191. Do You Tell the Kids About the Affair? What They Actually Need to Hear

When infidelity enters a relationship, it doesn’t just shake the couple. It can quietly ripple through the whole family. And at some point, many betrayed partners find themselves facing one of the hardest questions of all: Do we tell the kids?

You may want to be honest. You may want to protect them. You may be terrified of saying too much, not saying enough, or changing how they see the other parent forever. But this conversation is not about full disclosure. It is about emotional safety.

In this episode, I explore how to approach conversations with children after an affair, why truth and detail are not the same thing, and how to decide what your children actually need to hear in order to feel safe, secure, and supported.

Key Takeaways:

• Prioritise emotional safety over explanation. Your child does not need the full story of the affair; they need clarity about what affects them.

• Understand the difference between truth and detail. You can be honest without being explicit, and protective without being dishonest.

• Check your own emotional state first. If you are angry, overwhelmed, or seeking validation, that energy will shape the conversation.

• Avoid telling them too early or too late. Children sense tension, distance, and instability. The goal is to help them make sense of what they are already experiencing.

• Choose privacy, not secrecy. Adult details can remain private, but if something has changed in their world, they may need appropriate honesty to feel grounded.

How to Tell the Kids About the Affair Without Handing Them the Whole Suitcase

You might feel pressure to explain everything, especially when honesty matters to you. But telling the truth does not mean emptying the entire emotional cupboard onto the kitchen table. Your children do not need timelines, messages, motives, or the full adult-sized drama.

They need enough clarity to stop their little brains creating a much scarier story. Because children are brilliant meaning-makers, but they are not always accurate ones. If something feels different at home, they will notice. They may not say much, but they are absolutely collecting data.

The quiet dinners, the awkward hallway passing, the missing affection, the strange bedtime energy. So the aim is not to protect them from all discomfort. It is to help them feel safe inside what has already changed.

You can say something simple, calm, and contained. “Things have been difficult between us, and we are working out what happens next.”

Before speaking, ask yourself three questions:

1. Is this true?

2. Is this necessary?

3. Is this helpful for my child right now?

What Your Children Actually Need From You Right Now

You do not need to perform perfect parenting here. What your children need is steadiness, not a flawless script.

• They need to know they are loved.

• They need to know this is not their fault.

• They need to know they can ask questions.

• They also need to know you are still the adult in the room.

If you use the conversation to release your pain, they may absorb it. And that is not because you are bad. It is because betrayal hurts, and hurt looks for somewhere to go. So give your pain somewhere safer first. A coach, therapist, trusted friend, journal, long run, or very dramatic shower cry.

Then come back to your child with something calmer. You are not hiding the truth. You are holding it responsibly. That is the work.

💬 Reflection Questions:

Have you struggled with whether to tell your children about the affair, separation, or changes in the relationship? What felt hardest: protecting them, being honest, or managing your own emotions in the process?

People Also Ask

Should you tell your kids about an affair?

Sometimes, yes. But not with all the details. Children need emotional safety, not adult disclosure. Tell them enough to understand what affects them, without making them carry what belongs to you.

How to explain adultery to kids?

Keep it simple, calm, and age-appropriate. You don’t need to explain adultery itself. Explain what affects them: “Things have been difficult between us, but you are loved, safe, and this is not your fault.”

How to explain betrayal to a kid?

Keep it simple. You don’t need to explain betrayal in adult detail. You might say, “Someone made a choice that hurt the relationship, and we’re working through what happens next. You are loved, and this is not your fault.”

How to tell a 5 year old about separation?

Keep it gentle and concrete. “Mummy and Daddy won’t live in the same house anymore, but we both love you very much. This is not your fault, and we will always be your parents.”

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go! Hello and welcome back to the After The Affair podcast. I'm your host Luke Shillings and today you're listening to episode number 191, Do You Tell the Kids About the Affair? What They Actually Need to Hear. Today's episode starts with a question that for a lot of people doesn't come up straight away but when it does it hits hard.

Do we tell the kids? And it's not just a practical question it's one of those moments where everything suddenly starts to feel like it carries real weight because now it's not just about you or the relationship it's about them. So what do they need to know? What don't they need to know? And how do you protect them in the process without hiding something important? When you start thinking about telling your children a lot of thoughts come up very quickly. What if I hurt them? What if they see me differently? What if they lose respect for the other parent? What if I say too much? What if I don't say enough? And underneath all of that there's often this deeper sense of fear.

What if this moment changes them and I can't undo that? And that's what makes this so difficult. Most people approach this conversation thinking that they need to explain everything that happened and on the surface that can feel right because, well, you value honesty. You want to be truthful.

You don't want to lie to your children. But the thing is the goal of this conversation is not explanation. The goal is emotional safety and those two things are very very different.

Let's think about how this could go wrong because when you prioritise explanation you often start including things that are too complicated, too emotional, too loaded and often without realising it you begin to transfer your internal experience onto them. So even subtle things like tone or language or framing can carry unexpected emotional weight. For example, your dad made some bad choices or maybe your mum hurt me deeply.

Even though I know they feel true to you, I know they do, they carry meaning that is yours and not your child's. And it can also lead to projecting an idea that your children are not able to differentiate and that's the difference between truth and detail. This is one of the most important distinctions that you can make and it's one that a lot of people struggle with because it can feel like you're being asked to choose between honesty and protection.

But that's not actually the choice here. You can tell the truth without telling the whole story. You can be honest without being explicit and that's not about hiding anything.

It's about understanding what is appropriate for the person that you're speaking to. Because when we talk about the truth we often mean everything that happened, the full context, the timeline, the behaviour, the emotional impact. But children don't need that version of the truth.

They don't have the framework to process it and more importantly they don't need it to feel safe. What they need is clarity about what affects them, not what happened between you. And this is before we even lay on the impact that your interpretation of the truth and the facts might still be somewhat blurred because of the emotions that you're feeling right now too.

So a more useful way to think about it could be does what I'm about to say help my child feel safer or more confused? Because not all truth is useful. Some truth is emotionally heavy. Some truth creates questions that they're just not ready for.

Some truth introduces ideas they didn't even know existed. For example saying we're having some problems in our relationship and we're working through them, well that's true. It's contained and it's relevant to their world.

Compare that to one of us broke trust in the relationship. This is still technically true and very subtle on the surface but now we've introduced blame, moral judgement and some curiosity about how that trust was actually broken. And once that door opens it is very difficult to close, trust me.

There's also something else happening here. When we feel hurt, angry or betrayed there's often a strong pull to express that truth. To say well this is what happened, this is what they did, this is how it affected me.

And again of course that makes sense but if that expression is happening through the conversation with your child it stops being about informing them and it starts becoming a form of emotional release for you. And that's where this line can so easily get crossed because now the child is no longer receiving information, they're absorbing your emotion. Now some people might be thinking but my child is a bit older, they can handle it.

And yes age really does matter here, at least to a degree. But emotional readiness isn't just about age, it's about capacity, context and timing. Even older children can struggle to process things like loyalty conflicts or judgments about parents or the emotional weight of betrayal just in and of itself.

I mean just let's just take a pause here. Before you experienced what you were going through right now, had you ever imagined that this is what it would feel like? Had you ever imagined how confusing and disorientating it can be? No. Most people, most people listening to this right now agree that they would not have been able to predict what this actually feels like.

So laying some of that weight on to our children is incredibly, it's a lot. So even when they can understand more, it doesn't mean that they should carry it. Another important piece here is that you're not just having a conversation for today, you're shaping how your child understands relationships altogether.

Things about trust and conflict and emotional safety. So the question becomes what version of truth helps them build a stable internal world, not what version of truth explains everything accurately, because those two things are not always aligned. If you want something practical to hold on to in the moment, maybe you could use this filter.

Before you say something, just ask yourself, is this true? That's the first question. So let's assume that it is. Is this necessary? This is a much bigger question and I want you to be really honest with yourself when you're asking yourself this.

And then finally, is this helpful for my child right now? If it doesn't meet all three, I mean loosely speaking, it probably doesn't need to be said. At least not yet. So when we talk about telling the truth, we're not talking about full disclosure.

We're talking about appropriate honesty. Truth that is grounded, contained and centred around your child's emotional safety. Because your role in that moment is not to explain everything that has happened between you and your partner, it's to protect how they experience what is currently happening.

There is some internal work to be done before these conversations even occur. And this is often the bit that most people skip. I would like to believe that as you are here listening to me talk about this, you are not prepared to skip this step.

If we're not careful, people can focus on what they're about to say before addressing how they're feeling about it. The thing is, your internal state will shape the entire conversation. If you're feeling angry, overwhelmed, you're just seeking validation, maybe you're just trying to be understood, that will come through.

Even if your words are measured. So the real starting point is, can you regulate yourself enough to have this conversation for them rather than for you? Then there's another question. When should we tell them? And it's a difficult one because people are often looking for a simple clear answer, the perfect moment, a point when it feels safe, controlled, uncertain, but I'm sorry the reality is there is no perfect time.

But there are more intentional ones. There are two common mistakes people tend to make. The first is telling them too early.

This usually happens when emotions are still really high. There's been maybe a recent discovery, there's shock, there's anger, there's confusion, and within the first hour or day all of a sudden everybody knows everything. And okay, now there's nothing that can be undone.

We can't undo that once it's happened, and I'll maybe cover that in a separate episode. But right now, when in that state, there's often this strong urge to be honest immediately, or get everything out in the open, or stop hiding things. But when you speak from that place, your nervous system is still activated.

And even if your words are measured, your tone, your energy, your body language, it'll carry the emotional intensity that you're trying to hide. And the children can really feel that. They might not be able to understand the words, but they will understand the instability.

The second mistake, as obvious as it might sound, is telling them too late. This often comes from wanting to protect them, wanting to wait until things are clearer, until you've decided exactly what it is that you're doing, until everything feels, well, more settled. But in that time, children are already observing.

Kids are aware. They notice things. They notice changes in behaviour, changes in communication, emotional distance, or even just some underlying unusual tension that exists between you.

And because they don't have the context, their minds naturally, just like ours, start to fill in the gaps. And children are very good at doing this. Often they'll create explanations that are, well, inaccurate, more frightening than reality, or often self-blaming.

They might think, did I do something wrong? Are they upset because of me? Is something bad about to happen? So waiting too long can create uncertainty that's actually far more distressing than the truth itself. Now, there is something that I think is really important to try and understand here. Children don't need to be told everything to know that something is different.

They feel it. They sense it. They pick up on patterns and shifts that we often underestimate.

So the goal of timing is not to control what they know, because you can't fully do that. The goal is to support how they make sense of what they're already experiencing. So if there's no perfect time, then what are we actually aiming for? We're aiming for a moment where you are emotionally steady enough to hold the conversation.

You have a simple, clear message. You're not using the conversation to process your feelings, and you can prioritise their experience of your expression. That doesn't mean that you feel great.

It doesn't mean that everything is resolved. It just means that you're regulated enough to be intentional. Before having the conversation, perhaps you could ask yourself, am I looking to say this or to release something? Am I prepared for their reaction, whatever it is? And can I stay calm if they ask something that I'm not ready for? If the answer to those is not yet, that's useful information.

It's not a failure. It's just a sign that perhaps a little more grounding is needed first. So instead of thinking about timing as a fixed moment, it might be helpful to think of it as a window.

A window where they're already sensing something, and you're ready enough to guide them through it. And when those two things align, that's often the most appropriate time. So timing isn't about getting it perfect.

It's not about waiting until everything is clear, and it's not about rushing because you feel pressure. It's about finding that point where you can show up with clarity, with calm, and with your child's emotional safety at the centre, because that matters far more than the exact moment that you choose. Now expanding from this a touch, because I know some of you will be listening and thinking this doesn't quite fit me, because there's another question that often comes up here.

Do we actually have to tell them at all? Because for many people the instinct is to protect, to shield, to keep this between the adults. And on the surface it makes a lot of sense. You might think, well this is our issue, not theirs.

Why burden them with something that they don't need to know? And if we can fix this, maybe they never even need to hear about it. I want to say this clearly. That instinct is not wrong.

It comes from care. It comes from wanting to protect your children's emotional world. But there are situations, surprisingly, where not telling them might even be appropriate.

For example, if the relationship is staying intact and there were no meaningful signs that anything is awry, then maybe in those cases it would be okay to just focus on the relationship and maintain the stability and the normality of your children's lives. Also if they're very very young. Maybe if, and I suppose adding to this, is if the situation was being worked through privately.

You're both seeking some kind of support, professional or otherwise, and there was a structure and a process in place. And you're both collectively, as a couple, this obviously this is only assuming situations where reconciliation is occurring, and if there is no visible change to their day-to-day life. In those cases, introducing something like infidelity into their awareness can actually create confusion that just did not need to exist.

Because again, children don't need full context. They need stability. But there are also situations where not telling them starts to create problems.

And this usually happens when something has already changed. Living arrangements, significant emotional tone in the home, separation or distance, sleeping in different rooms, noticeable tension between the parents. You might be functioning but when you're walking past each other there's no eye contact, there's no gentle touching, there's no affection.

This stuff is all really visible, even though you might not recognise how visible it is. Because at this point they're already experiencing the impact, they just don't have the explanation, and that's where the gap between what they feel and what they understand exists, and they fill it in. That's a problem.

Okay, and this is also the part that's often underestimated. What children do with uncertainty. Children, like adults, but I think at a higher level, are meaning-making machines.

If they don't have an explanation, they create one. And those explanations often land in places like, this must be my fault. Something bad is happening and no one is telling me.

I'm not safe to ask questions about this. So the intention might have been to protect them. It can sometimes lead to more internal confusion.

Not because you've done anything wrong per se, but because the picture they're building doesn't match the reality. Maybe this helps. If we think about privacy versus secrecy, privacy is choosing what is appropriate to share, and then setting a boundary around adult information.

Secrecy, however, is withholding something that is already impacting them, and maybe avoiding a conversation that might help them make sense of their world. And the difference between those two, ultimately, is intent. So the real question is not, do we tell them or not? Perhaps a more useful question would be, what do they need to understand in order to feel safe and make sense of what's changing? Because that brings it back to them.

Not the event, not the detail, but their experience. There's also a subtle trap here. Sometimes not telling them isn't just about protecting them.

It's about avoiding the discomfort of the conversation itself. Avoiding their questions, avoiding their reactions, your emotional response. And again, that's human, but it's worth being honest with yourself.

Am I protecting them, or am I protecting myself from this moment? Because those are not always the same thing. So perhaps the middle ground, a balanced approach here could be, don't overshare, don't introduce unnecessary detail, but you also don't have to leave them in confusion. And you can give them enough truth to feel grounded, enough clarity to feel safe, and enough reassurance to feel secure.

And you allow that to evolve over time. So no, you don't always have to tell them everything. In fact, most of the time you shouldn't tell them everything.

But if something has changed in their world, they need help understanding it. And that doesn't come from silence, I promise you. It comes from intentional, appropriate honesty.

Now I hadn't actually planned on making this more than one episode, but we're already closing on 20 minutes in, and I have so much more to say. And there are so many more things that I would like to focus on, including what happens when you're not reconciling. What happens if the relationship has already split up, and maybe the children know that you are no longer together, but they don't know why.

They don't know what the cause was, and there were questions. So I also want to explore a framework as well, some way in which you can actually structure and have these conversations, and maybe just better prepare you for some of the difficult questions that might come your way. There are many nuances that present themselves during the conversations that we have with our children, and I think it's important to give some time to that.

So for today, what I'd really like you to reflect on is, you don't need to get this perfect. You don't need a perfect script. There is no perfect moment.

What ultimately matters is that you show up grounded, that you prioritise their safety, that you take responsibility for what you share, because in the long run what shapes them is not this moment. I know you might think it is, but it's not. It's what happens after.

It's the consistency, it's the stability, it's the environment that you create. And if you're listening to this and feeling the weight of that responsibility, you're wondering if you're going to say the wrong thing, or worrying about how this might impact your children, just know this. You don't have to figure this out on your own, because this isn't just about what to say.

It's about how you show up in moments like this, how you regulate yourself, how you hold the conversation, how you create stability, even when things feel really uncertain. And that's exactly the kind of work that we do together, whether that's through one-to-one coaching, or inside the After The Affair Collective, where you can get support, perspective, and guidance in real time. If that's something that you feel you need right now, then you can find more information at lifecoachluke.com or drop me an email at luke at lifecoachluke.com. Or if you just want to stalk for a little bit, come over to Instagram at mylifecoachluke.

I look forward to speaking to you all again next week. Take care.