Find the Hope again and let me help you move from surviving to thriving after an affair in your relationship…
All by Catriona Lightfoot
My story is that I am the primary carer of my husband’s 11yo affair child. Why primary carer? Because in our household, playing to your strengths means that my husband works full time in a demanding corporate job while I work part time and take the lead role in caring for all of the children. There are 4 of them aged 17, 15, 12 and the affair child, my step-son who just turned 11.
The other morning on a breakfast radio station they were discussing children of affairs – a listener had asked the question whether she should tell her adult children that they have a half brother from their father’s affair many years ago. This sparked a wave of people from all sides ringing up and sharing stories – many of them about the positive relationships that had been forged with affair children either as children or later as adults.
A question that comes up regularly from women whose husband’s have had affairs and the Affair Partner (AP) is either pregnant or has had a child of the affair is how can I be sure that the affair is really over? The unfaithful husband has made a commitment back to the marriage but is still regularly seeing the Affair Partner because of the pregnancy or baby/child. If this is your situation then the affair is not over.
I often get asked how do you tell the children of the marriage about the child of the affair?
Recently a journalist from a major Australian Newspaper interviewed me for a story about children born of an affair. The link to the article can be found here. The story was syndicated on line across Australia and I have been really fascinated by the comments the article generated - both online and those people have sent to me privately. They have ranged from supportive to down right disparaging - and so be it - you can't please all the people all the time.
