When a parent is unfaithful, a child also feels betrayed.

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When a married parent secretly chooses to become sexually involved with another partner for whatever personal reason-a sense of adventure, a physical or emotional yearning, an antidote to unhappiness with one's spouse or oneself-chances are that he or she has not considered how their children will be affected. Or perhaps the parent rationalizes his or her infidelity with the commonly held belief that "children always learn to adapt."

It's true that children learn to adapt. And when they discover that one parent cheated on the other, even if that discovery occurs years later, they will adjust to the reality of having a mother or father who had sex with someone else. They will do what they can to get their needs met regardless of the anger, confusion, and loss of trust most often brought on by parental infidelity. But they will also feel betrayed, because the parent will have broken a promise that is essential to every family: to be loyal and loving toward one another.

Unfortunately, without the needed guidance, children and adult children whose parents are unfaithful may adapt by acting out with self-inhibiting behavior; by expecting less from friends, lovers, and spouses; or by seeking partners with whom they can replay the infidelity drama, either as the betrayer or the betrayed, in order to resolve or make sense of it.

Of course this is not what parents want their children to go through. But children are generally not the focus when the decision is made to have an affair. What my clients and the hundreds of Parents Who Cheat Survey respondents confirm, however, is that when the betrayer and the betrayed are also parents, marital infidelity is never a private affair.

- Dr. Ana Nogales

“It can’t happen here!!”

Infidelity may be the stuff of numerous movies and TV dramas, but most kids want to believe that “it can’t happen here.” Unfortunately, it does.

Young children may be unable to articulate their anger, anxiety, and confusion. They might act out, regress, or withdraw. And when an adult child’s family baggage includes lies, cheating, and the breaking of promises, they may have a particularly hard time navigating the rough waters of dating and marriage. The bottom line is that when parents are role models of infidelity, their children can’t help but react.

-Dr. Ana Nogales

In my “Parents Who Cheat Survey”

Whether you are six or twenty-six, your parent’s infidelity is still a “big deal.” It’s one thing to find out that John Edwards cheated or that Jon Gosselin may have cheated on Kate; we may be shocked, but their lives don’t affect us personally. On the other hand, when one of your parents is sexually unfaithful, the emotional consequences can be intense. Young and older children alike often feel angry, betrayed, confused, ashamed – and sometimes even guilty for unknowingly “keeping the secret” of their parent’s infidelity.

My “Parents Who Cheat Survey” indicates that, even in our liberalized culture, children still expect fidelity between their parents, and adult children whose parents cheated still report suffering the effects of their parents’ betrayal—especially an inability to trust their own partners.

--Dr. Ana Nogales

"I actually got a role model.."

Anthony’s story: My mother’s lover was my role model

Anthony grew up in a home where his parents often argued about his father’s alleged affairs. In fact, he remembers feeling grateful as a child when he came down with bronchitis because it provided a respite, forcing his parents to concentrate on his health rather than bicker at each other. Anthony never saw his father with another woman, but he did come into close contact with someone else who was instrumental in shaping Anthony’s adult behavior: the man whom Anthony is certain was his mother’s secret lover. Although he has only recently become aware of the extent to which his mother’s infidelity has influenced his adult relationships, Anthony is beginning to realize that his own romantic choices and predilections are loosely modeled after those of the gentleman who was his mother’s secret boyfriend.

Anthony claims to have freely chosen to be “the other man” in a series of love triangles, but might he actually be acting out the infidelity drama that he witnessed as a young boy? Acting out is never a behavior one freely chooses. Rather, we engage in acting out behavior when we are unconsciously grappling with unresolved issues. This is how Anthony described how the drama of infidelity first appeared to him as a child.

I was pretty young, I’m not even sure how old, but my mother had a friend who would come over and visit her. In some way, I knew that they had a kind of relationship, and yet there was nothing I saw that would prove my mother was unfaithful. But this man would come and be with her and would never come over when my father was there. Even at that young age, I was suspicious. I remember asking my mother, “What is this man doing here in my house?”


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Excerpt from my book "Parents Who Cheat".