In my annotation one, I talked about the
mental damages which the abandoned partners need to suffer when their spouses
having affairs, and this time I will discuss the influences to the children. Most
of the people focus on the influences which are caused by divorce,
thinking that if they don’t get divorce, children will not be hurt. This is not
totally the truth. The truth is that at the moment when kids face the affairs,
the damages have already done, and whether getting divorce or not, these harms
will affect kids’ life in the future.
“For parents who have affairs are not only
lying to their partners, they often deceiving themselves about the impact their
infidelity can have on their offspring.” Children are very sensitive. They will
know that there is something wrong between their parents, even though they don’t
actually understand what happen. Therefore, if you are perfunctory to explain
the truth to them, as children grow up and understand what affair is, they will
feel that their parents have been unfaithful to them as well.
The direct damage is changing kids’
attitude to love and the relationship between couple. They no longer believe in
love or always hold a doubtful attitude to it. Here are some real examples, “I
still find it hard to trust that when my boyfriend’s late or not with me and
doesn’t answer his phone…it’s as if disaster is always waiting in the wings and
he’ going to leave me.” “My son, who’s married, once asked me if I thought
infidelity might be in his genes because of the fact his father was serially
unfaithful.” Also, a mother said that “Her adult children find it hard to trust
and respect their father because he lied to them as children and still denies
he had an affair with the women to whom he’s now married.” All these reflections
show that parents’ affairs make children feel insecure in love. Some of them will
even be hostile to the opposite sex and might use affair as a method to hurt
their spouses in the future.
It’s inevitable that when affair is
exposed, both parents will feel anxious and angry, that’s why they might forget
to think of the stress which children need to shoulder. The worst situation is
forcing children to take sides. “By tearing a child’s loyalty in two, parents
can inflict profound damage.” Especially for those abandoned partners, they
will eager to find some support from children to fight against their spouses
and console their hurts. Although this behavior is reasonable, it has many side
effects. The obvious one is that it enables one of the parents to lose contact
with their offspring if they separate.
Do not think that affair is only a matter
between you and your spouse. It’s related to your whole family and will cast
unfading shadow in their mind.
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