CHILDREN: What to tell them?

My own sense is that it's very important that kids know the basic outlines of parents' addictions.  Addictions tend to run in families, whether for genetic reasons or because the family structures of addicts tend to be psychologically self-perpetuating I'm not sure.  My kids therefore need to know that I'm an addict in order to keep themselves safe, just as they need to know that I have heart trouble and a history of seizures in order to keep themselves safe.

I don't want to share this sort of thing with my kids.  Any conversation with kids about parents' sexual lives is uncomfortable for everyone.  Conversations about sex addiction are even more so.  But I don't believe that I have the right to endanger my kids by not sharing that information with them.  It's their history as well as mine.

How should one share, and how much?  I don't have answers to those questions that fit everybody.  We started out when the kids were younger and when I was just starting in recovery by explaining that Dad was working with a counselor on psychological things that were making him unhappy and on learning how not to get angry with people, and that part of that was going to meetings with other people a couple of nights a week.  At some stage, I think this is all kids need to know - that Dad is aware of some things he has done wrong and that he is working to do better.

My college aged sons know more than this.  I've talked with them about my addiction to pornography, and they know that the meetings I go to are Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings.  I haven't yet had that conversation with my somewhat younger daughters, and I'm not looking forward to it, but pretty soon it needs to happen.

In disclosing to my sons, I didn't have the conversation with a counselor present.  I wrote a long letter to them saying the various things I thought needed to be said, and then I sat down with the two of them together and talked about what was in the letter.  At the end, I gave them the letter to have as a record of the conversation that they could refer to later if they had questions.  Things I told them included

- That I had been hooked on porn for a very long time.

- That I had not been physically unfaithful in my marriage.

- That Mom knew everything I was telling them.

- Some sort of outline about what issues I was working on in counseling and how I came to be addicted.

- That I've been going to SAA meetings, and something about how the 12-step program works.

- That SA is a real addiction, that there is always hope for addicts who are ready to recover, that recovery has to be done with the help of others, and that if they had problems of this sort, they could always talk to me.

- That addictions run in families, and therefore that they need to be doubly careful about engaging in possibly addictive behaviors.

- That my addiction had led me to isolate and to be angry with them, that I was sorry about this, and that I hoped at some point they could forgive me, and that I was prepared to do whatever they needed me to do in order to make amends.

- That one of the ways in which addiction perpetuates itself is that families feel they need to keep secrets, and that I was not telling them to keep secrets.  I hope my identity as a sex addict doesn't become a matter of public knowledge.  For a teacher in a small school in a small city, that could be a problem.  But if my kids need to process what they are feeling by talking with other people, they have an absolute right to do that.  I hope they'll do that discretely, but if my history gets out, that's my problem, not theirs.  After all, I'm the one that used the stuff.  If they'd like to talk with a counselor or our priest or whoever as part of processing what I'm saying, I can arrange that.

Probably there was more, but that's some of the basics.

Neither kid has felt a need to work with a therapist on this, but one of them has some other psychological issues, and we have made it a point to have family sessions and make sure his counselor knows about my addiction as a crucial piece of his family background.

What to say if the addict himself isn't willing to disclose or denies that there is a problem?  I would say that for the kids' sake, it is still important that they know at least the bare outlines that Dad is an addict in denial.  I have no experience making that sort of disclosure, but I'd think you'd want some guidance before doing so.  It seems to me it's awfully important that the disclosure be shaped by a desire to tell the kids what they know in order to be safe, and not by a desire to punish the addict by revealing his secrets or to induce the kids to choose up sides.

One source that might be worth consulting, a book I read before talking to my wife and kids, is Deborah Corley and Jennifer Schneider's book Disclosing Secrets.  There's a lot of good material in there, and the last chapter is called, "What to Tell the Kids."

Enough.  I hope some of that was useful, at least as one data point from one addict.

Tim M.

Hi HisHeart,

I'd like to make a suggestion, and no......I don't get a cut, but I am using carbonite back-up system for my work computers.  For $60 a year, you get automatic, off-site back-up protection.  I have not had to use it yet, but it gives me peace of mind to know that all of my software and datafiles are backed up in the event I have a disaster like a fire, etc.  I'm not sure how easy it would be to restore it all, but the beauty of this system is that once it is set up (something even I could do) it happens "automagically."   The password is set by the initial user, the files are all off-site, so "the husband" would not be able to destroy the files.

www.carbonite.com

The husband has threatened to reformat your son's hard drive?  Wow. 

Couple of questions that come to mind:  How old is your son?  Why reduce the level of his filtering?  If the husband tries to use your son's computer, wouldn't that be an admission that he has been doing things he shouldn't be doing?  What, if anything, have you disclosed to your son?

My best,  DW

 

 

Okay, my son is 14. My dh has threatened to reformat my son's computer when my son has changed the password without telling either of us. My son's computer is really highly filtered, and if he tries to go to a blocked site, it is recorded, and I can view it on the safe eyes site. He has proven himself to be trustworthy with his computer, so I felt that he deserved more freedom with it.

I have never been comfortable with my husband knowing my son's password, but it hasn't been a real issue, as long as my son's computer was so highly filtered. My fear was that if my husband knew that my son's computer was freed up, even though it's still monitored, when he gets in his frenzies, my son's computer would be the target, because it has the most freedom.

Basically, my husband wants to feel like he can be the parent, and keep track of my son's computer activity. The problem is that my husband is not trustworthy with my son's computer. he has actually proven this before, but as I said, it wasn't a big deal, since he couldn't get anywhere.

For the record, the freedom I am talking about doesn't mean that my son's computer isn't filtered at all. It still has nudity, etc. blocked, but we used to have search engines blocked, etc.

I really just wish my son's computer could be completely safe. My son shouldn't have to deal with this, and he shouldn't have to be so highly filtered, just because of his dad's lack of discipline, you know?

About the back up, that sounds great. I did get my son a usb drive to back his files up on, but I like the idea of the one kept far away too. You'll have to share with me how you do it.