To tell DS the REAL reason we separated...

[MamaWhatToDo]

Myself and DS father have been separated for 6 years, since he was 7 years old. We split up because he had a rampant porn addiction, erectile dysfunction (which he blamed my appearance/vagina for) and our total lack of sex life.

Our DS, now 13, has recently taken a keen interest in why we split up. He is a very academically bright boy and ahead of his years in many ways. I have used numerous excuses over the years:

'We just weren't right for each other'
'Sometimes adults just fall out of love'
'It's none of your business'

The usual.

However he has really been pushing for specific reasons lately, and has decided that one of us must have cheated on the other. What have other parents done in this scenario? Kept spouting the usual rhetoric? Or a watered down version of the truth? I am really at a loss

No, it's none of his business and it never will be. He might be academically bright but that's not the reason he's niggling you on this - it's because he's also 13 and flexing his muscles with you. He's being rude, inappropriate, and nosey and he needs a tap on the nose for it.

'No, it is NOT your business, and you can stop right now with being so disrespectful to both me and your dad - I've told you that neither of us cheated on each other - so you think it's fine to call me a liar? How dare you. If you choose not to believe me when I've answered your quite personal question, I'm afraid that is very much your problem not mine. As for details of my personal life being your business - well, they aren't, I'm afraid. Just as when you are an adult, and in a relationship, or in a job, details of those aspects of your grown-up life won't be my business either, just because I'm your mother. Maybe have a think about what areas of your life you see as personal to you, especially now you're getting older, and have a think about how you'd feel if I tried to tell you that you didn't have the right to have that personal life.'

I think there’s something creepy in a 13 year old having such an interest in his parents sex life, and as has been said someone has told him a lot of information already.

I think you need to talk to your son about his experiences of his dad.

No, he doesn't need to hear about the porn or the vag criticism but if his dad is doing similar objectifying of his son - I'm not talking about sexual objectifying but treating him as an object that needs to be perfect for him - he is entitled to know his dad is behaving badly.

I would have the conversation by asking him what he thinks about his dad and how that relationship is going. If it's going fine then you can say that's all he needs to think about and some fudging answer as per above about what happened between you.

I prefer honesty and transparency, it's all I've ever known having grown up with it, my two know no different either.

When DC's are left to struggle to understand the reasons they so often take it upon themselves to blame themselves.

I was honest with mine. I gave no sordid details. I answered their questions. I avoided telling them anything that they were not emotionally or mentally mature enough to understand. I followed their lead. Put simply if a child is old enough to ask certain questions they are old enough for an answer. No child or person will ask about something they have no ability to imagine or comprehend. I do not ask deep theoretical questions about partial differential equations in relation to solving problems is topology because my grasp of both topology and differential equations is fairly basic!

Both boys knew what porn was. Many discussions about how porn is ethically questionable. They now know that their father obsessively watched it, lied for years and undermined my trust in him. I was honest too when I explained that I was very difficult and unreasonable towards their father. Both, eldest in particular are very respectful towards women, and the eldest is a full on feminist! They have a relationship with their father. Neither took sides. They didn't apportion blame. Or spend time wondering if they had been in any way responsible.

I'd say the DCs are mature, stable, resilient and both have a very strong stable sense of self and are centred. I work with kids, and mine are probably far more emotionally mature and stable than most.

I am inclined to think that people can learn and develop, and I start from a position of positive affirmation of this rather than the more negative and restrictive idea of protecting people, or preventing persons from understanding anything. My assumption is always "you can comprehend" rather than "I'm an adult and I know everything just because I'm an adult" I've met some pretty stupid adults, and just as many very clever kids.

I prefer white lies where they are said with best intentions to protect somebody from information that could be hurtful to them.

DS does not need to imagine his dad wanking obsessively to porn or failing to get hard enough to penetrate his mothers substandard vagina.

'We wanted different things' seems to cover it perfectly.

He insists he has a right to know the actual truth

Why is he assuming you are not being honest? I'd be telling him that you have no reason to lie. And revert to the usual rhetoric you've been using.

Stay consistent. If you change your story now, he'll use it to challenge you about everything you tell him. Nobody cheated, we just drifted apart/wanted different things.

'You'll understand when you're older'

And draw a line under it. Refuse to talk about it further. You are the parent!

Sounds very odd that he is so insistent he that knows the truth. What has his father been saying to him about it?

White lies, mmm sometimes. I don't. I wonder whether men who watch too much porn do get an idealist notion that all women's bits look a certain way. Shaved, bleached arseholes, tidy.....etc,...well there is evidence that this is the case. I'd hate my sons to think that the way women are portrayed or treated in porn, or the acts women endure and are sometimes portrayed as enjoying are in any way normal.

I agree though, no need to give sordid personal details. Would anyone really do that?

Ugh no, he is NOT going to want to hear about his father’s ED and porn addiction . I wouldn’t even want to know if my dad had either now tbh...

I didn’t find out the true reason behind my parent’s separation until I separated from my exh three years ago and my DM had a rare heart to heart with me. It was nothing to do with their sex life thank fuck and I could handle it in my mid twenties but 13? No. It did also slightly change my view of my DF which I wouldn’t have been able to deal with as a teenager.

You have told him the truth, you weren’t right for each other! Telling him anything else would be harmful and wouldn’t do any good whatsoever.

You must be adamant that you’re done discussing this with him. You must draw a line under this and move on.

A coated honest would be more like "daddy got more interested in watching women on screen and decided I wasn't as good as they were". Which would also be a teachable moment for a 13yo boy in terms of porn and expectations on women.

But an absolute shitshow to leave you with. I've no idea what's right in this.

I was going to say surely this is one way to mess your son up as he’s approaching / in puberty. With him trying to work out what’s normal and what was ‘wrong’ with his dad. One normal wank and he’d be worried he’s like his dad.
But seeing minitheminx post I don’t know now. If you’d tell him you’d have to be so bloody careful how you framed it.

Ewww not at any age would I want to know about my dad's obsessive porn addiction, but even more so,I would be traumatised for life to know what my dad thought of my mum's fanny!!!

Who on earth would EVER want to know any of those details !? Christ alive

Cake, yes totally. You would have to be very careful how you phrased things.

If I was giving a short answer perhaps I might say
"Some men watch porn, and some of those men are affected by what they see and are unable to disentangle reality from unrealistic ideas of what is normal. It made your father unable to accept me as I am, a normal person. There are huge variables in what is normal, but porn portrays unrealistic ideas of how women should look. This made me feel lonely, unhappy and unloved. Don't blame him, this is a common problem with the effect of porn.it negatively impacts upon how men view and treat women, and it is the cause of something like 7 in 10 divorces in the USA. Men are as much victim to this sad phenomenon because it denies them happy relationships with women."

And it's an opportunity to work through this stuff with your son. I certainly don't want either of my sons back on my doorstep in 15 years, unhappy, lonely, with bad attitudes to women, a divorce behind them and little more than the clothes on their back and a porn addiction. That is their father!

No sordid details. Tact doesn't necessarily have to equate to lack of honesty or white lies

mini, I think it was really inappropriate to tell your sons so much, I find it hard to believe it has n’t damaged their relationship with their father, and as for your son being a feminist, presumably this was as a result of your brainwashing.

In my opinion he does have the right 'to know the whole truth', and sharing the details of your sex life is totally inappropriate. He needs to understand that incessant probing for the gory details is not acceptable.
I can imagine him sharing it with his mates too, gross.

I do think we can educate our sons about the porn industry and feminism without listing their father's failings.

Educate or indoctrinate ?

Yer all femists have been brainwashed, don't ya no! Northernparent68

All idiots have been suspended in a state of ignorance too.

Oh God. Surely there is no age that it's appropriate to talk to a child about their dad's views on mum's vagina? No age! I feel light headed with horror at the thought of it.

Definitely definitely just reassure him you didn't cheat and leave it at that. No way does a 13 year old boy want to think about his dad's erection and wanking habits.

Unnecessary (and grotesque) oversharing, MiniTheMinx.
Respect for women can be taught without using the kid's father as a real life object lesson in how not to do it.

absolutely do NOT tell him the real reasons. Its actually not his business and would be totally inappropriate at any age. Assuming neither of you did actually cheat, and that his father will also says so, I think you stick with the script you already have. Eventually he will lose interest

I think children have a natural curiosity as to why their parents have split. I'd have wanted to know if it wasn't obvious. Many blame themselves so perhaps he is thinking he's to blame in some way so looking for concrete evidence that it wasn't his fault.
My DD has demanded to know why her dad and me split and regularly asks for the exact reason. He's been gone 6 years and she's 10. Her and her sibling know he had an affair. They know this is against marriage vows and our church and that it is wrong. He is now living with the OW. They don't know all the details of the split but they know what he did as it affected them as he involved them in his deceit before I even knew anything.
It's hard to know what level to pitch things at but only you can say as only you know your child best. I think I'd stick to incompatible in many areas of the relationship and you fell out of love. Although at 13 I found that concept really hard to grasp after my much older brother split from his fiancée. If he's still asking in a year or so I don't think there's any harm in mentioning the porn issues. He'll know what porn is by then if he doesn't already. He can then learn how damaging porn can be to relationships and how degrading to women. Keep the floppy dick issues out of the discussion though

I DO discuss the problems with porn addiction with my sons, and that porn portrays women as little more that available orifices, that real women have lumps and bumps and imperfections... but there is no way I would ever personalize it about anyone they knew....

I'm not trying to be nasty, Literary, (and I'm not sure how this will sound), but what doesn't your dd grasp about the fact that your husband met someone else and is now living with her instead of you?
God, that sounds awful, sorry, but what I mean is what additional specific details does she think you can supply to make it easier to understand?
Six years of continuous questioning is odd.

Bottom line - if you and he had really loved each other and he had been committed to ending his porn addiction and succeeded, you might have been able to work through it.

It sounds like you stopped loving him - whether solely beacuse of the porn, or because he was generally and arse - so that is the truth.

When he’s older I think you can share the porn addiction problem - if he keeps asking - it’s quite instructive in a wider discussion about porn which all parents should be having with their kids. 13 is a bit young for that though.