Some of it was minor cheating ...

Consider the following:

Image by happeningfish via Flickr

Lynn felt more sympathetic toward her “life-of-the-party” father, and her story is an example of how a parent’s infidelity can negatively influence a child’s adult relationships. When I asked her how her father’s affairs and her mother’s angry accusations affected her own romantic involvements, Lynn told me that she had spent her twenties, thirties, and early forties involved with a series of men, and that she had been unfaithful to all of them.

I either dated people who were like my father — handsome, life-of-the-party, screw everybody he wanted to — or I dated men who were completely emotionally unavailable — again, like my father. And throughout every relationship that I had, all the way up to the last one before I got married [for the first time at age 45], I cheated on them. Every one of them. Some of it was minor cheating, if there is such a thing, and some of it was major.

In each of her serious relationships, Lynn took every opportunity to have secret sexual encounters with someone else. In one instance, when a live-in boyfriend was out of town, she flew off to be with a man she had recently met on a business trip. During another relationship that lasted five years, she would go out with other guys whenever her boyfriend was away. When asked why she had always cheated on her boyfriends, Lynn said that she wasn’t seeking fun or excitement as much as she felt she was “entitled to it” — much as her father had felt he was entitled to cheat on her mother. “I felt I was entitled to do what I wanted since I was holding my own, paying my rent, paying my own bills.”

In Lynn’s mind, since her father paid all the bills, he was entitled to do as he pleased; unlike her mother, who was dependent on her father for support and therefore couldn’t leave him even though he was unfaithful. While Lynn was unaware of it until we spoke, her own behavior reflected not only that she felt “entitled” to be a cheater like her dad, but that she feared becoming a victim of infidelity, like her mother.

Although Lynn has not been sexually unfaithful to her husband, she has engaged in secret lunch dates with an ex-boyfriend. She justifies her “lunch-only” affair because it is not sexual, but she admits that she has an emotional connection to her ex. By continuing this clandestine relationship, Lynn is demonstrating that she still needs to be unfaithful in order to avoid becoming a victim of infidelity. Sadly, she is still acting out her response to her family’s infidelity drama.

If your parent was unfaithful, how can you avoid the type of acting out that Lynn has been stuck with for so long? The key is to take an honest look at your present behavior and think about how it might be connected to what happened between your parents. Confront your own feelings of anger, sadness, betrayal, or confusion—so that they won’t spill over into your relationships without your being aware of it. By doing so, you can assure your own chances of happily ever after.

- Dr. Ana Nogales

“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"