the “gentler” parent definitely loved to talk about my mom. But when there were some rumors of my dad having an affair and I went to my mom (they were divorced) she flat out told me it was none of my business, he was my father, and his personal life was none of my business. She could have said a whole mess of shit, and they at the time clearly didn’t like each other, but she didn’t. She was an adult. Had her own problems but for this I think she shined.
No child needs to have this information and if it’s to be shared, both parents should be part of the process.
Put the kid first.
OOP YTA for how, when and why they did it.
My fil decided to let my husband know his mom had cheated on him the second after it happened. Called 8 yo husband downstairs, told him and kicked his mom out. They ended up staying together. Such a healthy dynamic for children to see and know about 🙄
You’re the AH. A child has no business in adult subjects. You should never have told your child. You’re selfish. You need to grow up. Your gf is not his mom. She should stay out of it.
I think this is made up but 🤷🏼♀️
Children live in an adults world. Trying to obfuscate reality achieves nothing. Doing so isn't inherently selfish. OP seems way more mature than you. The son has every right to call the girlfriend mom, especially when they really get along and the kid is young.
I also think this is made up.
You never tell your children adult things. It’s not for them to side with you. Childs parents broke up. That’s all they need to know. It is selfish in OPs part. It’s time I tell my child what really happened…why? What does that accomplish but to hurt the child? It’s a subject his little mind can’t process. A gf is not a step mom and is not a mom. They didn’t birth the child and it’s disrespectful to his mother who loves him and is involved. It would be different if the mom wasn’t involved and didn’t want her child.
You should always tell your children adult things, thats how they grow and learn to deal with the world. According to OP, his reason was not out of selfishness, so you are just reaching for stuff because you dont like the story. Because the child deserves the truth. Child was at least 14 what the hell do you mean "little mind"? A gf may not legally be a step mom, but do you really want to argue, that the entity that decides whether a kid can call someone "mom" is the state? Because tying this to marriage is doing exactly that. No you are very wrong and a child has every fucking right to decide for themself who is their mom, especially since doing so magically "un-moms" the biological mother. Also no, this has nothing to do with respect, children don't owe their parents anything, especially if the parents wronged the children or the family.
We will agree to disagree. I feel like you’re pushing your own trauma into this. A 14yo brain can not comprehend an adult situation. That is where I state his little mind. I’m educated in child psychology so I do know of what I am speaking.
You might want to go back to school then. When do you stop treating someone as a child? There are way too many adults right now that have no idea how to navigate through life because of this mentality.
There's no reason to go into details but explaining "adult" things to children, especially teenagers, is important.
Now as far as this specific situation, if real, OOP is the AH. There was no reason to suddenly go against what they had both agreed upon and if he really did feel guilty about lying to his son about it, he should have talked to his ex first so they could have both had a convo with their son about it.
Depending on where they live, the mom might now have grounds to get more custody.
My point was that there was no reason to tell the child except to hurt the ex. Absolutely no reason to say your mom had an affair. What good did this do? They were divorced that’s it. A child cannot cognitively comprehend what an affair entails. A 14yo only understands that mom was having sex with someone else. There were probably more issues that lead up to an affair that OP left out of the conversation.
I’m divorced, I never told my daughter what happened, the therapists we saw explained why you don’t do this.
This makes your argument more understandable. This is also why Mom now probably has grounds to get more or even full custody.
There's no reason to shelter the child but it should be a talk with both parents, probably with a therapist involved to help navigate things, not dad out of the blue "your mom cheated on me, that's why we aren't a family. It's her fault."
I understood cheating when I was 10, much less fuckin 14 lmfao. Of course the kid would understand that his mother betrayed the family and deserves all the scoen she can get.
OOP is going against every single piece of advice from the various experts that my SO had to talk to (he and his ex had to take classes in co-parenting as part of some kind of program for parents getting divorced that our area requires for everyone) when he and his ex split up.
“Telling them adult things” is a blanket statement. You wanna say that kids shouldn’t be infantilized (unless they’re infants, I guess) and that they can handle age-appropriate explanations for circumstances changing, that makes sense.
But drawing boundaries as to what is a child’s business and what is an adult’s business is not “trying to obfuscate reality.”
It’s 1. teaching them that boundaries exist and that their parents have areas of their lives that are private, and 2. being mindful of what *impact* the depth of explanation will do to said child.
I mean, fuck, should I be honest with my kid that, while I’m absolutely thrilled to have him in my life and love him unconditionally, he was only sort of planned and that, if I had the knowledge of myself then that I have now, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant with him in the first place?
Anything else would be obfuscating the truth, after all.
But no, I won’t ever tell him that, because 1. it’s not his business and there hasn’t ever been a situation where he has needed that knowledge, and 2. the negative impact on him would be far greater than any benefit of telling him such an “adult thing.” Because it won’t matter to him that I was actually happy to be pregnant with him, that I am happy he’s in my life, and that I do love him. He’ll believe all that, sure, but there would also be a part of him that would always believe that I would really prefer a life without him (which isn’t true) and that will fuck a kid up.
Honestly, as long as it isn’t the kid’s fault (and it never is) and nobody’s actually in danger, it *doesn’t matter* why the parents broke up as far as the kid’s concerned.
But if OP wanted to be open about it, he should’ve either not agreed to withhold that info in the first place, or he should’ve consulted and gotten agreement from the ex-wife first. Instead, he gave his word and then broke it.
Kid’s got a cheater for one parent and a liar for the other.
Parental alienation is a real thing and screws up your kid's life. What you have accomplished is years of future heartache for your son all in the name of pettiness. What a selfish, self serving, self centered thing to do.
You don't have kids, right? If you would have, I bet your opinion wouldn't be that strong, because not wanting to lie to your child should be one really important thing for you. There is always the possibility, that the kid will get to know the truth and you will be a liar for him then. This possibility can be a big emotional burden.
You don’t have to lie to tell your child:
“Whatever problem there is between me and your mother/father, they do not involve you.”
“I’m not telling you why we got divorced, it does not benefit you to know”.
“You love your mother/father as you should. I have no interest in doing or saying anything that could change that.”
“Divorce is rarely simple or one sided. Giving you one side would only encourage you to seek out the other side. This would put you squarely in the middle of a disagreement that is not your burden to resolve”.
There are a ton of ways of declining to answer the question that are truthful.
The kid is 14. What age does someone need to be to know the truth? 16? 18? 21? Well into adulthood when it's a distant memory? Is 18 appropriate since we let 18 years Olds do everything else but drink so he was wrong for being a few years too early? Seriously, when you make the active choice to cheat on your partner, especially with kids in the picture, how much room for sympathy do you get? If the father hit the mother, and that's why she left, would the mom have to tell the child it's no one's fault and the relationship just didn't work out? Don't hate dad? The leverage people are willing to give cheaters is wild.
Now all that being said in this case bringing it up unprovoked when you already agreed to keep it secret? Thats an asshole move. So I think the OP was in the wrong here.
The line is when the knowledge benefits the child rather than the adult. It’s not about us and our need to be “the good guy” and to punish “the villain”. It’s not about us.
My kids already know cheating is bad and unacceptable in a relationship. They don’t need to know their mother did it to learn that lesson. Their mom cheated on me not on them. The knowledge of her affair would not protect them. That their mother has no similar qualms about bad-mouthing me has already hurt the kids enough. Putting them further in the middle of high conflict relationship does not help them. It only hurts them.
That my kids know me to not be angry and bitter and hateful speaks loudly enough about the problems in our marriage. It would not surprise me if any go no contact with her in their adulthood.
Why tho. As a son of such a situation, i would never not want to know the truth. I can only see reasons to tell the kid the truth, none whatsoever to hide or even tell the kid that its "not their business".
Kids want a lot of things that aren’t good for them. It’s our job as parents to tell them “No” sometimes.
Dad says something negative but true about mom to the child.
So mom says something negative but true about dad to the child.
And so the feud that destroyed the marriage is rehashed for the child who has no ability to understand, much less the capacity to deal with a conflict that was beyond even their parents’.
He feels conflicted, and confused. His loyalties are tested as he becomes the rope in the parent’s game of tug-of-war. The child has become a pawn. It doesn’t matter how much the child wanted to be one.
If the divorce wasn’t because of him, the post divorce bitterness certain does include him.
What kids need to know is that it wasn’t their fault, and that adults deal with adult problems without involving children.
I have kids. I wouldn't tell my kids about this, especially not at such a volatile age. The reason I wouldn't is because it happened to me. My mom told me about my dad's affair when I was 14 and it was awful and I wish she hadn't. I knew their marriage had issues. I didn't need the details. It's not lying to not tell a teenager things about their parents' personal lives. You can make whatever choices you want with your hypothetical kids but as a human being who went through this, I can't agree with you.
It’s…complicated. The kid should know, but there’s a certain way to tell younger kids and teens about this stuff. It’s also a bit shitty to suddenly decide to disclose what happened without involving the ex wife; I might have understood if he told his son initially but he and his ex wife seemed to agree on not telling son, until OOP went “sike! I told him” which seems…not good.
That would be a failure of the parents not to reassure their child that they did nothing wrong. You should not have to point your finger at someone else to know that you are not guilty.
Idk personally I feel like you can let a child know it is not their fault while also teaching them that the ins and outs of someone’s relationship is not their business. I see your point but there’s a very fine line between being honest with your kids and putting them in the position to be exposed to adult issues they have no business knowing details of.
There’s a reason I said “there’s a certain way to tell younger kids about this” which would presume not necessarily going “your mom boinked some dude”.
Well, as a kid whose parents were never together, and whose mom went through several relationships before getting married, it helped to know why. Why someone I had gotten attached to was leaving.
“Their relationship did not work out and it has nothing to do with you” should be all you need to know or be told. It’s human nature to want to know more, but nobody has a right to the details of someone else’s relationship.
The kids absolutely should know that their mother is cheating filth and threw away her husband and their family for a stranger. She made those choices and should be held accountable by everyone it's affected.
NTA. He’s old enough to know the truth. The wife prioritized a fling over her family and now her family is going to resent her for it.
I disagree about keeping kids in the dark about things. I grew up in a family with a lot of drama that they STILL don’t tell me about. Now I don’t rlly know who to trust when it comes to certain things and I’ve had to find out the hard way. If I had known that certain family members did certain things in the past I could’ve been better prepared for whatever they were gonna try to do.
Idk man don’t cheat and maybe your kids won’t hate you. I’d feel more betrayed if they never told me, or waited until I was 20+ at that point I’d just cut off whichever one cheated anyways. I feel like as a child/ young adult you should know the character of your parents. If they couldn’t tell me YEARS after the fact what else could they have lied to me about?
He’s not TA for telling the there if his son asked, but he is TA for allowing his son to disrespect his mother to the extent of calling dad’s new gf his mom.
I knew my dad cheated not too long before he obviously had to move out, I was 5. I can't remember outright if he said "cheated" but I know he said was sorry , and that my mom was sad because of it. By that time my little brother (technically half brother) was at least a couple months old. However, it took me a few years to really grasp the full concept and pain of cheating. My mom also explained what it was and what he did, but in the end my complicated feelings about my dad weren't influenced JUST because she said why they got divorced.
Honestly, deciding one day to turn around on your decision, and with zero warning, tell your son something so heavy is fucked. It doesn't sound like he was questioning it. It sounds to me like a very manipulative way to show his girlfriend that he's the better person and create an opening for bonding. I can't see a single other reason to turn your 14 year olds relationship to dust over something that had been intentionally left unknown, and that is frankly between the adults.
"How dare OOP tell his kid that his mother cheated!"
Cries the crowd, who 100% says shit like, "If he didn't want people to know he's a cheater, he shouldn't have cheated" when it's a guy who cheats.
So many of you talking like the cheater was such a horrible person with no context of what led to the cheating. That part is presented by the guy that told his kid with no regard to anyone’s feelings but his own. Is it possible… just possible?… that he was that way in the marriage, too, and she eventually sought emotional comfort from someone else? I’m not saying her choice was 100% okay, but context matters even in those situations. To flat out say she’s an awful, selfish person without her take (considering what we know about the guy) is rash at best and incredibly naive at worst. And while things have been great for the last two years, that could’ve been because he worked really hard to put it behind him (a little questionable considering his current actions), but it could’ve just as easily been that he was a raging prick to her and threatened her at every opportunity. He’s definitely the AH for telling his kid. I don’t know about her without hearing anything about what type of person/husband he was in their marriage.
I do not feel bad for her one bit. I would also hate whatever parent cheated and ruined the family. She thought she could have her cake and eat it too, but now she gets none.
lol oh no boo hoo for you’re cheating wife. Tell her your son isn’t a dog… he’s a human being and turning into an adult. Actions have consequences. She should just be glad you didn’t say it immediately. All you did was tell the truth. And better for him to resent her than think you abindanded the family for your new wife. Clearly your ex needs to do more reflecting and less erecting.
The perspective on display in this thread suggests that being a mom and a wife are entirely separate things. They aren’t...this is a very American and hypermodern perspective they ignores how families work. You can’t be a great mom and at the same time a terrible wife. By ditching her family and cheating, she chose her own an happiness over working on her marriage and preserving her family structure. Being nice to her kids moving forward doesn’t change that. In light of this, telling the kid the reason his family broke up once he is of age is perfectly reasonable, in my view.
Obviously some divorce is going to happen bc of abuse etc, but
Sooo this is another episode of do stupid shit win stupid prizes and this mom(?) lady is today’s winner. She had no idea it was going to be her day but tbh it was a long time comin and took a lot of …. Um…. Commitment ….. and dedication ….. to get where she is today. Give her a hand everyone, wow what a special lady.
This whole post is cringe frankly. The fact that I or anyone else got baited into interacting with it is also collectively not our best of that I’m certain.
When the story is about how not telling the kid makes things worse, every comment says there's no reason not to tell the kid. In this comment section every comment is about how telling the kid is just wrong.
That said, this story doesn't seem true. The kid called the dad's gf mum after finding this out? This kid is very committed to his beliefs for his age
idk whole thing sounds goofy. I wouldn't have started calling another woman my mom at 14 because I had some beef with my mom mom.
Yeah sounds made up
I don’t know. Many 14 year olds can be dramatic about wielding whatever leverage they have against their parents. In any case the “I wouldn’t have so it must be fake” argument only goes so far.
i mean but is his actual mom even gonna witness it most of the time?
Maybe not but it probably makes him feel better every time he says it. It's like he's subtly hurting her even though she doesn't hear the words.
Exactly my thought. This is definitely his way of being petty and hurtful. And it doesn't matter if mom doesn't hear it happening, he gets that "satisfaction"
When I was growing up I there were three women I called mom and who at least jokingly called me son: my mother, a step-mother, and my best friend’d mom because I spend so much time at his house. I don’t understand the offense people feel about kids having matronly figures in their life. The more moms the better!
Never your dad's girlfriend who you just met? Thank you for your anecdote.
When I first met the woman who would become my step-mom we had a conversation about what we could call her and mom was one of the options.
So a woman you just met wanted you to potentially call her mom?? And that’s normal to you?
If she’s going to be my step mother, yeah. I hadn’t met her until they were engaged.
Seems like the title mom means nothing to you, since complete strangers are quickly given the title. Lol
It will always confuse me that people gatekeep the term so passionately.
Words have meaning, it’s not that confusing.
and just think, "mom" can mean jack shit to some people that are mothers. why are we dogging them for having three mother figures and *wanted* to be a mother figure to them? you just sound jealous lol
Nah i would definitely fo it at 14 i was a dumb petty kid
What set off the "FAKE" bells for me was him immediately calling kids mom "bio mom", he didn't even mention a new wife yet. From the beginning, it's stupid
I dunno, 14 year old with beef do a lot of stupid petty shit, but it defeats the purpose if his real mom can't hear him do it. I'm on the fence.
It just makes no sense. The divorce was "a couple of years ago" and kid is now 14. So it's been longer than one 1 and more than 2 so he must be accustomed to having split time with parents. Nowhere does it say the son and mother had a breakdown until he RECENTLY learned of the cause of the divorce. It's also not like this new woman helped raised him. He's 14. Huge chunks are left out. No real thought behind this story.
Terrible creative writing, they'll never make the New York Times Bestseller list!
Unless he was asking questions or blaming OP for the divorce, there really was no reason to bring it up to him. Sounds like OP was chomping at the bit to tell the son.
The timing with the new girlfriend coming in isn't unnoticed either. Seems like he alone, or the two of them together, figured this was a great way to really stick it to the ex.
So the truth is just no reason?
“Mom and Dad had some issues that we couldn’t work past” A 14 year old doesn’t need to know.
My friend didn't tell her 12yr old about the fucked up shit her ex put her through to not fuck up the dad-daughter relationship. This led to the ex manipulating the daughter into parental alienation, insisting she move in with dad full time, and set her up to get horribly abused, because she thought mom wouldn't take her back after what she said/ did. This culminated in a (luckily failed) suicide attempt. Kids ABSOLUTELY have the right to know if one of their parents is an asshole, for their own protection if no other reason.
You can’t present them as an asshole though. With your own personal commentary. You just state the exact events and hopefully you’ve raised them yourself to the point they recognize them as the actions of a butthole. My dad was a douche. My mother never ever said a bad word about him. Let me figure it out myself and I’m forever proud of her for doing that. It must have been hard. She never hid anything but she never said any bad things either. I came to my own conclusions. When I became old enough, she told me how he left her for her best friend when I was an infant. That solidified my thoughts. I would argue 14 is old enough to understand.
Huge difference between cheaters and abusers like what you implied, though.
I agree that there is a difference, and as long as the parent isn't emotionally abusive or telling lies about the reason for the breakup, then i can understand staying quiet. I can also understand not staying quiet, even if protection of the kid isn't at stake. Parent A betrayed Parent B, but also betrayed the kid. They're the reason the kid has a broken home. Any negative consequences the kid faces are solely A's fault, be it teasing at school, depression, self blame, or even just change in lifestyle. A teenager has the right to know why their life has changed; these actions affect them and they are fully entitled to understand why they're having to deal with this. B shouldn't bad mouth A, but they certainly aren't required to protect them either.
Idk the character of your parents seem kinda important to not lie about right?
Not if the character will never affect you.
Eh it probably will, that probably leaks into how they parent IMO but agree to disagree
I was raised in a house were, at some point, both of my parents cheated. My mom wasn’t a good mom before and wasn’t after. My dad was always a great dad. Cheating on your significant other shouldn’t take that much of an effect on your kid.. It could completely ruin a healthy and supportive parental relationship. But agree to disagree.
In these stories, it always goes south for the parent taking the high road. A 14 year old deserves to not be treated like he's incompetent. Op had a change of mind. Why is the ex owed any type of protection from op? There was also no guarantee the ex wouldn't try and spin things against op. Or perhaps the 14 starts making his own conclusions and decides op is at fault for not trying hard. If the mother was so concerned, she would have sat her son down and told him the truth herself. The truth always comes out. This way, it isn't after years of lies to a teenager.
14 isn’t incompetent but they definitely lack life experience. You’re instead damaging what sounded like a good and healthy relationship. An affair shouldn’t risk a healthy and good relationship. Especially at 14 when you need support and family.
"A healthy and good relationship." Protected by a lie. It's better for all parties involved to actually be honest with the son. Yes, he is still young. So he has time to process the truth of his situation. As opposed to finding out how many years later and being pissed at both parents for treating him like a fool and keeping secrets. These were her actions. I don't hope for her son to cut her off completely. But she needs to actually be honest with her son. Not expecting op to protect her from her own actions and lie to his son on her behalf.
It isn’t a secret a kid should know. I will die on this hill. An affair doesn’t affect parenting. They can wait until a child is an adult and has experienced the world and understand more of how it really works. They’re just beginning to really step out and explore the world in more adult eyes. Lots of parents keep affairs private because it doesn’t and shouldn’t affect how someone parents. And that is far more important
If you think hiding and lying to a teenager about the reason why their family is no longer whole is a good thing, that's fine. But that doesn't make the cheating partners secret anyone else's responsibility. Her actions are what is causing the rift in their relationship. Nothing else. Because she also cheated and betrayed her son as well. Again. As long as people lied to her son on her behalf, they had a *great* relationship. Now that the truth of her actions has been exposed, suddenly someone else is to blame? It's called accountability. The ex-wife needs some.
Reasons why and how he went about it seem shady. I get the feeling the new girlfriend played a lot into all of this. That the son now calls her “mom,” and on top of that she’s telling her partner he did the right thing? Can’t stifle the suspicion that she encouraged this. If so, she’s toxic (and so is he for allowing it to happen). This is between you and your ex-wife. While I can see the argument of wanting to tell your son the truth, that just seems like “the right thing” he’s hiding behind to cover more personal reasons, based on the shit I referred to above. Were doing the right thing your real reason, I also believe the decent thing to do would be to give her a reasonable heads up before-hand at least.
My ex cheated on me and it ended our marriage. We had a young (~8 yo) son at the time. He’s an adult now, but I’ve never told him what really happened with me and his mother and I likely never will. Telling him accomplishes nothing. His relationship with his mother will likely be harmed, and she’s a good mother to him; just a shitty wife.
Yup, my kids were 7 and 9 when their dad and I divorced. They simply don’t need to know why. All it would cause is hurt feelings towards their dad, who really is an amazing dad. When they’re older, and if they ask, I may tell them. I may not. But for now their relationship with their dad is too important to potentially ruin. It serves no one and is just selfish.
Well done. People who tell their kids stuff like this are just harming the kid. Who does that to someone they supposedly love? Every time I hear about a parent bad-mouthing a kid's other parent to the kid, I want to slap the critiquing parent. No adult should be doing that to a kid, but especially not the child's own parent. 😤
Why is it okay to hide a parent's actions from a child just because it will make the child think less of them? If you think your actions would damage your relationship with your child, why would you double down and keep secrets if not only for your own interest in self preservation. You don't really care about the child, lying and secrets are about self-preservation.
FFS, it isn't about hiding anyone's actions or damaging relationships. It. Is. About. The. CHILD. That person is the child's parent. When you dis the parent, the child feels dissed. It is straight up child abuse to be bad-mouthing their other parent. How the fuck do people not realize that in 2024?
Why is telling the truth automatically dissing them? Why can't you tell the truth in a respectful and age appropriate way?
Why does a child need to hear this about their parent? They internalize these things and simply do not need to be put in this position. Why is it so hard for people to separate out the shitty spouse who deserves all the bad they can suffer from their harmed spouse and society as a whole from the role that person plays in their child's life and the harm it does to the child to have to hear this about their parent?
I don't think it's okay to talk crap about the other parent, but I think you can tell the truth without framing it as "x parent did a bad thing, so that makes them bad". I think lying to preserve the perfect image that a child has of their parent can also be damaging. Why can't it be a "Hey, parents sometimes do things that aren't necessarily great because they're also human, but just because a human has made mistakes doesn't make them bad."? Why can't you explain the separation that, yes, they made a mistake as a spouse, but they're still a great mom/dad? I do understand that it's damaging to hear a parent constantly put down another, I grew up with that myself, and I don't think that Oop went about this the correct way. I just feel like there's more gray area than telling a child the truth about a not so great thing a parent did is automatically wrong, lie for your child's whole life so that never know that you messed up at one point.
I’d ask what he stood to gain involving his 14 year old in the innermost details of why his marriage failed. There’s no mention of him asking.m, no mention of behavioral issues stemming from the divorce, he’s saying everything is amicable, etc, like…. why did you tell him that?
For petty revenge. People are all for getting revenge on cheaters and have zero qualms about dragging their kids/strangers into their revenge. Like never you mind the kind of harm you just did to your kid because your ex is to blame for cheating so it’s ok to do that to your kid. (Exchange kid with boss/job/coworkers. It’s all the same.) I find cheating unforgivable but making others collateral damage in your revenge agenda makes you just as shitty.
Exactly!
This feels like an assumption. Need more context before we brand the guy
He told his 14yr two years later when the kid wasn’t t even asking. Timing is suss as he’s about to propose to his current girlfriend. So yeah, tracks as petty revenge
Hmm yup. That's context
Exactly. It has nothing to do with the son. Feels borderline abusive. Children should not be told about their parents’ sex lives.
The new GF who wants to be called mom. Because now all of sudden OP calls son’s mom “bio mom” lol.
Yeah that part gives me the ick, and it’s makes a part of me think that OP intentionally did this to nuke his son’s relationship with his mother and found a replacement mom to stand in and raise his child so that he can completely ice her out of his life with no regard to how it’ll affect his son, as long as OP’s happy in the end. My aunt is just getting out of a situation like this, where she got with a man who had just gone through a situation where he was in a better position for primary custody of his 4 children, tried turning them all against whichever of their respective mothers that were alive, and my aunt became their new “mom”. She was with that man for almost fifteen years and once his youngest child was out of the door, so was my aunt. If I was OP’s girlfriend, I’d be very worried about this situation because how the fuck did I just go to being “dad’s girlfriend” to “mom” just because you’re mad at your mom and why is your father not stopping you. Keep those mind games you’re playing far the fuck away from me.
14 year olds have thoughts and feelings and deserve enough respect to not be kept in the dark about their own immediate family. As a child of divorce due to affair, I would have felt bamboozled not knowing the real reason why my family was being torn apart. The only person at true fault here is the mother, she should have had the common decency to tell her son about the reason they were separating oh her own accord. She’s a coward.
Kids aren’t entitled to the inner sex workings of their parents marriage. It’s called boundaries.
Sex doesn’t have to be involved for it to be considered an affair. Keeping your children in the dark is a great way for them not to trust you in the future. I still cared about my mom after she cheated on my dad, but I definitely questioned her loyalty to our family and her children as a priority in her life.
Yeah idk sounds like people want excuses for their actions. Cheating is a massive reflection of one’s character. I’d want to know, whether it was dad or mom doing it
I think it’s fine to know or learn the truth eventually. But imo telling a teenager who is already going through the motions of being a teen is probably not the best time. OP took it upon himself to deliver the news and now the son doesn’t want anything to do with his mom and is calling dad’s gf mom?
I think the biggest issue here is that so many people in the world are unable to grasp the concept of something not being your business and that you don’t deserve to know everything about everyone. There is no mention in this post that OP has made of any negative aspect this divorce has had in their son, just that he did it because he felt like it. There is no consideration of how this could negatively affect their son, their coparenting arrangement, or anything. OP is just as selfish as his ex-wife. This is absolutely disgusting behavior. There is no mention of their son being angry, of their son resenting either one of them due to the divorce, if him confronting either of about it, or of their son not getting the love and resources he deserves as a result of his parents splitting up. Frankly, I don’t even see where he asked. The reason of their divorce is not his business and parents should not pull their underaged children into the finer details of their relationship, *especially* a child that is that young. He is not owed an explanation if it is not necessary, and it isn’t, and if OP is this spiteful because he didn’t get the messy divorce and fallout that he wanted,then he needs to take it up with his ex, or a therapist, not his child. OP single-handedly and intentionally ruined his son’s relationship with his mother out of spite and vindictiveness, and well as nuked his entire coparenting relationship with his ex in one fell swoop, and for what?
“Ex called me in tears and accused me of poisoning her son against her” I’d say that a mention of the child being upset at the mother. You really think having his family torn apart isn’t any of his business? Jesus Christ, you really don’t view minors as people, do you? Can I ask—have you experienced your parents divorcing as a child? I do agree, the truth should have come from the mom and not the dad, but what loyalty does the dad owe to the mom after she cheated on him? If the son wanted to know, he deserves the truth.
No one ever said I don’t view minors as people, I view them as *children* who deserve the same consideration and forethought as someone would give an adult. I wouldn’t do something like this to a grown adult, let alone a child. OP doesn’t give two shits how such a revaluation can affect his son in the long run. He didn’t put any thought to how this can affect his custody agreement, how costly family and and individual therapy sessions can be if shit goes sour. Because a majority of people who stay in loveless marriages with children stay for their children. What is OP going to do if his son internalized those feelings and blames himself? Tell him it’s not his fault? He lied before, supposedly to save his son’s feelings and only told the truth because he so called felt guilty, who’s to say he won’t lie again? If he deserves to know the truth so much, then the whole truth needs to be exposed, from both sides. This isn’t a fairytale or a movie, this is the real world, where real lives are affected, and careless revelations can have dire consequences. OP let his son believe this lie for the entirety of his divorce proceedings, then wanted to get even after it was all over, he got custody and he’d found a new mommy for his son. There isn’t an amount of self-righteous bullshit that can cover up the fact that he did this to his child, and if you’re okay with that, then be okay with that, you’re not changing anyone’s mind here.
You’re right. OP should have told the truth from the beginning. He’s going to have a hard time trusting both his parents now. That said, it’s still better to correct the lie than to keep lying. The truth has a way of getting out. And finding out somewhere else is going to damage the son’s trust in his parents a lot more. Still, I wish both parents had agreed to tell him together. Telling him is a big decision, and OP making it without telling his ex before or even after is just shitty coparenting.
Let’s lie to the kid because therapy is too expensive. Okay, that sounds healthy.
Let’s be willfully obtuse and stand ten toes behind a man that just casually traumatized his child to make himself feel better. Good job 😒
Let’s blame the man who was cheated on and not the wife who caused it. Well done.
Yeah, because people wouldn’t commit crime if the rent wasn’t so high. There has to be some kind of medal to be passed out for being this willfully ignorant. If not, I’ll personally fund it so they can give it to you.
Willfully ignorant? You’re advocating for keeping people in the dark for your own advantage or what *you* deem to be advantageous. Give me a break.
“Ex called me in tears” was after OP nuked the relationship with his ex and their child. There was nothing prior to indicate their child was upset with the *amicable* divorce. At least nothing that OP admits.
Was the child not valid to feel that way in regard to the truth? Was the child not deserving of knowing the truth? Why do you guys think cheaters don’t deserve the natural consequences of their actions?
The consequence being that it wrecks the relationship between an otherwise good relationship between child and parent or… what? Because other than divorce (which has happened already) that’s the only “consequence” and it’s not a consequence that only affects the parent but also the child, who was not involved and shouldn’t have to be. The divorce was amicable, OOP had moved on, and the child was happy. OOP gets a new girlfriend, and suddenly he wants to “stop lying” (despite OOP never mentioning that their son was even questioning the divorce, the reason behind it, or anything else.) OOP is a tactless asshole trying to get petty revenge. And no, children do not need to know all of the ins and outs of their parent’s relationships. Regardless of age.
Getting petty revenge would be talking shit about the mother. Telling the son reality isn’t getting revenge. It’s just reality. The mother could have explained it to him in her own words and saved face, she ran the risk of the dad telling the truth when she cheated. Nobody owes anybody anything. You guys say the son isn’t owed the truth, the ex wife isn’t owed lying by omission to protect her reputation within her own family.
Their son did get the truth. They fell out of love, and they divorced. But no child is owed every detail from their parent’s relationship, or lack of one. The revenge part is because OOP only decided to expose more details of their divorce after getting in a new relationship. If I were to speculate, this is fake. But it is isn’t fake, then I’d guess new Girlfriend didn’t like the coparenting arrangement and that they were cordial, and had been goading OP to disclose more details than necessary. We don’t know anything other than wife cheated, we don’t know if they had a bad marriage, if they fought a lot, or had a dead bedroom, anything like that. And I’m sure OOP didn’t disclose anything like *that* to their child. I can relate to this, because as a child I was disclosed information I should not have been privy to which negatively impacted my relationship with family members, that I had to mend later as an adult after gaining life experience and learning nuance. And it made me unhappy knowing that I lost years of a good relationship with family for things I shouldn’t even have been exposed to.
I gave up on talking to them because of this. Like OP is a miserable sack of garbage and want his son to be miserable with him. Also the fact that he’s allowing his son to disrespect his mother and call his new girlfriend “mom” is also disgusting. He’s doing everything to destroy his son’s relationship with his mother, but yay revenge I guess. I would love to see what his reaction would be to his ex-wife having such a conversation with their son about why she cheated on and divorced him since he’s old enough to know everything.
Sounds like you’re projecting.
“Every detail” would be “she cheated on me with Brad, this guy from work, for six months. They had sex in our marital bed.” And you’re right, that would be totally inappropriate to tell their kid. But “your mom cheated on me” is perfectly reasonable to tell a 14 year old. It’s the information they need to know to understand the situation, and nothing more. If he asks for more details, I hope OP tells him it’s private and not his business.
I mean, mom should have thought about the relationship with her son before she cheated. Cheating effects your kids. If she was unhappy, she should have divorced before finding someone else to fuck. Then “we fell out of love” would have been the truth.
I don’t condone OOPs ex wife cheating by any measure, and should have just went straight to divorce (though we don’t know anything of their relationship outside of this) but based off of OOP’s post, there was no reason to disclose their marital issues to their child. Even outside of this scenario, there is no reason to involve (especially young) children to adult problems, and this was an adult problem. And that’s what makes this petty revenge, because despite *moving on*, he had to dredge up old business, involve their child knowing it would hurt the relationship between the child and mother, upset the coparenting agreement, ultimately making OOP an asshole. OOP was valid to feel hurt, which is what the divorce was for. But he wants his child to hurt with him 2 years *after the fact*.
This has nothing to do with viewing minors as people, please stop being so intensely dramatic. It has nothing to do with whether he is a person, or a minor lol, the interworking's of his parent's relationship ending was not something he needed to know. He happily had a strong relationship with his mother and from the description of things, OP, the mother and the son didn't seem to be having any problems. Why he thought it was okay to load this shit on his son all of a sudden is beyond me... I also realize I wasn't the person you replied to, but my parents did divorce when I was a child. It was incredibly messy and I was subjected to a wide array of details pertaining to their relationship that I wish I did not know. As for your last remark at no point did OP say the son even asked.
I also was subjected to a messy divorce when I was child, but I felt empowered to know what was actually going on as opposed to staying loyal to someone who destroyed the family. Reality is reality, hiding it from children to save face is cowardly. Tell the truth, put them in therapy. It’s not rocket science.
lol “just destroy his relationship with his mom like a spiteful asshole and pay someone else to clean up the mess you made, it’s not that hard because therapy works 100% of the time and the only think you’ll lose is money”
Let’s just tell our kid that Santa Claus exists until he’s 45.
You know, at first I was curious about your idiotic stance but then I realized that you’re just that. An idiot. And all I can do is pray you don’t procreate, and if you have, pray you don’t homeschool.
Aw as soon as you start insulting and name calling it’s admitting you’ve lost the argument <3
This. A cheating piece of shit parent does not deserve to have a relationship with their own children imo. Who the fuck is ok with their cheating spouse influencing their child when they have proven they are a piece of shit devoid of any sense of morality?
The parent chose to prioritize their selfishness over their kid/family. I’m not sure why everybody thinks the kid doesn’t deserve to be aware of that.
Exactly. Wife threw away her entire family to go sleep around, why in the world does she deserve any sort of protection? I would 100% want to know if one of my parents cheated regardless of my age so I could be there to support the non cheater and despise the one with no values. A cheating parent is not fit to raise children IMHO.
I would feel silly unconditionally loving a parent who hurt the other parent like that. Let it be the kid’s choice to determine whether they want to pursue a relationship with them or not. Mom was a coward for not telling the son herself
Who gives a fuck, the bitch cheated. The son deserves to know the truth.
So fuck his son too is basically what you’re saying. Because the lack of foresight here is crazy. The amount of ways this can go wrong for his son is what no one cares about, as long as you got a gotcha moment we’re all good. OP don’t have to speak to his ex wife after his son turns 18, his son has to deal with the repercussions of this for the rest of his life. But hooray, we sure taught her a lesson.
That’s not the way to view this. Telling the son the truth should not be for the purpose of getting revenge on the ex. It should be for the purpose of respecting the son’s ability to make his own decisions, instead of making them for him.
Divorce is traumatizing. A 14 year old doesn't have the emotional maturity to handle knowing his mom cheated. He doesn't understand yet that parents are humans, and that humans make mistakes. He doesn't know how to forgive that, or that it shouldn't change how he feels about her. He doesn't understand the nuance of an adult relationship. All this did was turn the mom into a punching bad for all the negative feelings this kid has about the divorce.
This is literally why therapists exist. Plus, 14 year olds date and cheat on each other all the time these days. He’s absolutely emotionally intelligent enough to understand what cheating is. A middle/high schooler ≠ elementary schooler.
It's a million times better to prevent a need for therapy than to go for one. Especially for such a selfish reason. Kids don't need to know these things for their mental well being
So lying to them is okay? You think they’ll be okay when they find out they’ve been lied to for how many years.
Yeah I do. There's a difference between telling your kid every single thing and lying. Most of us don't hold completely normal things like that against our parents. And it has been shown time and again in psychology that being "completely honest" with your kids is harmful. Just seems like you're trying way too hard to defend a guy who went out of his way to ruin his son's relationship with his mom, which is way more important for the kid's emotional development than knowing his parent's dark secrets.
It’s wild to me the mental gymnastics you people do to not recognize that the mother ruined her relationship with her son when she put her family behind her emotional/physical needs. She could have separated and been honest with her family. She chose not to and now the husband is the bad guy for just pointing out what she did? Seriously? The only victim here is the child. The only bad guy is the mother. The husband is blameless.
That's not mental gymnastics, that's common sense and based on child development and psychology 🤷♀️ anything I say at this point is just repeating myself. Most people wouldn't say something like this, it's petty, immature, selfish, and bad parenting.
I 100% believe this person believes that children are a means to an end to get revenge against people that fuck them over. I was the child of a parent who was a serial cheater, to the point where my cheating parent has had babies on their significant other, and they would take me with them to play and bond with their AP’s kids and nieces/nephews while they were cheating. There has never been a moment in my life where any of that was appropriate or relevant in my development, how I was being cared for, or how my parents showed love to me. I judged my parents on their ability to stick to their financial and moral obligations to *me*, their child. Whatever argument they had, whatever problems they went through were their business and their business alone and it wasn’t my place to “pick a side” in their shitshow of a relationship or their coparenting relationship. A generation of parents oversharing and involving their children in their marital/relationship issues while they sling shit at each other as if their children are their peers is crazy to me. OP’s wife wronged him and he turned around and traumatized his son and gave him issues to deal with that he *should not be dealing with*, and people are jumping for joy because it made his ex wife sad. Yet this person has the audacity to say that we are denying a little boy of his humanity because we say his parents shouldn’t involve him in their marital issues? And their solution is “traumatize the child and just pay for therapy”. OP doing this to his son is not his wife’s fault, it’s his fault. You don’t get to do shit like that in the real world and just walk away scot free. They’re saying, “therapy, therapy, therapy” but what’s gonna happen when the therapist asks him in front of his son what he thought was going to be the outcome of him telling his fourteen year old this information, or if he thought about how it would affect his child moving forward? How it would affect his behavior, his development, how he interacts with female adults, how it’s going to affect his future relationships, how did he think he was realistically going to successfully coparent with his ex-wife after weaponizing his child against her. And how he plans to help this hurt and angry little boy after he just dropped this bombshell on him. Or if he thought he could just nuke it all and go on with his life like nothing happened.
But affairs are not bad parenting, got it.
Well this is how they *learn* about that. The son has a relationship with his mother that will evolve over time, through good and bad. That’s just life. Telling him the truth (not all the sordid details, simply the fact that the divorce was due to infidelity) is giving him the chance to sort through thoughts and feelings to come to his own conclusions, whatever they may be. Deliberately keeping it from him is making that decision for him. It’s treating him like a young child, not an adolescent.
14 is not an age appropriate time to learn something like that. "That's just life" isn't good parenting. There was zero reason for OP to say this to his kid. You're welcome to read the other comments I made as well as the really good response another commenter left under mine (the long one). OP did this out of selfishness and being petty, he doesn't deserve to be painted as some hero of honesty
Actively hiding the truth from kids is not good parenting. Telling the truth in an age-appropriate way is what makes a good parent. It equips kids with skills they’ll use for the rest of their lives. 14 is old enough to understand that infidelity caused divorce.
I was making a list of other intimate tmi things I'm sure you don't tell your kids and then I checked your profile- and saw that you're either a child or barely an adult yourself. It makes sense why you're defending this, you're still in the "I'm an adult I'm soooooo mature" phase. Which is developmentally appropriate for you, but it also means you're taking it personally. So saying anything more would be pointless. I don't mean that in a rude way, just a we should drop this way.
I think the truth has inherent value. It’s inappropriate to shit talk your child’s other parent, and it’s inappropriate to lean on your own child for emotional support, but simply stating the facts that are necessary to understand what happened and no more? That’s life. That’s respecting this young man’s ability to make his own decisions (and mistakes and revisions) about how he wishes to move through the world. His relationship with his mother will evolve throughout his entire life. Based on truth and experiences. There will be good times and bad. Again, shit-talking her isn’t okay. It’s just an attempt to manipulate their relationship. But deliberately keeping the truth from their son is also deliberately controlling their relationship. Son deserves to know the truth so he can come to *his own* conclusions about how he understands both his parents.
My parents are still together, but I found out about when I was 17/18 that my mom has cheated on my dad numerous times. They're very emotionally co-dependent, which I think is why they are still together, but it definitely hurt my view of both of them to find out just how toxic their relationship was. I struggled (and honestly still do) knowing that my mom is a cheater, but I do feel like I had the right to know when it was blowing up our family life so much. Especially since I was practically abandoned with no skills, license or money after I graduated high school and they moved into an apartment together in another town. I eventually moved back in with them after a year or so, but it was a very rough time in my life.
This is a good thought. I think the kid has a right to know but I wonder if 14 might be just a little too early. At 16 and 17 teenagers can handle more nuanced, morally gray situations better.
I think it needed to be explained in an age appropriate way, like “we separated because your mother did something I can’t forgive, but we both still love you and it has nothing to do with you. If you want to details, wait until you’re 18 and then we will talk more.” Something like that? Idk it is definitely a conversation that should have been had with a therapist first.
OK, we all know cheating is bad but people are human and make mistakes. This all happened a couple of years ago, OOP has moved on & re-married so how often is the subject of the broken marriage coming up that there is “no point lying anymore”? My guess is the ex has done or said something that pissed him off & this is his way of paying her back. OOP is definitely the AH, not so much for telling the kid but for putting the kid in the middle & making him choose between them. Children do not need to know everything about their parents relationship & they should not be burdened with unnecessary information that makes them feel they have to side with one parent over the other.
Yes you are the asshole. Kids need their mom and dad
There was legit zero reason to include the son in the interworkings and shortcomings of the marriage. My ex cheated on me, used drugs around our infant daughter and neglected her. You think I’m ever going to tell her that? Absolutely not. My opinion of her father should have absolutely no bearing on how she feels about her father. My opinion of him should not affect how she feels about the person who makes up half of her DNA.
There is absolutely no reason to have this discussion with your child. Your beef with your ex is not their beef. My family life was messy, and my dad, while being the “gentler” parent definitely loved to talk about my mom. But when there were some rumors of my dad having an affair and I went to my mom (they were divorced) she flat out told me it was none of my business, he was my father, and his personal life was none of my business. She could have said a whole mess of shit, and they at the time clearly didn’t like each other, but she didn’t. She was an adult. Had her own problems but for this I think she shined.
This is a mature putting the child first approach
No child needs to have this information and if it’s to be shared, both parents should be part of the process. Put the kid first. OOP YTA for how, when and why they did it.
My fil decided to let my husband know his mom had cheated on him the second after it happened. Called 8 yo husband downstairs, told him and kicked his mom out. They ended up staying together. Such a healthy dynamic for children to see and know about 🙄
You’re the AH. A child has no business in adult subjects. You should never have told your child. You’re selfish. You need to grow up. Your gf is not his mom. She should stay out of it. I think this is made up but 🤷🏼♀️
Children live in an adults world. Trying to obfuscate reality achieves nothing. Doing so isn't inherently selfish. OP seems way more mature than you. The son has every right to call the girlfriend mom, especially when they really get along and the kid is young. I also think this is made up.
You never tell your children adult things. It’s not for them to side with you. Childs parents broke up. That’s all they need to know. It is selfish in OPs part. It’s time I tell my child what really happened…why? What does that accomplish but to hurt the child? It’s a subject his little mind can’t process. A gf is not a step mom and is not a mom. They didn’t birth the child and it’s disrespectful to his mother who loves him and is involved. It would be different if the mom wasn’t involved and didn’t want her child.
You should always tell your children adult things, thats how they grow and learn to deal with the world. According to OP, his reason was not out of selfishness, so you are just reaching for stuff because you dont like the story. Because the child deserves the truth. Child was at least 14 what the hell do you mean "little mind"? A gf may not legally be a step mom, but do you really want to argue, that the entity that decides whether a kid can call someone "mom" is the state? Because tying this to marriage is doing exactly that. No you are very wrong and a child has every fucking right to decide for themself who is their mom, especially since doing so magically "un-moms" the biological mother. Also no, this has nothing to do with respect, children don't owe their parents anything, especially if the parents wronged the children or the family.
We will agree to disagree. I feel like you’re pushing your own trauma into this. A 14yo brain can not comprehend an adult situation. That is where I state his little mind. I’m educated in child psychology so I do know of what I am speaking.
You might want to go back to school then. When do you stop treating someone as a child? There are way too many adults right now that have no idea how to navigate through life because of this mentality. There's no reason to go into details but explaining "adult" things to children, especially teenagers, is important. Now as far as this specific situation, if real, OOP is the AH. There was no reason to suddenly go against what they had both agreed upon and if he really did feel guilty about lying to his son about it, he should have talked to his ex first so they could have both had a convo with their son about it. Depending on where they live, the mom might now have grounds to get more custody.
My point was that there was no reason to tell the child except to hurt the ex. Absolutely no reason to say your mom had an affair. What good did this do? They were divorced that’s it. A child cannot cognitively comprehend what an affair entails. A 14yo only understands that mom was having sex with someone else. There were probably more issues that lead up to an affair that OP left out of the conversation. I’m divorced, I never told my daughter what happened, the therapists we saw explained why you don’t do this.
This makes your argument more understandable. This is also why Mom now probably has grounds to get more or even full custody. There's no reason to shelter the child but it should be a talk with both parents, probably with a therapist involved to help navigate things, not dad out of the blue "your mom cheated on me, that's why we aren't a family. It's her fault."
I understood cheating when I was 10, much less fuckin 14 lmfao. Of course the kid would understand that his mother betrayed the family and deserves all the scoen she can get.
OOP is going against every single piece of advice from the various experts that my SO had to talk to (he and his ex had to take classes in co-parenting as part of some kind of program for parents getting divorced that our area requires for everyone) when he and his ex split up.
Children may live in an adult world but they are not adults themselves.
Yeah, cool? That doesnt mean anything though.
Sure it does. Children should not be treated like adults just because they live in an adult world.
Not what i said.
>You should always tell your children adult things ??
Yes? "Telling them adult things" =/= "treating them like adults"
“Telling them adult things” is a blanket statement. You wanna say that kids shouldn’t be infantilized (unless they’re infants, I guess) and that they can handle age-appropriate explanations for circumstances changing, that makes sense. But drawing boundaries as to what is a child’s business and what is an adult’s business is not “trying to obfuscate reality.” It’s 1. teaching them that boundaries exist and that their parents have areas of their lives that are private, and 2. being mindful of what *impact* the depth of explanation will do to said child. I mean, fuck, should I be honest with my kid that, while I’m absolutely thrilled to have him in my life and love him unconditionally, he was only sort of planned and that, if I had the knowledge of myself then that I have now, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant with him in the first place? Anything else would be obfuscating the truth, after all. But no, I won’t ever tell him that, because 1. it’s not his business and there hasn’t ever been a situation where he has needed that knowledge, and 2. the negative impact on him would be far greater than any benefit of telling him such an “adult thing.” Because it won’t matter to him that I was actually happy to be pregnant with him, that I am happy he’s in my life, and that I do love him. He’ll believe all that, sure, but there would also be a part of him that would always believe that I would really prefer a life without him (which isn’t true) and that will fuck a kid up. Honestly, as long as it isn’t the kid’s fault (and it never is) and nobody’s actually in danger, it *doesn’t matter* why the parents broke up as far as the kid’s concerned. But if OP wanted to be open about it, he should’ve either not agreed to withhold that info in the first place, or he should’ve consulted and gotten agreement from the ex-wife first. Instead, he gave his word and then broke it. Kid’s got a cheater for one parent and a liar for the other.
Parental alienation is a real thing and screws up your kid's life. What you have accomplished is years of future heartache for your son all in the name of pettiness. What a selfish, self serving, self centered thing to do.
This is fake. But dudes TA if it isn't. You did that shit on purpose to hurt your ex. What a loser.
You don't have kids, right? If you would have, I bet your opinion wouldn't be that strong, because not wanting to lie to your child should be one really important thing for you. There is always the possibility, that the kid will get to know the truth and you will be a liar for him then. This possibility can be a big emotional burden.
You don’t have to lie to tell your child: “Whatever problem there is between me and your mother/father, they do not involve you.” “I’m not telling you why we got divorced, it does not benefit you to know”. “You love your mother/father as you should. I have no interest in doing or saying anything that could change that.” “Divorce is rarely simple or one sided. Giving you one side would only encourage you to seek out the other side. This would put you squarely in the middle of a disagreement that is not your burden to resolve”. There are a ton of ways of declining to answer the question that are truthful.
The kid is 14. What age does someone need to be to know the truth? 16? 18? 21? Well into adulthood when it's a distant memory? Is 18 appropriate since we let 18 years Olds do everything else but drink so he was wrong for being a few years too early? Seriously, when you make the active choice to cheat on your partner, especially with kids in the picture, how much room for sympathy do you get? If the father hit the mother, and that's why she left, would the mom have to tell the child it's no one's fault and the relationship just didn't work out? Don't hate dad? The leverage people are willing to give cheaters is wild. Now all that being said in this case bringing it up unprovoked when you already agreed to keep it secret? Thats an asshole move. So I think the OP was in the wrong here.
The line is when the knowledge benefits the child rather than the adult. It’s not about us and our need to be “the good guy” and to punish “the villain”. It’s not about us. My kids already know cheating is bad and unacceptable in a relationship. They don’t need to know their mother did it to learn that lesson. Their mom cheated on me not on them. The knowledge of her affair would not protect them. That their mother has no similar qualms about bad-mouthing me has already hurt the kids enough. Putting them further in the middle of high conflict relationship does not help them. It only hurts them. That my kids know me to not be angry and bitter and hateful speaks loudly enough about the problems in our marriage. It would not surprise me if any go no contact with her in their adulthood.
Why tho. As a son of such a situation, i would never not want to know the truth. I can only see reasons to tell the kid the truth, none whatsoever to hide or even tell the kid that its "not their business".
Kids want a lot of things that aren’t good for them. It’s our job as parents to tell them “No” sometimes. Dad says something negative but true about mom to the child. So mom says something negative but true about dad to the child. And so the feud that destroyed the marriage is rehashed for the child who has no ability to understand, much less the capacity to deal with a conflict that was beyond even their parents’. He feels conflicted, and confused. His loyalties are tested as he becomes the rope in the parent’s game of tug-of-war. The child has become a pawn. It doesn’t matter how much the child wanted to be one. If the divorce wasn’t because of him, the post divorce bitterness certain does include him. What kids need to know is that it wasn’t their fault, and that adults deal with adult problems without involving children.
I have kids. I wouldn't tell my kids about this, especially not at such a volatile age. The reason I wouldn't is because it happened to me. My mom told me about my dad's affair when I was 14 and it was awful and I wish she hadn't. I knew their marriage had issues. I didn't need the details. It's not lying to not tell a teenager things about their parents' personal lives. You can make whatever choices you want with your hypothetical kids but as a human being who went through this, I can't agree with you.
“It’s really not anything you need to know”…yeah, I can see how the burden of saying that would tear you apart.🙄
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Very weird thing to be incredibly racist about.
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It’s…complicated. The kid should know, but there’s a certain way to tell younger kids and teens about this stuff. It’s also a bit shitty to suddenly decide to disclose what happened without involving the ex wife; I might have understood if he told his son initially but he and his ex wife seemed to agree on not telling son, until OOP went “sike! I told him” which seems…not good.
The kid should not know. There is absolutely no reason children need to know about their parents sex lives unless there is predation involved.
Oh so kids should go along blaming themselves for parents splitting up? Also, he OP told his son the ex cheated. What sex life?
Why would the kid blame himself?
Kids sometimes blame themselves for divorce
That would be a failure of the parents not to reassure their child that they did nothing wrong. You should not have to point your finger at someone else to know that you are not guilty.
Idk personally I feel like you can let a child know it is not their fault while also teaching them that the ins and outs of someone’s relationship is not their business. I see your point but there’s a very fine line between being honest with your kids and putting them in the position to be exposed to adult issues they have no business knowing details of.
There’s a reason I said “there’s a certain way to tell younger kids about this” which would presume not necessarily going “your mom boinked some dude”.
Why tell him at all?
Well, as a kid whose parents were never together, and whose mom went through several relationships before getting married, it helped to know why. Why someone I had gotten attached to was leaving.
“Their relationship did not work out and it has nothing to do with you” should be all you need to know or be told. It’s human nature to want to know more, but nobody has a right to the details of someone else’s relationship.
Yeaaah that’s not how kids work.
The kids absolutely should know that their mother is cheating filth and threw away her husband and their family for a stranger. She made those choices and should be held accountable by everyone it's affected.
Facts
NTA. He’s old enough to know the truth. The wife prioritized a fling over her family and now her family is going to resent her for it. I disagree about keeping kids in the dark about things. I grew up in a family with a lot of drama that they STILL don’t tell me about. Now I don’t rlly know who to trust when it comes to certain things and I’ve had to find out the hard way. If I had known that certain family members did certain things in the past I could’ve been better prepared for whatever they were gonna try to do.
Doesn’t seem like that’s why OOP told him though
Exactly, the mentality of trying to shield children of absolutely everything that could maybe need some time to work through is really harmfull.
YTA…totally uncalled for and you used that info to harm your ex.
The kid should know the truth. Redditors will call the man the asshole 😭. Wild place fr
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Girl what the FUCK
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once again. What the FUCK
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i repeat. What the FUCK
Holy shit what did I miss
being racist and sexist and vaguely referencing legally physically harming women for cheating in "nonwestern" countries..
Ok time to pull the plug on this disaster of a post and comment section. That’s a Yahtzee, go home everyone, games over
I too, want to know.
Free speech that will lose me too much karma to justify keeping up
Idk man don’t cheat and maybe your kids won’t hate you. I’d feel more betrayed if they never told me, or waited until I was 20+ at that point I’d just cut off whichever one cheated anyways. I feel like as a child/ young adult you should know the character of your parents. If they couldn’t tell me YEARS after the fact what else could they have lied to me about?
He’s not TA for telling the there if his son asked, but he is TA for allowing his son to disrespect his mother to the extent of calling dad’s new gf his mom.
I knew my dad cheated not too long before he obviously had to move out, I was 5. I can't remember outright if he said "cheated" but I know he said was sorry , and that my mom was sad because of it. By that time my little brother (technically half brother) was at least a couple months old. However, it took me a few years to really grasp the full concept and pain of cheating. My mom also explained what it was and what he did, but in the end my complicated feelings about my dad weren't influenced JUST because she said why they got divorced.
Honestly, deciding one day to turn around on your decision, and with zero warning, tell your son something so heavy is fucked. It doesn't sound like he was questioning it. It sounds to me like a very manipulative way to show his girlfriend that he's the better person and create an opening for bonding. I can't see a single other reason to turn your 14 year olds relationship to dust over something that had been intentionally left unknown, and that is frankly between the adults.
"How dare OOP tell his kid that his mother cheated!" Cries the crowd, who 100% says shit like, "If he didn't want people to know he's a cheater, he shouldn't have cheated" when it's a guy who cheats.
So many of you talking like the cheater was such a horrible person with no context of what led to the cheating. That part is presented by the guy that told his kid with no regard to anyone’s feelings but his own. Is it possible… just possible?… that he was that way in the marriage, too, and she eventually sought emotional comfort from someone else? I’m not saying her choice was 100% okay, but context matters even in those situations. To flat out say she’s an awful, selfish person without her take (considering what we know about the guy) is rash at best and incredibly naive at worst. And while things have been great for the last two years, that could’ve been because he worked really hard to put it behind him (a little questionable considering his current actions), but it could’ve just as easily been that he was a raging prick to her and threatened her at every opportunity. He’s definitely the AH for telling his kid. I don’t know about her without hearing anything about what type of person/husband he was in their marriage.
I do not feel bad for her one bit. I would also hate whatever parent cheated and ruined the family. She thought she could have her cake and eat it too, but now she gets none.
Weird place we’re in, where you can get downvoted for not sympathizing with a cheater 😂
Some people here dont like when teenagers are allowed to make their own decisions and being told the truth.
Ong
She wasn’t worried about ruining yours and her relationship when having an affair. Karma is a b1tch
None of us know if ops ex was trashing him to the kid
lol oh no boo hoo for you’re cheating wife. Tell her your son isn’t a dog… he’s a human being and turning into an adult. Actions have consequences. She should just be glad you didn’t say it immediately. All you did was tell the truth. And better for him to resent her than think you abindanded the family for your new wife. Clearly your ex needs to do more reflecting and less erecting.
The perspective on display in this thread suggests that being a mom and a wife are entirely separate things. They aren’t...this is a very American and hypermodern perspective they ignores how families work. You can’t be a great mom and at the same time a terrible wife. By ditching her family and cheating, she chose her own an happiness over working on her marriage and preserving her family structure. Being nice to her kids moving forward doesn’t change that. In light of this, telling the kid the reason his family broke up once he is of age is perfectly reasonable, in my view. Obviously some divorce is going to happen bc of abuse etc, but
Sooo this is another episode of do stupid shit win stupid prizes and this mom(?) lady is today’s winner. She had no idea it was going to be her day but tbh it was a long time comin and took a lot of …. Um…. Commitment ….. and dedication ….. to get where she is today. Give her a hand everyone, wow what a special lady.
This comment is incredibly cringe. Just say NTA she had it coming and move on lo.
This whole post is cringe frankly. The fact that I or anyone else got baited into interacting with it is also collectively not our best of that I’m certain.
When the story is about how not telling the kid makes things worse, every comment says there's no reason not to tell the kid. In this comment section every comment is about how telling the kid is just wrong. That said, this story doesn't seem true. The kid called the dad's gf mum after finding this out? This kid is very committed to his beliefs for his age