Marital Infidelity and the Children Effected

One cannot bring in the friendly frog and put him in the bath tub. It is alright to muddy your shoes while playing, but it is not acceptable to walk over the living room carpet in them. One need not pay for the food at home or wait in a line for it. There is a huge list of do?s and don?ts associated with home in the mind of every child. These are the values instilled in them by those who are ?in charge? at home, i.e. their parents. But what if the parents go wrong? How would a child react to it then? This article deals with this issue in the context of marital infidelity and divorce.

Fall from Grace

Children consider their parents to be the role models. This may sound hopelessly outdated, as though we were talking of Abraham Lincoln and his father, but it is nevertheless quite true. Sometimes, it may not be manifest at all. In fact, the child may seem to be the ruling authority in the house. But even if it is in the deepest subconscious level, the effect of parents on children is always profound. Therefore, when a child learns of infidelity, it is the worst that can happen to this image of the parent as created in his or her mind. Infidelity is looked upon squarely as wrong. Children think along channels almost as straight and narrow as the law. If you are the daddy, you have your assigned partner which is mummy, and you cannot possibly hop around getting another one. It is simply not done. Thus, the first impact of infidelity is a fall from grace for the parent concerned, sometimes for both parents. If it is an amicable parting, the child may point out that his or her opinion was never asked for, but the adults are about to turn his or world entirely topsy turvy. This opinion may not be voiced due to sheer lack of articulating power, but it will be there.

A New lesson

Adults, especially if they happen to be parents, are usually infallible. If cheating is wrong, and that has been allowed in the most sacred of relations, it means that either exceptions to the rule are accepted, or there is no rule at all. The most stable place on earth suddenly becomes ephemeral, and the home turns into just a house. It is even worse when parents shift after divorce, or the child is accommodated into a new ?family?. These changes only serve to strengthen the assumption that homes do not exist at all. They also start thinking over and doubting the correctness of all the values instilled into them. This painful new ?lesson? taught by infidelity is almost always unwholesome. To make things worse, children usually do not speak about these changes happening in their perspective, they merely internalise the new knowledge as part of a lesson taught to them by their changed circumstances.

Emotional Impact of Infidelity

It has been proved repeatedly that all children are affected emotionally by divorce in some way or the other. However, the strongest effect has been noticed in the cases of abandonment and infidelity. An extramarital affair has very simple implications for a child. Children are not foolish; in fact, they are capable of all the conceivable emotions present in an adult and maybe a few more. They know what love is, though the definition may be different from that of grown-ups. When a parent has an affair with someone else, it means that he or she has stopped loving the other spouse and the child. In other words, love is perishable. This deduction alone is enough to shake the very foundations of a child?s world. It also means that one may not keep commitments, and the rules that have been followed so far are of no value at all. There are children who move towards juvenile delinquency at this phase, as they feel it is justified in some way. They may also try to locate a surrogate ?family? setup, and end up in finding it in a street gang.

Changed World View

Children of broken households have more chances of instability in their own relations and family life. They are also more insecure in general. The world had changed for them the day a third element entered the parental equation.

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