Is it okay for a parent to force a child to keep secrets about cheating?

[Dahl]

To clarify, no, I am definitely not the parent. This is something very unfortunate that happened to someone very important to me and the burden of knowing about her mother with different men and being told not to tell has had a very hard impact on her life. If at any point she could not handle the pressure of knowing about these other men she was threatened and made out to be a liar to others. She has developed severe anxiety which she seeks treatment for. I wanted to ask this question to show her that she is not crazy or psychotic (as her parent has made her out to be) and to reassure her that it was NOT okay for her to be involved with either knowing about what was being done behind her step-father's back or being physically present while it was happening and being forced to keep quiet or more lies would be spread about her and her state of "mental health". After many many years of guilt she could no longer handle it and had to tell the truth, and she is now being told she is in the wrong. But again, my question was is it APPROPRIATE for a parent to tell their child about the cheating or to physically bring the child with her so she can cheat. I would like to continue saying that was very WRONG for a mother to do to their child and no, no parent should ever leave that burden on somebody else, especially someone innocent in the situation, yet blame the child for their faults.

 

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

 

Your thoughts sound sensibly organized and effectively considered to me.

 

I'm awfully sorry for your friend. What a dreadful situation.

 

Good luck.

[Wiseman2]

Can she speak to her biological father as well as school counselors? She's seeing a therapist? Why hasn't this therapist done anything?

 

Your question is obviously rhetorical, why? Maybe it would be best to steer her toward a qualified therapist.

my question was is it APPROPRIATE for a parent to tell their child about the cheating or to physically bring the child with her so she can cheat.

[agent1607307371]

Basically just a simple yes or no question. If a child (someone under the age of eighteen), knows that one of their parents cheated and the parent used force or threats to make sure their child never told the other parent that they cheated, is this right?

 

No, it's abuse.

[Hds2014]

No, not at all.

[IAmFCA]

To clarify, no, I am definitely not the parent. This is something very unfortunate that happened to someone very important to me and the burden of knowing about her mother with different men and being told not to tell has had a very hard impact on her life. If at any point she could not handle the pressure of knowing about these other men she was threatened and made out to be a liar to others. She has developed severe anxiety which she seeks treatment for. I wanted to ask this question to show her that she is not crazy or psychotic (as her parent has made her out to be) and to reassure her that it was NOT okay for her to be involved with either knowing about what was being done behind her step-father's back or being physically present while it was happening and being forced to keep quiet or more lies would be spread about her and her state of "mental health". After many many years of guilt she could no longer handle it and had to tell the truth, and she is now being told she is in the wrong. But again, my question was is it APPROPRIATE for a parent to tell their child about the cheating or to physically bring the child with her so she can cheat. I would like to continue saying that was very WRONG for a mother to do to their child and no, no parent should ever leave that burden on somebody else, especially someone innocent in the situation, yet blame the child for their faults.

 

 

It was clearly wrong of your friend's mother to involve her daughter. If your friend wonders about this, then I can see the value in validating that she was put in an impossible position, and that that was not fair to her.

 

And then, your friend needs to accept that it happened, and move on from that.

 

She also needs to take responsibility for whatever she has chosen to say, accept that others may or may not approve, and move on from that, too.

 

We each are free to speak our minds. We each are free to want to isolate ourselves from hearing certain speech from others. With these freedoms also come responsibilities. Your friend is responsible for what comes out of her mouth, whatever healing it permits and whatever damage it causes.

 

She is free to say: I needed to do this for my own healing, and I regret that others were hurt in the process.

 

Finally, it is time to stop blaming the parent for who your friend is today, because blame is like a leash that ties us to the past. It is counterproductive to your friend's healing. The most healing path is to accept that all of us make choices that are wrong, at some point and to varying degrees. What happened happened; it is fact. It cannot be changed. Move on from that.

 

ETA

I am assuming I am writing to an adult friend of an adult who is still trying to deal with her past.

 

If this "child" in this story remains a minor, and is still getting put in the middle, then she may need intervention to help her have more protection from her parent(s). They are invalidating her personhood and using her for their own purposes. Emotional manipulation of a minor: that requires an adult advocate.

[ParisPaulette]

Short answer here: hell no! Never okay, one step shy of child abuse for the emotional damage alone. I am so sorry your friend went through that. She was unfortunately raised by people who, not diagnosing anyone here, but sure sound they have sociopathic tendencies or worse. Definitely emotionally abusive and just not right in the head. And for that I'm sorry, not every parent is a good one sadly.

 

On a different perspective, it teaches a child that they should and can keep secrets of a sexual nature. This can leave them open to predators and they may now adopt the view "Mommy/Daddy already told me not to tell what I knew the other was done, so now of course I'm not going to tell on the babysitter/uncle/aunt/teacher etc." So, no this is where you need to point that out as part of the fall-out from trying to get a kid to keep a secret that he/she has no business even knowing about, let alone helping an adult keep their own bad actions quiet.

 

This is so damaging it's not even funny. The partner who is cheating needs to fess up and put on their big girl/boy pants ASAP rather than work hard on ruining their kids lives.

 

P.S. Full disclosure, this is a sore spot for me since my parents cheated on each other when I was a kid. Even so thank heavens they never told us kids to keep their secrets. And we didn't, hoping in fact it would finally get my parents to quit it. Never happened, but still. Things like this make me so angry. I'm really glad this never happened to me and I was then able to tell my parents when a male relative tried to molest me instead of having the viewpoint that such things should be kept a secret.

[Shealey68]

Thank you so much for the response! You've nailed it to a T on what I have been trying to explain to my wife (whom this post was written about). When she was a teenager and even until now (We are in our late 20s) she was always told "don't tell so and so, or else this or that will happen" whether it was in regards to the mother cheating, writing letters (and hiding them in her daughters bedroom growing up) and visiting with old boyfriends and keeping in contact with people from her past who had no need to be a part of their present. My Wife is a huge empath and was, unfortunately, raised to believe that this behavior was normal and acceptable, which is far from the truth!!! Her heart has been so heavy with guilt of knowing these secrets that she was forced to keep (by force I'm speaking in terms of threats that would pretty much make her life a living hell), and with about 18 years worth of secrets being held internally to herself I can only imagine what kind of psychological pain that put her through. She couldn't take it anymore and had to come clean, and of course now SHE is getting blamed for everything when in reality she never committed any actions, her mother just can't take responsibility for her own actions and deal with the consequences. My wife has gone to therapy and sees a doctor to help treat her anxiety (which I 100% believe she developed because of the emotional abuse she suffered for so long). I hope that together we can begin the healing process and move forward with our lives and live peacefully. Thank you again for your response. Sometimes you have to let your story be heard in oder for others to fully understand.

[Ashley5886]

A child should never be brought into adult issues or held to standards that adults hold

[momofboys]

i dont know about anywhere else, but in Canada this would classify as a form of abuse