"Why doesn't Daddy live here anymore?" What am I supposed to say?

[BornToFolk]

DS is nearly 5. I split up with exP about 4 months ago after discovering he was having an affair. I posted about it at the time - basically I brought an ill DS home from nursery to find exP in bed with a family friend. He left that day and has been living with his parents ever since.

DS has coped well, I think. He sees a lot of exP. Until this week (when he started school) exP collected him from nursery every day and also had him overnight on alternate weekends.

On the day it happened, I told DS that Mummy and Daddy had had a fight (kind of true, I did a lot of shouting!) and Daddy had left. Since then, I've basically said that sometimes grown ups decide not to live together any more. I've tried to describe it as being a different rather than a bad situation, IFKWIM.

DS was a bit upset tonight. He started school on Monday and I think he's just feeling a bit tired and unsettled with things changing (though he seems to be enjoying school!) He was asking again why Daddy doesn't live with us. I said again that's just the way things are now but it felt like a cop out answer. I kind of deflected by saying he'd see Daddy tomorrow and have a sleepover with him at the weekend and he went to sleep in a better mood.

What should I say? Saying that we were fighting and unhappy isn't true - I was happy at least and we didn't fight. It must have been as much of a shock to DS as it was to me. I feel like I need to tell him something but I don't know what...

Tell him to ask his father...

I'm being flippant and I'm sorry about that, but truly, you've told him what he's old enough to understand at this point, I think. You can't exactly say 'Your lying cheating Daddy was kicked out by mummy for being a lying cheater'.

So tell him to ask daddy why he doesn't live there any more. I'd be interested to hear his answer!

I didn't tell the truth to mine and I wish I had. I don't know why I protected their scabby father's reputation. I now think there are ways of telling children that are factual. When the kids did find out about the other woman, nobody thanked me for being discreet.

It some ways it would be easier if exP was living with OW (it's on the cards, apparently) as at least I could say "Daddy didn't want to be my boyfriend anymore, he wanted to be OW's boyfriend" but DS doesn't know about OW at this point and I want to keep it that way for as long as possible. So I could get exP to talk to DS about it but he might bring up the OW...

I wish I'd told mine about the OW. Not in a ranting way but she was part of the story. And he introduced her as a friend and they knew it was a fake. Mine were older though.

I found out XH was cheating and this was why we split up. I don't think the DC need to know this; we told them that mummy and daddy couldn't live together any more because we would fight too much (sort of true). There's a nice book called It's Not Your Fault Koko Bear which I've read with the DC (DD 6 & DS 5), it explains things in a way that they seemed to understand and helped to give them some ways of explaining their feelings.

H and I split at the beginning of the year. Pretty amicable, we spilt a few months before he moved out, so we just told ds(5) that daddy was getting a new house, and that he would have a new bedroom. Despite him being very bright and usually asking 1000000 questions he hasn't actually questioned it anymore than that. H has been moved out since June.

Ultimately, whatever you say will affect his view of what has happened well into the future. It's unbelievably hard, but I do think as a parent you have a duty to ensure they can go on having a good relationship with their other parent. That means that you can't go in for full on character assassination. If I'd said to my three "your daddy is a stupid man who has made some very bad decisions and made us all very unhappy" they would have taken that at face value.

I think the only answer, hard though it is, is to be very factual and very dispassionate. I went for the "daddy decided he didn't want to live with me any more, he wanted to live with OW. That made me sad, and he is sad he isn't going to be living in the same house as you all the time, but he still loves you and it isn't your fault" approach (though it nearly KILLED me to be so restrained). It's paid off, because they love their father and his mistress new wife, and don't yet really understand the years of deceit and betrayal that lie behind it. When I answer questions that they have, I go for the factually correct and emotionally neutral answer, then go and scream into my pillow.

There's plenty of time in the future for them to work out the detail of what happened, and what it meant (and they will, there's no doubt - children are fairly astute). When that happens, it won't be too much of a shock for them as they know most of the story. If they ask, I will tell.

Meant to say that if he is struggling to come to terms with what has happened, "Mum and Dad Glue" is a lovely book, and makes me cry every time I read it but has been great for my younger two dcs in understanding what has happened. And dd (who is 9) has a great fondness for "Dinosaurs get divorced" which is less mushy and quite factual.