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Ep. 24: Dealing With Infidelity in Your Parents' Marriage - a Teenage Perspective From Olivia
161 Plays4 years ago
I had a fascinating chat with Olivia (not her real name) about how she felt as a child and teenager witnessing the difficulties in her parents' marriage after her father was unfaithful to her mother over the course of several years.
Olivia's parents are still together, but throughout her teenage years she was affected by the impact her father's affairs had on her own life, and on her mother's emotional health. From financial losses and the need to change schools, to difficulties in seeing her extended family, the practical problems of a messy marriage weren't the only challenges Olivia faced.
She says that any parents navigating the potential breakdown of their marriage need to bear in mind that having to monitor and worry about the state of your parents' relationship is really tough on a child, especially when they're just discovering who they are themselves, with all the stresses that brings.
Her biggest piece of advice? Understand that your kids are teenagers. They have their own problems, and will find the addition of yours overwhelming at times. As such, Olivia says that whilst it's important to be honest with teens, you also need to make sure you don't burden them with more information than they can handle at that moment. There will come a time for whole truths, but perhaps that time isn't always in the moment.
Further Support
- Charity Relate has a good page on how to talk to children about divorce and separation
- Voices in the Middle is an organisation created for young people by young people, and can offer tips to parents about how to start the conversation on relationship difficulties.
More teenage parenting tips:
There are lots more episodes of the Teenage Kicks podcast. You can email me on teenagekickspodcast@gmail.com. I’ve also got some posts on the blog that might help parents with other teenage parenting dilemmas, so do pop over to Actually Mummy if you fancy a read.
Thank you so much for listening! Subscribe now to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear all my new episodes. I'll be talking to some fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including losing a parent, becoming a young carer, and being hospitalised with mental health problems - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.
You can also find more from me on parenting teenagers on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills. I'm delighted to say that I've recently been added to this list of top teen parenting podcasters, which - after only two series I'm super proud of.
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Transcript
Introduction to Teenage Kicks Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast where we take the fear out of parenting or becoming a teenager. I'm Helen Wills and every week I talk to someone who's been through something difficult as a teen but who's come out the other side in a good place and has made a real success of their life.
Olivia's Family Background and Infidelity
00:00:25
Speaker
Olivia is a 40 year old mother of two. She's been married for eight years this year in 2020 as we speak and her parents will also this year celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.
00:00:40
Speaker
However, Olivia says it's not really 40 years, it's all. Because four years ago was the last time that my father was unfaithful. He would move out of the family home for periods of time or was working abroad and then he'd return months or even years later. It's been this way for my entire life.
00:01:04
Speaker
Olivia, welcome to the podcast and thank you for talking to me about this. I think infidelity in a parent's relationship is probably way more common than I might imagine.
00:01:20
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say so. Thank you for having me by the way. You're welcome. I think this is going to resonate with a lot of people, unfortunately, but I'm really hoping your story can give some comfort and maybe even some inspiration to families who are dealing with the same.
Childhood Memories and Impact of Infidelity
00:01:38
Speaker
I hope so. Gosh, are you saying it's been this way for your entire life? How old were you when it started? Do you know?
00:01:49
Speaker
My first conscious memory of it I would say would be about 10 or 11 and I will never forget this day jumping into my father's car into the passenger seat and pulling the seat belt around me and the smell of the perfume on the seat belt was so strong and it was so a smell that just wasn't
00:02:10
Speaker
something I recognized and not really, you know, it was 10 or 11. All I remember is the smell. I didn't make the connection. And then not long after that, conscious of it, he'd moved out. And also my mother had her first, I don't want to say grown up because I was 10 years old, but she said what had happened and what was going on.
00:02:38
Speaker
Um, and now looking back, you know, now having children of my own, having, I couldn't even begin to think having that conversation with my daughter or son. Cause it's, it's huge. It's a really big thing and you're not, you're not ready to understand.
00:02:55
Speaker
what is going on. So yeah, so 30 years ago, I would say. Gosh. And now that you know the history of it, had it been going on for a long time at that point? Oh, having conversations with my mum has been going on since, well, their entire relationship, which is also very long. We've been together a very, very long time, like pre-marriage.
00:03:25
Speaker
She's always been aware of it, I think. Gosh, as she says, you don't choose who you love. Oh, gosh. Oh, okay. I want to talk to you about your mum. Wow. Just going back to that moment when you smelled the perfume, what did you think? Did you say anything to your dad? I'm sure I did. You know, I think I must have said something like, what's that smell? I mean, smell is very important to me anyway. I've obsessed with smell.
00:03:52
Speaker
It's a real trigger for me, emotionally or... Yeah, it transports me to certain places. I'm sure... I can't be clear of the memory. I would say, gosh, what's that smell? And I'm certain the answer would have been along the lines of so-and-so borrowed his car, perhaps. I don't know. Yeah, but yeah, it was acceptable. I think, actually,
00:04:21
Speaker
We had a nanny at the time. Yes, we had a nanny at the time and he said that she'd borrowed the car. Okay, yeah. Good fudge answer. Yeah. So this was the first time that your dad had left home, I guess, or first time you were aware of it anyway.
Empathy and Family Dynamics
00:04:44
Speaker
What was that conversation like with your mum? I would...
00:04:51
Speaker
We were in the car driving somewhere as she explained what had happened and I think at the time her approach was, you know, Daddy's decided that he loves someone else so he can't stay at home anymore, he's got to go.
00:05:08
Speaker
And I'd say the immediate reaction is the empathy towards a mother, not because as a 10 year old you understand what infidelity is or you can grasp that your father will love someone else. It's just that you see the person that you love hurting. So you sort of shut down to everything else. You just want that person to stop hurting. And at the same time, I think it was quite matter of fact. It was quite, okay, mummy.
00:05:35
Speaker
right you're also quite resilient i think as a child if someone gives you information you don't uh get lost and again you haven't experienced life so you haven't got all the other stuff to confuse you it's just oh okay right yeah you don't get the implications no not at all yeah and so that didn't feel painful for you it was just a thing yeah it was just a thing i think what followed that was
00:06:04
Speaker
painful. And I'm probably only saying this looking back again, you know, it wasn't until teens that the pain really kicked in. But at that stage, it caused quite a family rift, you know, the paternal side, of course, they want to support their son. And the maternal side, they see that their their daughter's been hurt or their sister's been hurt. So
00:06:31
Speaker
my father became a villain on one side and then on the other side we didn't see them because understandably so my mother wanted them to turn around and say we know that he's done a terrible thing. Of course we still love him but how can we help but rather than do that they just disappeared.
00:06:50
Speaker
So I think the hurt probably that was the hurt was not having that relate the connection with the grandparents because they were quite they're quite special and then again it being further that when we did get to see them it was with him.
00:07:08
Speaker
And it was very clear that there was separation then. So we would leave my mother on her own to go with my father, to spend time with him, but also to see our grandparents. And again, that really hurt because she's left on her own and she's sitting there thinking, what are they doing? Right. So you kind of were aware of that pain at that stage. How old were you then?
00:07:34
Speaker
It's still the pre-teens. So the fact of him not being in the house wasn't... Wasn't such a major... Yeah, I wouldn't... Both parents worked.
00:07:48
Speaker
My mum worked in a way that she would be away for periods of time, which is why we had a nanny. He worked, and we're talking a few years ago, I think, where family dynamics were what some people might say dated, or fathers were less hands-on. It was totally a different generation, I remember.
00:08:12
Speaker
It doesn't mean that we didn't have a relationship with them because we did. I have very happy memories. But they were also very young when they had us. So when they were going through all of this, they were in their 30s.
00:08:30
Speaker
So if I think about my 30-year-old self, blimey, O'Reilly, I think, you know? So if you're going through that, you know, owning your own home, two children, god, and now suddenly you're like, how did you do that? Well, people do incredible things. I've learned from doing this podcast. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, it's, yes, I can see that though, because actually day-to-day life as a family is busy, hectic,
00:09:01
Speaker
People, parents share the workload and do a lot of stuff individually with their kids anyway. So I can see how that might not have been a dramatic change, especially when you're that age and you're busy doing, you were at school, you've got friendships and your own agenda. It's not like you're little, you're wondering where daddy is every night at bath time. No, hormones haven't kicked in.
00:09:24
Speaker
So let's get on to that. So you pre-teen, you matter a fact about it, it's painful when you realise that there is this separation because of the circumstances that you're in when you see your grandparents. How did that all change for you or
00:09:49
Speaker
did it. You said just now that the pain kicked in in your teenage years. How did that show itself?
Consequences of Infidelity on Family Stability
00:10:01
Speaker
So there were a combination of things that were all related to this. One of the people that my father was unfaithful with was his business partner's wife.
00:10:17
Speaker
which his business partner found out about. And, uh, you know, we went from a pretty safe family, uh, with a very, you know, a very good life actually. So, uh, looking back on it to nothing. Um, because, uh, the business partner in a rage, as you would, uh, I don't quite know. I've never actually asked this question directly, but suddenly there was money and then there was no money. Right.
00:10:44
Speaker
And that was a change of schools, moving house, and then seeing him go into, because he then was back on the scene.
00:11:02
Speaker
but he was in a depression. My mother tells me that she did have to try and stop him killing himself once because he said, you know, he'd lost it all. He'd done this, he'd done that. And she's like, we're not going through this for you to do this now. And she was the one writing his CV and writing articles in his own name and getting him out there. Also, my brother was older.
00:11:29
Speaker
And he could, you know, there's a four year gap between us. So initially when this was happening, it didn't mean a thing to him. He really couldn't. For him, I think everything carried on as normal. And the older he got, he would struggle at school with various things. And then he suddenly was beginning to hurt for various people, couldn't understand it. And
00:11:59
Speaker
You know, the older you get, the more you understand, the more you learn. Having been aware of it from 10, by the time I hit teens, I'd had those years to watch and to see, you know, to watch with different eyes, to see how they were either together or not together.
00:12:19
Speaker
to see what the situation was, to not understand it, because you don't understand love. That's as much as you think you might. No, and actually the only thing that matters to you at that age naturally is you and your circumstance. And I mean, I'm not suggesting that you don't feel for the people in your family who are in pain, but you don't want change in your life.
00:12:47
Speaker
No, no, you don't. That's true. And there had been quite a bit of that. You know, it wasn't it wasn't all bad. You know, the house we moved to was like something out of Brambly Hedge. It was it was quite special. So there were adventures down there. We you know, we did make something of it. And then of course, he did, he did come back. And
00:13:15
Speaker
How was that? Having gone through the pain, presumably thinking, that's it, he's gone, we need to get used to a new life. No, that was never a that's it moment. We were very, from a very early stage, one of the things my mother had always said is, I don't believe in divorce. And
00:13:43
Speaker
I think at times he would be the one who would push for separation more. It wasn't until way later in life like the last time a few years ago that she actually got to the point of
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, I took her to a lawyer. We'd never done that before. But that, you know, the one, the most recent one was like the ultimate deceit. I mean, he had everybody fooled. No one, there wasn't any signs of that one. So that one was very different. If you can have differences in... Okay, so I'm interested in that because it must have felt incredibly shocking at the time when it first happened. How many more times did this separation
00:14:29
Speaker
or working away from home and having affairs presumably. How many more times did that happen before the ultimate deceit, which I'm going to get you to tell me about, I want to know? I honestly don't know. I really don't know. I
00:14:46
Speaker
He'd probably come back for patches of two years or so at that stage in life. And then it got to a point where he was what, he's also always worked abroad, bar that patch when I was about 10 or 11, would come back to the UK. And that seemed to work for them. So for the majority of teens,
00:15:11
Speaker
he was away, we would spend our Easter and summer holidays all together, wherever he was. We always had a house in the UK, but that had always been the case because both parents said, you know, we want you to have roots. We want you to know where you're from. And by that point, we had animals and all sorts. And we, my brother and I think probably took that as it just,
00:15:40
Speaker
it worked well in that we were together for that patch of time and then
00:15:45
Speaker
come winters and stuff it was it was back in the UK he would come back for Christmas of course but it was very much and I you know she's always had a line which was um you know we were the three musketeers because it was very much the three of us and then he would come in which probably was quite hard um you know not he wasn't it wasn't cold or anything he just had a lot of catching up to do yeah was it spoken about his infidelity yes by me
00:16:14
Speaker
I mean, I can't even remember what age I was, but I'd gone out to GCSEs. They were apart again. And I went to stay with him in the country that he was in. And that was the first time I'd done a solo trip without my brother as well. And he just said, I just want to love your mother. I just want her to let me love her.
00:16:46
Speaker
and I don't know was it it was maybe it was just tiredness at everything that that was a line that I quite liked at the time it was easy to take it kind of made some sense of all of it what did he mean by that though so she's
Parental Upbringing and Relationship Strain
00:17:11
Speaker
She's had a very difficult upbringing. She's one of many girls and her parents brought them up to believe that not all the girls were allowed to get on at the same time. There had to be fallout between groups. Because if they all got on together then they'd overpower the parents. That was the theory. Oww! Yeah. Okay, oh gosh. Aww. So, yeah, I think
00:17:38
Speaker
And also a very bad relationship with her mother. She used to go home quite regularly and find all her clothes in bin bags on the lawn and things like that. So her upbringing was just horrendous. Right. OK.
00:17:50
Speaker
And he's the opposite. He's come from, he's also come from a big family, but just a family where children are allowed to be children and loved. And if you fall out with someone one day, it's just part of life. It doesn't mean that you don't speak for however many years. And I think it was a part of it. Yeah, it was a clash of
00:18:13
Speaker
how, what their experiences of family life had been. And that if you, you know, it's okay to hurt someone, a sibling or something, if it's a, oh, I don't like you doing that, that's not very nice. Rather than, I'm never going to speak to you again. It's quite a dramatic upbringing for your mum. Yeah, very much so. And normal for your dad.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah, so I think I'm interested though to know so your your dad's feelings towards your mum. I'm struggling to know how to say this, but I'm thinking why?
00:18:58
Speaker
His actions don't match his feelings. No, that's not a necessary precursor to having an affair, is it? That's a choice that you make. Or is it just his nature? I've had relationships with men in the past who have been serial relationship offenders, as I called them, who ultimately, that's probably the reason that we didn't stay together, because I couldn't tolerate that.
00:19:24
Speaker
I know some people can, and perhaps that's another question to ask you about your mum, but having difficulties in your relationship doesn't always mean... So what did your dad think came first? The difficulties in his relationship with your mum, or his... Why the infidelity, I guess I'm asking. My humble opinion would be they...
00:19:55
Speaker
I've been together since teens. They got married early 20s. He hadn't matured enough to make the connection between what marriage actually was and how to behave. He still continued to live.
00:20:21
Speaker
as any 20-year-old young man might. I might be being too kind there, but there hadn't been a period of freedom, so to speak. To just go and to be and to learn who you are yourself, I think, especially if you've come from a big family, that's probably even more important that when you break away from your family and you go out into this big wide world,
00:20:51
Speaker
you've got to learn through pain, not through pain, through all of it, who you actually are. And I think if you haven't done that, then unfortunately you go through that with someone else by your side. And some people learn who they are through going for a run and thinking that, oh, I don't like running, I'm not gonna do that. Or, you know, pushing it to the limits with how much can I hurt another person before
00:21:19
Speaker
they'll go away or... I don't, I... Hmm, testing boundaries.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, maybe testing boundaries, you know, possibly quite awkward to say, probably really liked sex, had a high sex drive. Right. It's got to be something like that. Yeah, well, and actually I have to remind myself that you don't know the internet, so if your parents' relationship and it's not for us as children to know that, and we never do and we never really want to,
00:21:54
Speaker
Just going back to before we started recording, you mentioned something about a mother-daughter relationship. Are you able to tell us a little bit about your relationship with your mum throughout this time? It has been really hard. So really hard and just very, very raw at times. You know, before I could understand
00:22:24
Speaker
what marriages and what my father was actually doing and what it meant I think it started with almost resentment because as a child you just see that you know she stayed as she was but he went somewhere you know like 10 or 11 you can't understand what infidelity is it just doesn't it doesn't register I don't think maybe children now maybe they're a bit more in tune to it but also
00:22:54
Speaker
you know, not being able to see another part of your family. And unfortunately, they always, it's such a cliche, but you always hurt those closest to you. So I think a lot of, there was a lot of resentment initially, and it was misdirected. It was in the wrong place, but she was there. There's also an extreme closeness in that I know how she's feeling or I know when she's off or when she's great.
00:23:29
Speaker
And now, I think older, it's gone from a really easy place. You know, the last time that he was unfaithful was the worst and that I thought I think took it to a new level because I had to go. I wasn't even, we lived quite far apart.
00:23:47
Speaker
I had a very young baby at the time as well as another young child. I had to leave one child and take the baby because I was breastfeeding to go to her and she was destroyed. She was broken. It was literally picking her up off the floor.
00:24:07
Speaker
or sitting with her in bed because she couldn't speak, she was crying, or she just, she just, it probably was a breakdown, a complete enough to break down. And she called you.
00:24:18
Speaker
Did she call me? No, don't think she did. I think my brother called me to say, is there any way you can go? Because I was at another family gathering somewhere with my husband's family. So she probably wouldn't have called me because she thought I don't want to interrupt or anything. You need to go, you need to go now. So I did. And that was,
00:24:46
Speaker
that was such a raw, hard time. And that was the first time I honestly felt like the relationship shifted and that I was then caring for her and I every day was like picking her up and saying, what are we doing? What are we gonna do today? How do you want to handle this? What do you want to do? That's tough, isn't it? When you get to the point where you are the person that your parents relying on
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah, and I think she is still struggling with that moment that happened because of the shift. So if I say, have you thought about doing this? It's now taken as a...
00:25:33
Speaker
I don't need telling what to do. I haven't quite worked this out. I just know it's quite tricky at the moment. I'm finding it very tricky. Yeah, I can see that though. I've got a situation with my own mum where she's...
00:25:50
Speaker
so fiercely independent but I hadn't really noticed it until the point where she got to the point physically she struggles because she's very old she's had a couple of falls and hospital stays because of that have
00:26:04
Speaker
affected her mental capacity not in a in any way she's very lucky to not have been diagnosed with anything major there's definitely not dementia at this point but she's very old and she's really forgetful and she can't focus and every time I go there's I'm going this week actually there's this huge stack of paperwork on her kitchen table because she's on her own
00:26:29
Speaker
it's just sitting there because she's opened envelopes and looked at them and gone
00:26:36
Speaker
I can't face that. And the more she does that, the more difficult it gets for her to fathom what to do with each piece of paper. So she just leaves it there until I come. But she hates it. She gets so, so frustrated as I'm going through things saying, okay, well, we need to call the bank or what do you want to do about this? She hates it. So I totally understand that shift and how difficult it is for both sides. Actually, it's really hard to see your mum like that.
00:27:07
Speaker
It's really hard to have that responsibility and feel that way, especially when you've got other people relying on you in another part of your life. It's exhausting as well. I think it's a really polarizing moment to, well not polarizing, it's centrifugal probably, to see yourself in the middle of that picture where you're the person. And I've had moments where I've gone,
00:27:36
Speaker
But who's looking after me? Oh, it's crippling. I'd love to know how all of this affected the dynamic in your family when you were a teenager.
Trust Issues and Social Perception
00:27:49
Speaker
You've said in our email exchanges while we were setting all of this up that having a parent who is unfaithful is a bit like living with a hidden disability. I don't know if you remember saying that to me. Yeah.
00:28:05
Speaker
What did you mean by that? Your, your idea of your, or your belief, your concept of trust is broken. Totally, not only broken because someone who is a powerful part of your life, emotionally, gosh, even from a materialistic point of view, I, you know, they contribute to the food that goes into the house and that kind of thing.
00:28:35
Speaker
to deceive you in that way, it makes you realize that you don't know that person and to be a teenager and think that you don't know your parent is positively terrifying because everything is so new and raw and you hit that teenage, you know, there's just so much going on from friendships to relationships.
00:29:06
Speaker
and that your first experience of a relationship is with your parents. And that thing that you measure things against, I'm not saying marriage or anything, I'm just talking about a relationship here with another person, another human. They're the ones that you measure off, I suppose. I mean, that's how you look up to and that you think, oh, you're amazing. Just how, well, how did they do it? And that's how I wanna be.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yeah or how I don't want to be. Yeah and then there's the there's the lesser the side of it which is just simple chitchat at school what people did on a weekend and
00:29:52
Speaker
I think for girls, it's probably worse because I don't know, people want to be a daddy's girl or you want someone to make you feel very special. And again, at teens, your relationship with your mum can be an interesting one as hormones do kick in. It's a big thing for mums to think, oh my God, my child. So it's already quite a hard time. And then you're walking into school every day and you've got to balance
00:30:23
Speaker
group of friends that you're in and you're learning stuff and it gets harder and harder. And also there's then this thing in your mind constantly of, well, when will I see him or is she okay? What's it going to be like when we go home? And did you not speak to friends about any of this?
00:30:49
Speaker
Not at that stage, no, because in fidelity, you know, people do, I think they say, well, I'm not taking sides, I'm not taking sides, but yeah, they, you know, you go, you go one way or the other if you're a friend. Yeah. Um, so the whole thing must change. I can see that. Yeah. It's like historic, you know, friend groups just changed. Each time it would happen, you were like, Oh, okay.
00:31:18
Speaker
Yeah, another shift, that's quite unsettling. But did you feel like you couldn't, I don't know, were you breaking trust if you spoke to your own friends about what was going on with your mum and dad? Did you feel a responsibility not to talk about it and be open? Or did you just not think it fitted into your friendship group, these conversations?
00:31:41
Speaker
I think, yeah, responsibility is probably a big thing. Everything is about image at that time in life. And I'm not talking like today image, makeup and everything like that. It's just, you just want to get by.
00:31:59
Speaker
and you want to fit in. And if you walk into a room and dump this on the table, the likelihood of everybody going, because you're not talking about E17's latest release, or now I'm showing my age, or whatever, you're going to the cinema at the weekend with all your friends.
00:32:23
Speaker
No, I would say there was a period where I didn't want to share that information and I would say that 80% of the reason I'm not showing the information was because I was coming to terms with what it was and I was beginning to understand more what it was and it was self-preservation. Right. Because saying it out loud, you can know that something is going on but once you start sharing that information with other people that's a very different
00:32:50
Speaker
realisation and that really hits. Yes, it changes the way you look at it then and also probably you have to move forward with it once you've told somebody about it. You have to evolve rather than just kind of sitting with it being a burning little secret in the back of your head. But also with something such as infidelity, you know, society dictates if another human hurts you, you walk away from that human.
00:33:18
Speaker
And that wasn't the path that my parents chose to take. So maybe initially, yes, I did talk about it, but when it's something that is recurring, it's almost like a case of change of record. It's boring. Well, if he's done that again, why doesn't she do this? Because everybody at heart wants to fix things and help.
00:33:40
Speaker
And everyone has an opinion. Exactly. Everybody's got something to share and it doesn't help. But they don't like it when they don't see that person doing any of those things, nor do they understand it. Did you feel any judgement from people outside the family? I'm thinking about you calling it a hidden disability. I feel like
00:34:07
Speaker
things that have happened to us that we've had to share that are big because other people on the outside don't understand it because they're not in it, they're not dealing with it.
00:34:19
Speaker
I've always felt, whether it's there or not, I've always felt that people have opinions on it and therefore make judgments about it. And that's quite, I think that is a very common inner hidden disability once you open up about it. I saw a friend of mine on Instagram has chronic fatigue.
00:34:41
Speaker
And she talks about it a lot, how people don't get it, but they still feel like they do get it. Totally. And so they have a judgment and she feels that. And that adds even more weight to her already existing pain.
00:35:00
Speaker
You're having to justify your pain then because someone will say, have you tried this? Yeah. You know, when you've got something such as that, you do the research that you want to do and you try things that you want to try. Yeah. But you don't have to then explain that to the world. Well, no, and it's a very personal experience that no one else can really understand. Did it ever feel like that, this situation for you? Yeah. I would say so. For sure. You know,
00:35:29
Speaker
You say infidelity, adultery, one size doesn't fit all. Look, they did celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary together. They look at that as a huge success. And yeah, part of it is a huge success. Part of it is, should they have done that?
00:35:55
Speaker
would it have not been easier for many and for everyone involved? That's actually that's that's a good question to ask actually and I understand that you you know you're older now you've you're not living with them anymore but if parents are struggling to are staying together despite
00:36:20
Speaker
infidelity but struggling with that dynamic now because it changes everything. How do you think that impacts teenagers in particular because that's what I'm interested in? It's a very different time as you've said already. How do you think that impacts teenagers? Hugely. You need
00:36:43
Speaker
you need a constant somewhere in your life. Whether that constant is someone that you want to scream at about something that you don't quite understand or there's a boy that you really like and you can't understand why he doesn't like you, you've tried everything. You need that constant person to be strong as well because the emotions and the experiences that you
00:37:11
Speaker
go through in your teenage life. It's your first go at not being a grown up but getting there. You need something secure to go back to to feel I think probably strong or safe or you know it's
00:37:35
Speaker
You doubt so much at that stage, I think. You meet new people, people's bodies start changing. Your body does or your body doesn't. Why aren't you the same as the other people? And then I think that that goes back to home as well. If you think about every day going into school, at that time when I did it, divorce wasn't a massive thing.
00:38:05
Speaker
separation wasn't a massive thing. I'm measuring that against being in a class of 30 kids. And they'd probably be two or three whose parents lived in separate houses, which I don't think is that many in that kind of group. And you know, we were so in that kind of in our situation, we were so like halfway house, we were neither one or the other.
00:38:30
Speaker
And you know, understandable. It wasn't, no one could understand it. So yeah, as a team, you just want simple.
00:38:40
Speaker
yeah yes you want you want every yes you need everything at home to be a constant and straight forward and not yes not a challenge not something that you have to try and get your head around because you've got enough to get your head around elsewhere yeah totally that is exactly right yeah you need the freedom to work out team being a teenager you can't then
00:39:05
Speaker
put this massive cloud over it. So with that in mind, I'm going to ask you two
Advice for Parents on Infidelity
00:39:13
Speaker
questions. What would you say to parents who are dealing with this themselves? Because as we said at the beginning, this is probably quite common in one form or another, where a child's world gets shaken by their parents' relationship.
00:39:30
Speaker
What would you say to those parents is the one thing you would like them to try and keep in mind, bearing in mind that they are going through hell themselves? What's the one thing you think it would be good for them to keep in mind to help their kids cope with all of this? To understand that they are teenagers and of course they will need
00:39:59
Speaker
information to understand what is going on but they've only just left childhood behind and if you give them, if you drown them in information then it's too much. There will come a time in their lives as they grow up and they experience life that they can get more information, they can ask the questions because they're ready to understand the answers
00:40:28
Speaker
I don't think it's fair to think, oh, well, they're old enough now, they can know exactly what's going on. I don't think they need to know exactly what's going on because having now gone through it, as you get older and you learn more, the understanding is, it doesn't mean that you accept the things that have happened, but to understand more is to
00:40:54
Speaker
I don't know. Come to terms? Yeah, it is to come to terms with it. And is there really a rush during your teens? If two people have fallen out of love, and they happen to have a child or children, and they make the very hard decision that yeah, we have fallen out of love, we're going to go our separate ways.
00:41:23
Speaker
It is a plaster moment, I think. You rip it off and you do it, and then you begin the next chapter. But it's much easier to begin that next chapter if you're not broken before you start it, if you see what I mean? You've still got to protect them in some way, I think.
00:41:44
Speaker
you're just learning so much more about the world. Yeah, no, that makes total sense. It does, I think, although teenagers think they know it all, and I'm not just being derogatory about my own kids if they listen in on this, I'm being derogatory about myself because I remember being exactly that way. Totally. Actually, their maturity levels and their emotional maturity is
00:42:12
Speaker
still very much in development so it's very difficult for them to understand and rationalize. I think rationalize is probably a really big one, yeah. Yeah, everything that's happening in their world. They can't, I think parents often want to just solve things for their kids and so I think that's why you give information overload sometimes to your kids because you want them to know everything and to then be okay with it.
00:42:40
Speaker
but knowing everything they will never be okay with it until as you say later on in life you go into a new phase where you think oh that makes sense now it's like when you have children and suddenly you understand your parents a bit better but you never would unless you had those children yeah but you can't
00:43:01
Speaker
As a teenager, you're not open to that information coming in saying, oh no, one day you'll understand. I think there's a different way of looking at it. You know, you're essentially putting a child through, a teenager through drama, upheaval, change, all of these things. And yes, one day they'll understand, but they don't need to hear that right then. What they need to hear and see is,
00:43:25
Speaker
control I'm not doing like a military style control but that those people who have changed that they've got this situation covered because as a teenager you haven't got life covered and you know that but you won't say that to anyone um
00:43:45
Speaker
I think it would just help a bit. And maybe say to them, there'll come a time in your life that you will want to ask lots of questions. Ask them. We will always answer them. And if you'd hope that the parents could be, do this for the child, sit in a room and together and actually answer the questions, that doesn't mean they have to get back together or anything.
00:44:13
Speaker
But I think as a team, you need to see them both answering at the same time or being able to. And I totally appreciate that there will be people out there who cannot do that because the hurt is too raw. Well, we're human, aren't we? Even as parents, we still have to look after ourselves. It's a really difficult balancing act. But I think your point about
00:44:40
Speaker
letting your children ask the questions they need answers for in the moments that work best for them is a really good one actually and I think that's worth bearing in mind because as parents we probably just want to offload it or we'll explain it all, make sure we're understood and then hopefully check a box that our child is okay but actually... And doing all of that whilst you're probably hurting and your heart's broken and your world's
00:45:11
Speaker
you're not the best person in that moment in time to tell them all the information and you will be a better person to give that information maybe further down the line when they're actually asking for it. Yeah. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, there will be there are kids out there who, who won't have the tools to ask the questions. Yeah, that's true. And then there's another, there's another element to it. It's a, you know, a gentle, do you want to, do you want to talk about it?
00:45:40
Speaker
Have you got any questions that you'd like to ask, but only a parent would know if their child is of that? Or if you don't want to do it face to face, write it down on a note and ping it under the door, or we can do it via messaging or something, you know, just whatever works for you that makes it easier. Have somewhere to go that you can
00:46:05
Speaker
Ask the questions that you want to ask or say the things that you want to say. That's a really good point actually. Someone else said that to me quite a long time ago now. I mean I know that talking face-to-face one-on-one with a teenager is often not going to work and there are other ways to do it but actually the concept of doing it over text message
00:46:32
Speaker
now or a note under the door as you say, that's not a bizarre idea at all. Whatever communication method makes the communication happen is worth it, isn't it? It's real. Totally. And if you've got a big question to ask, you have had time to think about this question. And if you do it face to face, the person that you're asking sometimes doesn't have the time to give you
00:47:01
Speaker
the true answer because they panic or there's a time pressure or, you know, you get interrupted. And sometimes I think at times of heightened emotion when something like this has happened, everybody needs time, even the person who's done the wrong thing, to give a non-reactive answer, a bit more of a proactive one, I think. Yeah, so considered response, a more honest response, perhaps.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good point. Thank you. I think I've asked all the questions I wanted to ask.
Reflections on Marriage and Trust
00:47:41
Speaker
Is there anything else that you haven't talked about that you think is important for people who might be listening? The only thing I would say is what fascinates me is the man that I have married versus the relationships I had
00:48:03
Speaker
throughout teens and twenties to the point of the day of my wedding day, you know, my family didn't, they couldn't quite grasp my decision, couldn't get their heads around it because we're quite different. You know, saying, are you sure you want to go ahead with this? You don't have to if you don't want to. And I'm like, absolutely, I absolutely do. So I went down the wild route, tried that out.
00:48:29
Speaker
Probably quite enjoyed it, actually. When you say wild, what do you mean? I had fun in my teens, early twenties. I had a really good time. Okay, I get you. I had some very good long-term relationships and all of those long-term relationships, the characters that I was with, were very confident, the life and soul of a party,
00:48:55
Speaker
full of just confidence. You know, they'd walk into a room and the room would probably turn and go, oh, wow, so-and-so's here. And then I married someone who's probably quite shy and when you first meet him, but is just blinking awesome once you get beyond those layers. And they've seen that now. They do get it. But it's
00:49:22
Speaker
working through those layers to find a very good person. And the one thing I didn't actively grow up thinking, I want to marry a man. I didn't actually even think about marriage, I don't think. I want to marry a man that has these qualities or that quality or whatever. But the one thing I realized a few years ago is the one thing I do is that the trust is epic. I trust them implicitly. I don't see that he
00:49:52
Speaker
would ever, ever hurt me. But that wasn't, I didn't grow up thinking that's the type of man that I want. It's just the man that I've ended up with. Yeah, that makes sense. But I would say the relationships that I had before that were probably more like my father, maybe. They were all probably slightly on a knife edge. You know, they were great fun.
00:50:20
Speaker
But if I'd asked myself, do I trust them, I'd be like, I don't know. Yeah, that is interesting. I'd be interested to know if that's common for people, that they choose someone different to what they've experienced in relationships as they grew up.
00:50:36
Speaker
yeah by accident just because yeah by accident totally by accident and because that's what makes you content that's where you feel comfortable and that's important isn't it really in a marriage and totally uncomplicated yeah
00:50:51
Speaker
Yeah. Totally. In a good way. Yeah, what do you think about? Nothing. Okay. Has something terrible happened at work? Why? Because you seem like you're in a really funny mood. I'm tired. Okay, that's fine. Yes, and you can just believe that and trust and move on. Yeah. Oh my god, I think that's so important. Yeah, exactly. I'd have that over all the other stuff any day. No, me too.
00:51:18
Speaker
Well, look, Olivia, thank you so much for talking to me today. I really hope this brings some insight, I think it will, to people who might be going through this. I think teenagers dealing with this and not knowing who to ask or where to turn or who to talk to and maybe not even having anyone to talk to about it. Yeah. Hopefully they will stumble on this conversation and feel like they've had you to talk to about it. I hope so.
00:51:46
Speaker
I would talk to all of them if I could. But yeah, I do hope it helps. I mean, it's a really crappy thing to go through and I've a really crappy thing in so many ways.
Conclusion and Inspirational Message
00:51:59
Speaker
It doesn't define you, it is part of you and it's you decide what you want to do with it, I think. That's really good words to end on. Thank you so much.
00:52:12
Speaker
I think navigating a separation as a teenager is something that quite a lot of kids have to deal with. And I found Olivia's story quite reassuring actually.
00:52:24
Speaker
that although this is a horrible time to go through, whether you're the parent or the child, it is possible to come out of it in a good place. I think Olivia's version of what happened with her family will be quite inspiring to lots of people who are struggling with this, whether teenagers, adults who went through it as teenagers, or even parents who might be trying to guide their teenager through it right now.
00:52:52
Speaker
As always, if you've enjoyed this podcast, I would love it if you'd rate and subscribe and come back next week when I will have another brilliant guest talking about the highs and lows of being a teenager.