I didn’t handle it well.
When Dave told me what was going on, I replied calmly. On the outside.
Inside, I was screaming.
The calm words: “I think we need help.”
The inner panic: What did I do wrong? How will we survive this? I don’t want a divorce. But I don’t know who this man is right now.
The angry words that came later: “You have to tell the kids. I’m not going to do it, but they have to know. They can’t find out because you were escorted out of work tomorrow.”
The inner panic underneath that: He just threw everything away. My salary won’t cover the bills. What do I tell my boss? I work at a church.
How much do you tell them? Who tells them? When? All of it circulated between us while my mother-bear heart desperately needed to protect our children from the harsh reality of what was unfolding, no matter their age.
What do you do?
Talking to your young adults and teenagers about marital betrayal is not a single conversation.
There is no perfect formula. What follows are the steps we took and the discoveries we made along the way, offered not as a prescription, but as one family’s honest account of what helped.
Start with age-appropriate honesty.
Our children were all college-aged when Dave disclosed. That shaped how much he shared and how directly he spoke.
Whatever your children’s ages, begin at the level they can hold. Stay high level at the start. Let the conversation unfold from there rather than front-loading every painful detail before they’ve had a chance to absorb the first.
In our case, Dave spoke to each of our children directly. Something like this:
“I’ve struggled with this issue for many years and hid it from everyone, including Mom. My porn addiction has now come to light. Mom and I have a lot to work through. We want you to know because we love you and we don’t want you to find out any other way. I’m so sorry for the choices I’ve made. Please forgive me.”
Psalm 51:1-4a NLT: “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.”
Admission. Ownership. Apology. A request for forgiveness.
No minimizing. No deflecting. No waiting for them to figure it out on their own.
The years Dave had spent intentionally connecting with our children, supporting them, showing up for them, that investment bore fruit in that moment in ways neither of us could have predicted.
Answer the question they ask.
When you’re navigating something this painful, the temptation is to give more information than is needed. To fill the silence. To over-explain in hopes of managing their reaction.
Each of our children had different questions. Some asked about us. Some asked about him. Some needed time before they asked anything at all. What we learned was to honestly answer the specific question in front of us. Nothing more.
Proverbs 12:17 NLT “An honest witness tells the truth; a false witness tells lies.”
When your child asks the time, don’t tell them how to make the watch.
Answer what was asked. Pause. Let them lead the next question.
Make room for their emotions.
Every one of our children processed this disclosure in their own way.
For example, one never wavered in their belief in their dad’s full recovery. Another struggled, wondering whether our marriage would survive. Those were real concerns, real fears, and they deserved to be heard without us defending ourselves or rushing to reassure.
Psalm 37:23-24 says, “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.” We had stumbled. It hurt. But we still clung to God’s hand. Our children needed to see us in this posture.
They wanted to know what this meant for our marriage, for our home. They asked what we were doing to recover and reconcile. We answered as honestly as we could, without making promises we couldn’t keep or painting a picture rosier than the one we were actually living.
Validate what they feel. Don’t manage it.
What we didn’t expect.
As Dave and I walked the restoration path, something unexpected happened.
Our young adult children prayed for us.
Not because we asked them to. Because they wanted to. In some ways, they stepped into our support network: loving us in the places we were most broken, challenging us with their observations, asking the kinds of questions that opened deeper dialogue than we’d ever had with them before.
This rupture opened their hearts. And ours.
Hard conversations, it turns out, create connection rather than destroying it, when both parties are willing to stay in the room and be honest.
Teaching our children how to recover well from a failure of this magnitude was a gift we didn’t plan to give them. We didn’t have to be perfect. We had to be completely vulnerable. And they met us there.
One more thing about dropping the mask.
When Dave and I stopped performing okayness for our children, something shifted. They brought things to us they had carried quietly for years, things about how they had experienced our home growing up, questions they had never felt safe asking before.
Every hard conversation brought better connection. Every moment we chose honesty over image management gave them permission to do the same.
We are so grateful.
Dear one, this conversation will cost you something.
There is no way to have it without discomfort, without risk, without the very real possibility that your children will feel things you cannot fix for them. That is not a failure of parenting. That is the invitation to something deeper.
God doesn’t waste the hard things. Not for you. Not for your children.
Proverbs 24:16 NLT: “The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.”
Your family gets to model that for your children. Getting up, honestly, humbly, together, is one of the most faith-forming things they will ever witness.
When you are ready to talk through how to navigate this conversation with your specific children, I am here.