“Why Do I Feel So Ashamed?”

"... Jennifer’s father is a college professor. During her sophomore year, she decided to take a class he was teaching since it was a required course and he had the reputation for being one of the best professors in the department. Unfortunately, along with listening to his brilliant lectures, Jennifer had to witness her dad in action—flirting with female students after class and thus causing her intense embarrassment. She realized that she should have anticipated how he might behave and how it would make her feel, as her dad had never confined his flirtations to the classroom; he had a habit of making suggestive remarks to family friends, waitresses, sales clerks, and Jennifer’s girlfriends as well. “What’s up with your dad?” one friend had asked Jennifer when she was still in high school, “Why doesn’t he hit on women his own age?”

As Jennifer soon found out, her dad had indulged in behavior that went beyond flirtation and verbal harassment; in fact, it would eventually cost him his tenured position at the college. He had had a series of affairs with students beginning when Jennifer was a child. She just hadn’t found out about them until she was in college herself. Jennifer’s mother had apparently put up with her husband’s infidelity in order to keep the family together, but Jennifer felt the full measure of humiliation when her father’s improprieties became campus news. Her father’s affair with a coed was cause for his dismissal when the young woman’s parents found out about the relationship and reported him to the administration. Of course, Jennifer was devastated. She had always known her father was a flirt, but she had never presumed that he carried his flirtations any further. Publicly humiliated, Jennifer felt she could no longer tolerate going to the college where her father’s affair was known to everyone. She dropped out of school, moved away, and spent nearly a year in therapy before she finally felt ready to apply to another school and get on with her life.

Unfortunately, parents who cheat rarely consider how their children might be affected. Even high-profile parents like former President Bill Clinton, former Governor Eliot Spitzer, and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani didn’t seem to bear in mind before they chose to be unfaithful how their children would be hurt. ..."