Parental affairs can have a significant impact on families. They can cause conflict and tension that affects children’s well-being and their relationships with their parents. Children and adolescents may experience self-blame, fear, confusion, and sadness.
According to family systems theory, families work as a system where the well-being and behaviours of each family member affect every other member and the system as a whole. This means that conflict in parents’ relationships also affects parent-child relationships and the family’s dynamics. Young people may start to play inappropriate and harmful roles in the family.
However, families can respond to parental affairs in ways that protect children and adolescents from a lot of this harm. This involves putting clear boundaries between parents and children and creating space for dialogue and interdependence between partners. Family therapists can support families to reorganise themselves and develop dynamics that allow for healing and recovery.
Understanding Parental Affairs
Parental affairs are usually considered to be a serious breaking of the commitments of a relationship. They can give rise to a collection of emotions for both partners, including sadness, disappointment, betrayal, guilt, and shame. Parental affairs are linked to tension, conflict, and the breakdown of relationships.
What Causes Parental Affairs?
The pathway to a parental affair is usually complex and can look very different in one family from another. Research has found that affairs during marriages are associated with certain pre-marital characteristics, such as negative communication and invalidation.
Parental affairs are also linked to conflict between partners. Studies suggest that affairs are both a cause and consequence of difficulties in a partnership, including hostile conflicts. Some experts think that affairs may sometimes be a mechanism to avoid open conflict, especially if parents have grown up in an environment where conflict and emotional expression are discouraged.
Conceptualising the Family System
Family systems theory sees each family member as a complex individual existing within a system. It understands that:
- the different parts of a family are all interconnected
- a family’s structure and organisation have a big influence on the way family members behave
- family members’ behaviours are shaped by relationships between family members
- a family’s functioning cannot be fully understood by only understanding each of its parts
Family systems theory helps us understand how different events and dynamics within a family impact different family members and change how families function. These events might include a mental health disorder, a parental affair, or the transition from childhood to adolescence. Consequently, it has important implications for both mental health support and recovery.
How Do Parental Affairs Impact Children?
The impact of parental affairs on children may vary a lot between families. Research suggests that it can depend on their age, gender, and even culture. A young person’s cognitive and emotional development may affect the kind of emotions they experience in response to parental affairs, as well as the dynamics that form between child and parent.
Blame and Responsibility
Younger children tend to assume that their thoughts and actions have a greater impact on the world than they do. When it comes to parental conflict, young children and pre-adolescents may assume that they are to blame for what’s going on. This can cause feelings of guilt and distress.
Fear and Neglect
Younger children may also experience feelings of neglect or fear that their parents no longer love them. For children who are almost entirely dependent upon their parents, disruptions in the family system may be understood as a threat to their safety and even survival. This may lead to intense distress and fear.
Confusion and Uncertainty
Unlike younger children, adolescents are less likely to blame themselves for parental affairs. But they may still find it hard to process its causes and consequences. This can lead to confusion, uncertainty, and fear.
Loyalties and Parentification
Adolescents are also more likely to hold one parent responsible for the affair. This can change the loyalties and dynamics within the family system.
In some cases, adolescents may take on a caring or supportive role for parents who are hurt or harmed. This can lead to parentification and parent-child role reversal, creating burdens and responsibilities that are inappropriate for their development age.
Parental Affairs and the Family System
For family systems to function well, it’s important that they maintain appropriate boundaries. These boundaries are like invisible barriers that regulate interactions between family members. When these boundaries are disrupted, and unhealthy boundaries are created, it can harm relationships and cause fractures in the family.
For example, parental affairs can cause parents to withdraw or withhold affection and communication between one another. They may turn instead to their children for support or to individuals outside of the family. This process can lead to isolation and conflict between family members.
Healing From Conflict and Mistrust: Re-Organising the Family System
That said, not all families are affected equally by parental affairs. The way that families are already organised impacts their capacity to respond to and cope with challenges and interpersonal harm.
Families with ‘too rigid’ boundaries between parents and children may withhold information or try to hide what’s happened, even when a child is old enough to understand. This can create additional mistrust and conflict in different parts of the family system. On the other hand, families with ‘diffused’ boundaries are more vulnerable to parentification and role reversal.
Families with appropriate boundaries are better equipped to cope with parental affairs and prevent harm from permeating throughout the family system. They may also reorganise themselves to protect against the harm that parental affairs may have on the family system. Placing clear boundaries between parents and children limits the harm that young people are exposed to and encourages parents to be mutually supportive of one another.
Family Therapy
Family therapists can support families to recover from the harm caused by parental affairs. They can identify harmful dynamics in the family system, including boundaries that are too strong or too weak. They may also help parents work as a team to support a child or adolescent in coping with what’s going on.
Often, parental affairs are partly caused by longer-term difficulties in the family system and in parents’ relationships. Family therapists also focus on underlying dynamics that may cause and maintain conflicts and tension. They work with families to develop new ways of relating that support the well-being of every family member.
Supporting Young People to Recover from Harm in the Family
Sometimes, harm in the family can cause or contribute to longer-term distress for children and adolescents. It can lead to disruptive behaviours, feelings of depression, and other mental health symptoms. These may develop into mental health disorders that require professional care and support.
There are many types of therapy available for young people with mental health disorders, including talking therapy, somatic therapy, creative therapies and group therapies. Young people may benefit from a combination of different treatment approaches.
Family Trauma as a Risk Factor for Mental Health Disorders
Experiences of early life adversity and childhood trauma are risk factors for many mental health disorders, including borderline personality disorder and eating disorders. Sometimes, the consequences of parental affairs may be experienced as traumatic for children, especially if the conflict prevents parents from meeting their emotional or physical needs.
Research has also linked family disruption to the development of bulimia and unspecified eating disorders, even without experiences of trauma. Equally, young people’s perception of the quality of their parents’ relationship may also be a risk factor for eating disorders.
This means that supporting young people experiencing family trauma and disruption is especially important. Effective support can protect young people against the harm of parental affairs and help prevent the development of mental health disorders in the future.
