Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Note to Cheaters with Children


Just because a child isn't fully able to articulate verbally what they've seen or participated in, doesn't mean they won't remember at a later time when they can.

For years, I know of a parent who kept telling their children that their other parent was the one that cheated on them and that was the cause of the divorce.


For several years that followed the divorce, the parent kept discussing this same situation with the children, in obvious effort to erase the true memories from their minds and replace it with suggested memories.


Didn't work!


In fact, just about a year ago the kids were talking with their grandmother. Just chit chatting away about a movie they'd seen at some point. When the older child blurted out something to the tune of "remember when we were little and ____ took us to so and so's house that one night?"


Sudden silence --


The truth was out, the truth remembered and no amount of lies was going to cover it up.
It was at that precise moment that one child developed real trust issues with one parent and in fact has vowed to "never trust the lying ------" again... while the other struggles with their own variations of just why something like that would happen.

If you're going to cheat on your spouse, it's not a good idea to take your kids along, regardless of how little they are or how few words they know. The memory is much more powerful then you'd like to think.

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