Sharing Marriage Problems With Your Kids

One of the most common questions we get is, “How much of our marriage problems should we share with our kids?” If you’ve been around RefineUs or read our book, you know that our marriage problems are shared frequently and transparently.

The question comes to us as it relates to many different circumstances:

• There has been infidelity in the marriage and their kids don’t know
• Someone in the marriage has an addiction (porn, pain medicine, alcohol, etc) and they don’t know if they should tell their kids
• Someone has lost their job and they don’t want to stress out their kids
• There have been years of marriage problems and they are staying together just for the kids, but they pretend like things are fine in front of the kids

Before I answer this question I do want to say this…Our situation was public. When the affair happened, 1500 people found out about it within a few days because an email explanation was sent as to why I was no longer the pastor. Secondly, several of our oldest son’s closest friends attended our church and were in his class at school. So we knew he would hear about it second hand at some point.

Not everyone with marriage issues finds themselves in that specific situation. But after almost eight years of living with our story in our family and four years of sharing our story with others publicly, I believe there is a principle that I’d like to share with you.

A mistake kept hidden is often repeated. 

Sin’s power grows in secret. We can set our kids up to repeat the same mistakes we have made by hiding them from our kids.

Many of us have good intentions when we choose to hide our marriage problems from our kids. We don’t want them to think less of us. We don’t want them to lose respect for their mom. We don’t want them to be angry with their dad. We don’t want to trouble them. Not bad desires at all. The problem is that deception never leads to freedom…it always leads to bondage.

Our thought is that we are keeping our kids free from the problems we have, but what we unintentionally do is create a culture of dishonesty in our home. We asked our counselor how much of our story we should share with our kids. His response was, “As much as you can age appropriately share.”

So at different ages and stages of life, Trisha and I have shared more and more of our story with our kids. I had a porn addiction that by God’s grace I’ve been able to overcome. I have experience and knowledge that can help my boys in that area. Sharing my story with them brings freedom not embarrassment or a lack of respect. They actually respect me more for talking about things are vulnerable and transparent.

I think this principle is why God shares so much of peoples’ dysfunction and brokenness with us in the Bible. They were messed up. He didn’t have to share all of those stories of betrayal, and heartache and loss and bitterness and adultery. I believe he shared their mistakes so we wouldn’t have to repeat them.

A very important commitment in this process is that you and your spouse agree on what is to be shared and when. This isn’t a license to run down or talk bad about your spouse to your kids. This is a mutual commitment to honesty and openness in a family relationship.

I’m not saying you need to share every detail of your marriage relationship with your kids. Your marriage relationship needs to have an element of privacy and intimacy. However, intentionally hiding problems, issues or mistakes from our kids has the potential to do more harm than good.

I’m also not saying we should share details of our sins or our bad choices with our kids. Your kids don’t need to know how often you used to get drunk or the details of an affair. They need to see the process of confession, repentance, forgiveness and restoration lived out in front of them. Seeing that gives them hope that they don’t have to be perfect and safety that your family is a place where it’s okay to not be okay.

What are your thoughts on sharing our marriage problems with our kids?