A Family Crisis

A few days ago, I was asked to give my opinion regarding my latest book "Parents Who Cheat" and the so called "Family Secrets".

Can partners and parents really keep secrets from each other and from their children - or will those secrets eventually surface and become even more painful? Is it always best to tell the truth, even if it means hurting your partner-and your child?


When infidelity results in a family crisis, I strongly believe that children are entitled to know what happened. Shielding them from the truth only adds to their sense of unease and confusion. With that said, it can be tricky for parents to decide how much they should reveal to a child.

Obviously, children don't need to know details of an affair, and what they are told will depend on their age. But children should be informed of the general facts, so that their feelings of confusion and distress can be validated and dealt with. Parents can explain that adults may make serious mistakes, even hurt the people they love.
Children who are told the truth in an age-appropriate way will fare far better than those who discover the secret on their own or are forced to live with unconfirmed suspicions about those they love.
 
- Dr. Ana Nogales

Behind closed doors ...

The Sanford and Edwards infidelity stories bring up a more general issue that touches countless lives: Family secrets. Can partners and parents really keep secrets from each other and from their children - or will those secrets eventually surface and become even more painful? Is it always best to tell the truth, even if it means hurting your partner-and your child?

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Although parents may think children are immune to what happens "behind closed doors," they aren't. Children usually sense when something is seriously wrong between their parents, even if mom and dad try to keep their problems a secret. When parents attempt to hide what's really going on, children are left with their keen intuition and active imagination. They intuit that their parents are feeling differently, and they "fill in the blanks" about what might be causing those emotional changes, often blaming themselves.

When infidelity results in a family crisis, I strongly believe that children are entitled to know what happened. Shielding them from the truth only adds to their sense of unease and confusion. With that said, it can be tricky for parents to decide how much they should reveal to a child. Obviously, children don't need to know details of an affair, and what they are told will depend on their age. But children should be informed of the general facts, so that their feelings of confusion and distress can be validated and dealt with. Parents can explain that adults may make serious mistakes, even hurt the people they love.

Children who are told the truth in an age-appropriate way will fare far better than those who discover the secret on their own or are forced to live with unconfirmed suspicions about those they love.

Want to learn more about my book?

In the first chapters of my book 'Parents who cheat', I will suggest ways that parents can minimize the negative effects of infidelity on a child, and I will offer adult children advice for dealing with problems that may have originated with a parent’s unfaithfulness.

-Dr. Ana Nogales

When parents break their promise!

The pledge to be faithful to one’s spouse is our culture’s most highly regarded vow. When parents break it, they also break an unspoken promise to their children: to be part of a loving family whose members are forever loyal to each other. Although the effect of marital infidelity on children is an explosive subject that touches millions of homes across America, it is rarely considered or discussed. But whether a child is six, sixteen, or twenty-six, when his parents sexually betray each other, he is left with a host of psychological issues that can plague him for the rest of his life.

-Dr. Ana Nogales

About monogamous relationships

I believe that it is within the spirit of humankind to create, nurture, and sustain healthy, monogamous relationships from which both couples and children benefit. Even in our modern age, most men and women continue to seek a lifelong partner, and couples who marry continue to promise and expect sexual fidelity. When they do, their future children are rooted in that promise. Sexual affairs break the promise through secrecy and lies, and children can’t help but feel the painful effects, regardless of their age. According to the survey undertaken for my book 'Parents who cheat', as well as the hundreds of clients I have treated, most children are hurt by their parent’s infidelity because, like the deceived parent, they feel betrayed. And like 93 percent of the American public,2 they still believe that marital fidelity is the most important element in a successful marriage.

-Dr. Ana Nogales

Is monogamy a thing of the past?

In spite of those who believe that monogamy is a thing of the past, research proves otherwise.

A 2008 Gallup poll on moral issues found that 91 percent believed married men or women having an affair is morally wrong. My survey for 'Parents who cheat' indicates that children still expect fidelity and loyalty between their parents, and adult children whose parents cheated still want monogamous relationships themselves. By and large, adult children of infidelity know from experience the extent to which the whole family suffers when a parent is unfaithful, and therefore most do not want to follow in their unfaithful parents’ footsteps.

-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".

“Am I Acting Out My Parents’ Infidelity Drama?”

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She was definitely upset about her mother’s affair, but I never thought it would lead to this.
- Father of 15-year-old Rona, referring to his daughter’s drug use and self-abuse

My father always had other women, so I just kind of thought it was normal. When I grew up, I would always be involved with men who were in relationships. And I remember making that almost a conscious thought, like, ‘Okay, guys cheat, it’s gonna happen anyway, and it’s better to be the other woman than the girlfriend or the wife or whatever’ and that’s kind of how I used to live my life.
- Female survey respondent, age 43

I enjoy anonymous sex more than intimacy. I’m always looking for the "next thing” and not appreciating the person in front of me.
- Male survey respondent in his 30s, referring to how he has been affected by his father’s infidelity


When children are unable to deal with the confusion and shame, anger and resentment that arise from a family’s infidelity scenario, they very often act out their painful emotions. A young child may withdraw socially, have temper tantrums or engage in other disruptive behavior. An older child of infidelity may become involved in substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, or other self-destructive behavior as a way to bury the hurt or demonstrate unacknowledged feelings about their parent’s actions. Rather than confront the distasteful, often shocking, reality that one of their parents sexually cheated on the other, children may distract themselves with unhealthy, self-abusive activities. If they identify with the betrayer, they may feel that lies are okay if you are pursuing an activity or a relationship you enjoy—and that it’s just a matter of not getting caught and learning how to cheat effectively. If their sympathies lie with the betrayed parent, older children and adult children may become victims of infidelity themselves; or they may choose partners with whom they can be the betrayer and thus act out a kind of revenge against their cheating parent.

You can read more in my book "Parents who cheat"

“Is It My Job to Comfort and Side with My Betrayed Parent?”

Molly:
As a teenager, I moved in with another family. I just didn’t want to be in my family. My whole goal in life as a teenager was to get away from all of them. I went to live with my best friend’s family. I would go home on the weekends, but I feel like her family really saved me. She had a wonderful dad and a mom who was totally the opposite of mine. They were perfect for me. It was such a relief to be away from all the chaos and tension, you know? So, God bless them for taking me in. I was there every night for two years.

Dr. Nogales:
It is understandable that Molly would want to escape from the sadness, anger and chaos left behind when her father’s infidelity led to his abandonment of the family. Leaving home was a healthy choice for her in the sense that it allowed her to distance herself from the family conflict, but in another sense she did what her father had done: leave. Children of infidelity whose cheating parent leaves the home are bound by two worlds—that of the betrayer who takes off, and that of the betrayed who is left behind. Either world feels uncomfortable, and the child is left with the feeling of being trapped. Molly felt trapped because even though she experienced a sense of relief being at her friend’s house, she continued to worry about her betrayed mother. She went home on the weekends to be with her mom, and as an adult she continued to take care of her mother in various ways.
Molly couldn’t prevent the emotional scars of parental infidelity. For years she chose older partners, perhaps in an attempt to replace the fathering she missed. And it took her a long while to deal with her anger toward her father and her resentment toward her mom, and to fully understand the repercussions of her family’s upheaval. Molly feels fortunate to have found a therapist when she was in her twenties who helped her sort through the parental infidelity-related issues she was still struggling with.

“If I Can’t Trust My Parent, Who Can I Trust?”

What do you think about this:

The fact that my father, this man that I had put on a huge pedestal, cheated on my mother, a strong independent woman, has taken a huge toll on me. I no longer trust men at all. I have lost faith in my own child’s father. Although he says he loves me, I do not trust him, or any man for that matter.
- female survey respondent in her early 20s

My mother’s affairs have given me great resentment towards women in general. I feel men always get blamed for being dogs but my experience is women are far more deceiving.
- male survey respondent in his early 30s


"... When one parent sexually betrays the other, a child’s inner world and sense of the world at large are shattered. The personal environment in which he lives and from which he draws his sense of safety and security, namely his family, is fundamentally changed because the most important people in that environment have become unrecognizable. The image of a mother or father who has sex with someone other than their spouse clashes with a child’s or adult child’s notion of what it means to be a husband or wife, and a parent. When this happens, the cheating parent can seem like a stranger, someone the child thought he knew but now discovers he doesn’t. The parent is now seen as someone whose previous identity, before the cheating was discovered, was based on lies. "


If a child can’t trust that his parent is not a liar and will always be the person he purports to be, how can he trust that anyone else with whom he comes in contact is telling the truth? Given such doubts, children of infidelity may approach every personal interaction as suspect.
When a father or mother has been caught in such a monumental lie, how can the child trust anything parents say or do? And in a broader sense, how can kids trust any grown up, who might only be pretending to live by the rules? "

“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. ..."

“I Have a Love-Hate Relationship with My Cheating Parent!”

The Parents who cheat book is just fabulous and I wanted to share with you a sampling. I will post more like this soon.

I do not like what he did, but I still love him. It is not in his best interest for me to talk about it, and I do not want to lose my father, as bad as he is.
- Andrea, early 20s

My mom told me she didn’t realize that her affair was the basis of my anger towards her. I told her, ‘I didn’t know either, but now that it’s all coming out, I realize it is.’
- Julie, 37 (recalling an affair her mother had when Julie was 15)

My dad told me [his sleeping with another woman] was none of my business; but the way I saw it, it was my business. I heard them having sex, and even at that age I thought, ‘What an ass!’
- Todd, 33 (reflecting on how he felt as a 12-year-old)

I can't imagine my father walking me down the aisle one day to a man who is supposed to love me forever when he did not do that for my mother or my family. I love him and am angry at him at the same time.
- female survey respondent, 24

" ... Most children of infidelity can’t help but feel anger, sometimes even hatred, toward their unfaithful parent. They wonder how they can still respect or love someone who has not only broken the rules of marriage and lied about it but hurt the other parent and caused the whole family to suffer. A child of any age may believe it’s impossible to feel the way they used to feel about their unfaithful father or mother. Although children are often told that their parents’ marital problems are not their concern, and that nothing has changed between them and their cheating parent, children know better. Their feelings have changed, and very often those feelings are mixed—pulling the child in opposite directions. "

Why 'Parents Who Cheat'?

Over the thirty-three years of my clinical practice, I have heard from hundreds of clients about the painful repercussions in a child’s life when one parent betrays the other.


I felt compelled to write this book because I believe the effects of parental infidelity on children
of all ages is a profoundly important issue that has been largely ignored. While much has been written about the impact of divorce on children, and although there are numerous books on how couples can cope with the fallout of marital infidelity, little attention has been paid to how children are affected by a parent’s unfaithfulness. What are the emotional consequences for the child—young or adult— when his or her parent cheats? How can parents undergoing an infidelity
crisis help their child cope with his or her reactions? And how might adult children deal with their own parental infidelity-related issues? My objective was to write a comprehensive book for mainstream readers that would address these overarching questions.


Young children, as well as teens and young adults, may respond to their parent’s infidelity with shock, confusion, rage, cynicism, sadness, shame, or a combination of these reactions. While they have nothing to do with one parent’s decision to cheat on the other, children are often left feeling guilty, hopeless, tainted, or damaged— words they often use. As adults, children whose parents cheated are frequently unable to enjoy a healthy relationship because they are plagued by a profound lack of trust, an attraction to partners who cheat, or a proclivity toward infidelity themselves.

Family and Relationships

Whether you are a betrayed parent, a parent who cheated, or an adult child whose parent was unfaithful, reading this book will help you understand and courageously deal with the adverse effects of parental infidelity.

In Parents Who Cheat, Ana Nogales, Ph.D., combines her reflections from her thirtyfive years of clinical practice with her current research, which includes an unprecedented “Parents Who Cheat Survey,” to reveal the profound effects on children and adult children when one parent betrays the other.

• What are the emotional consequences for the child—young or adult—when his or her parent cheats?
• What does infidelity teach children, and is there a difference between how boys and girls process and react to the circumstances?
• How can parents undergoing an infidelity crisis help their child cope with his or her reactions?
• How might adult children deal with their own parental infidelityrelated issues?

Parents Who Cheat explains how a child’s perception of love and marriage can be forever altered, how self-esteem and trust are often severely damaged, and why adult children whose parents were unfaithful often choose unfaithful partners or become unfaithful themselves. Ana Nogales offers advice and practical solutions and points the way toward healing, forgiveness, and healthier and more trusting relationships with parents and partners.

What are the emotional consequences for the child – young or old – when a parent cheats?

Parents Who Cheat
How Children and Adults are Affected When Their Parents are Unfaithful
By Ana Nogales, Ph.D.
With Laura Golden Bellotti

Health Communications, Inc., July 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0757306525


Many books explore the affects of marital infidelity on a marriage, but Parents Who Cheat is the first book to examine how parental infidelity directly affects the children.


With compassion and piercing insight, Dr. Ana Nogales explains how a parent’s adultery can damage a child's perception of love and marriage and his ability to trust. She reveals why a child may feel ashamed or guilty about his parent’s sexual betrayal, how he may inadvertently become the emotional caretaker of his betrayed parent, and why adult children often choose unfaithful partners or become unfaithful themselves. Through stories of children struggling to understand their parents' adultery, as well as case histories of adult children coping with unresolved issues related to a parent’s unfaithfulness, Dr. Nogales clarifies the effects of parental infidelity and points the way toward healing, forgiveness, and more trusting relationships with parents and partners.


Whether you are a betrayed parent, a parent who cheated, or an adult child whose parent was unfaithful, Parents Who Cheat will help you understand and courageously deal with the adverse effects of parental infidelity.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE BOOK NOW! >>