Ask Amy: Divorcing dad needs to put son first

[minoanmiss]

By Amy Dickinson
PUBLISHED: May 6, 2024 at 3:30 AM CST

Dear Amy: My wife and I are divorcing after 23 years of marriage. I am moving out soon.

We have a 21-year-old son.

I talked with him about it, and while he’s angry, he says he understands.

The problem, however, is that my marriage was bad for a very long time, and I fell in love with another woman.

My wife refers to me as an adulterer. She has said this to my son.

How can I help him understand that I am not an adulterer?

I want to have a great relationship with my son; I never want to leave him, but his mother has somewhat poisoned him.

How do I explain things to him?


– No Longer Lonely in Long Island

Dear No Longer Lonely: In the shorter term, you should focus less attention on justifying or trying to redefine your behavior, and focus more attention on your son.

Please understand that any younger person when facing extreme change thinks: “But what about me?” Your son’s first concern is (and should be) more on his own happiness and future than on yours.

And right now, because of this break-up, your son has about 10 times more relationship challenges than you do.

He has to somehow navigate having a separate relationship with his angry, bitter and betrayed mother – and his liberated, self-focused and (I assume) abundantly happy father.

I’m trying to figure out what about your behavior does NOT constitute adultery. So perhaps you should simply cop to this.

I assure you that every spouse who has ever exited their marriage via another relationship has justified it by pointing to their own unhappiness.

But the order of marriage-exit is supposed to be: Decide to separate, move out, divorce, new relationship.

Do your best to create a lot of space for your son to say whatever he needs to say. Absolutely correct the record if the narrative has strayed completely from the truth, but invite him to ask you any question and answer him truthfully.

My suggestion is that you not criticize his mother for feeling betrayed – even if she unfairly lashes out. Her feelings are her feelings, and you should say only that you are sorry she is feeling so sad and you wish she wouldn’t draw your son into her sadness.

Do not fling your new relationship into his path, compare your new woman to his mother, or ask him to be happy for you.

Apologize to him for disrupting his life in this way, and assure him that you will always be in his corner, no matter what.

Comments

[conuly]

LW, if you were carrying on an affair, or if you're getting this divorce to be with this other woman, then your wife is right - you're an adulturer. And Amy is right that you're hyperfocused on defending yourself from this highly valid accusation and that is what's poisoning your son against you - not whatever his mom says.

[redbird]

It's possible that LW was unhappy for a long time, then fell in love with another woman, and moved out of the family home before getting into a new relationship. He may be thinking that he didn't have an affair because he didn't get into a new sexual relationship before leaving his wife, while she's thinking "he left me for another woman, that makes him an adulterer."

Also, the son is 23, what does "I never want to leave him" even mean here? Even if the son still lives with his parents, he's old enough that there are no custody issues.

[landofnowhere]

Note that as of when he sent the letter, Dad hadn't moved out yet (and also the divorce isn't final), so I don't think the first paragraph is what is going on here. Although it's possible he hasn't technically committed adultery, like ethelmay, I think it's unlikely.

[oursin]

We might also invoke the 'committing adultery in his heart' clause even if he never laid a finger on the woman until he was Free To Express His Devotion.

[ethelmay]

I suppose it's possible that he just had a long-term unacted-on crush on another woman, but it seems UNLIKELY, especially as why would he even tell anyone? Much more likely that he thinks of "adulterer" as simply an Opprobrious Epithet ("She called me a name!" as people used to say), which cannot possibly apply to his unworthy-of-opprobrium self.

[magid]

I'm just here to say that Opprobrious Epithet is definitely my new band name. Thanks!

[firecat]

Agreed, he is using the definition of “adulterer” that means, “a bad person who cheats on their spouse for bad reasons” whereas he is a good person who simply fell in lerrrrve through no fault of his own and of course if you lerrrrve someone you get to fuck them even if your marriage agreements say otherwise…it’s simply a law of nature.

[joyeuce]

Thank heaven for common sense in this corner of the internet! A situation bearing some resemblance to this came up on a soap I follow - in this case married woman began a relationship with her single male boss. She had felt for some time that her marriage was over but hadn't bothered to mention this to her husband. When I dared to suggest on a fansite that she was therefore cheating on her husband, I was shouted down "because the marriage was over and she deserves to be happy". It just seemed so obvious to me that if she was still legally married and the husband wasn't even aware she wanted out, she was in fact committing adultery.

[minoanmiss]

You're absolutely right according to logic, but maybe the fans who got mad at you were employing the fantasy rule of "the character we identify with gets to do what we fantasize about doing".

[firecat]

Yeah, the marriage is emotionally dead and she deserves to be happy AND if there was an expectation of monogamy, she’s cheating. If the fans are denying that, it seems to me that they’re taking half the fun out of the storyline (under what circumstances do people cheat and what would be the consequences if she told her husband and how would you handle it if you were in her shoes and…). “She did overlapping serial monogamy because she was unhappy and it was perfectly OK and they all lived happily ever after” is boring.

[melannen]

Usually the logic is "*I'm* not an adulterer because the marriage was already over in all but name" even if, you know, the other party in the marriage was not aware that this was the case.

[michelel72]

I'm reminded of my back-corner neighbors, who some years ago had an argument on their back deck, which I could hear large portions of from my back bedroom. (It was windows-open weather.) The fragment I remember most vividly was the guy protesting, with offense, "I am not having an affair! We are in a relationship!"

(Between that and his assuring her that divorcing him wasn't a good idea because she couldn't afford the mortgage alone, he sounded like a real peach. I haven't seen him around much, these last few years, nor heard his basement band. I hope she did divorce him.)