We didn’t mean to, but we are lying to our daughter.
While at my mom’s house my daughter was looking through a little photo album with wallet sized pictures. It was an old album and in it was a picture of me and my ex-husband. She asked me, “Who is that mom?” I panicked and made a quick decision to lie and tell her, “That’s my old boyfriend.”
My husband and I were both married before. There were no kids involved in either marriages and we both have no contact with our exes, so it’s easy for us to forget that we were ever married to anyone else.
My daughter is almost 7 years old and even though she is grossed out by her parents public displays of affection, she is also very interested about how my husband and I met, fell in love, got engaged and why we love each other. Therefore, I want her to see her parents as solid and utterly head over heels in love with one another. I don’t want her to even imagine her mom or her dad married to anyone else. My daughter knows that I had boyfriends before I met her dad. She assumes that this was all in high school. I know this kid and if she knew that I had an ex-husband and that her dad had an ex-wife she would have lots of questions. Frankly neither one of us really wants to talk about it to anyone, especially to our kid.
I want her to believe that marriage can last forever. That her mom and dad have only had eyes for each other. That her being on this earth was destined to happen. Perhaps this is a bad move, but I don’t know what the future holds? I am sure that we can’t keep this secret forever and that we will eventually get caught. When she does find out about our little secret though, will she be more traumatized? Am I doing more harm now than good?
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