Thinking Back About Telling Our 11 yr old Son

Because, "life goes on", as Robert Frost so aptly put it, I now have some hindsight about telling our then 11 yr old son about his dad's addiction. He is now fourteen, and I asked him recently if he was glad we had told him.  

He said no, not really.  

It broke your heart, huh? I asked.

Yeah.

Do you feel like your heart is healed now?

Yeah.

But it was hard?

Yeah.

This is a lot of verbalization for this kid! If you have a 14 yr old son, you may know what I mean. 

A few months after Mr W came out to me, the bishop and stake president, his entire family and my parents, we felt like we needed to tell our two oldest kids. These were our reasons for telling this son: 

1)  Stop the lies. We were gone many nights to group counseling and 12-step meetings and we didn't want to repeatedly lie to him about where we were going. 

2)  Most importantly, we desperately hoped that if he knew, he could somehow steer clear of sexual addiction himself, in the same way that some children of alcoholics resolve to never take a drink because of their family history. My husband's addiction began at age 8.

So we told him one sad summer day, and it didn't go well. No details, of course, but that his dad had a porn addiction, it had started in his youth, and he was now doing everything to find recovery.

He was devastated and shocked and angry and confused.  I felt sick and I questioned the decision to tell him. For months, I wasn't sure that he would be OK.  He had a hard time talking about it. How could the dad that had taught him values not have lived those values? 

I repeatedly summoned up all the recovery I had to reassure him that his dad was doing whatever it took to be free of addiction, and that we were going to be a stronger family because of this (I barely believed these things at the time). I told him why we felt it was important for him to know the truth. I said so many prayers for him. I surrendered him to God over and over. I knew I couldn't heal him or take away his pain, and I felt helpless. 

So, now in hindsight, do I think it was the right thing to tell him?

Yes. But it wasn't easy for anyone. Truth be told, there's not much that's easy about addiction and marriage recovery, is there? It's a rocky road.

Even though it broke his heart to learn the truth about his dad, he now knows the truth. He sees him going to meetings and keeping his media boundaries and teaching his teachers quorum. He sees him respecting me and admitting his mistakes and doing dishes. 

The hard truth hurts like hell. But so do lies. I choose truth. The truth can set us free to heal.