Dear Wayne & Tamara,

I am a girl, 15. My family is generally okay, not exactly warm and
loving, but adequate. When I was 11, I found out my mother was cheating
on my father with a doctor, who I knew and trusted.

I’ve kept quiet about the affair for years, but it remains a weight on
me, refusing to disappear with the passage of time. I don’t know why I am
this upset. Is it really something that concerns me? It isn’t. The only
people involved in the affair are my mother, her lover and my father. Is
it my right to be as upset as I am?

I have started scratching and cutting my wrist with a penknife. It is not
as dramatic as some people would have it sound. The ritual brings me some
peace, some sense of isolation, and some sense of relief.

I see it as a coping method. My mother does not know that I know about
her affair or that I cut myself. It hurts. So please, would you tell me
what to do?

Hua

Dear Hua,
A friend of ours, now deceased, was a child psychiatrist. This man
was a perfect gentleman, always known for his kindness and concern for
others. We never met anyone who didn’t like him or praise him.

Yet once, when he was talking about the parents of troubled children, he
said he often wanted to grab the man and woman by the neck and throttle
them because they were literally killing their child.

Is your mother’s infidelity something that concerns you? It is. Do you
have a right to be as upset as you are? You do.

Why? Because often, we would say usually, when children act out in
harmful ways, the origin of the problem is their parents. A truism among
child therapists says, solve the parents’ problem and the problem in the
child often disappears, like magic.

Parents are the fabric of the world to their children. A tear in the
fabric is a serious shock. Children know what parents are supposed to do
and how they are supposed to act. Children are not easily fooled.

When a parent forces a child to live a secret life, the child will find
an unhealthy way to cope. That’s the way this works.

That is why you are cutting yourself.

Are you to blame? No. This is something you have been forced into by your
mother’s guilty secret. Cutting is a well-known, natural reaction to
behavior like your mother’s.

Can you tell your mom what you know? Probably not. Tell her and she will
deny what she is doing or threaten you. Can you tell your dad? Maybe not.
Negative feelings attach to the messenger of bad news.

We see only one correct, though difficult, course of action with your
parents.

This is their mutual problem. It is for them to solve. You need to give
over the cutting and give over the secret. Put it where it belongs. Tell
your parents together, at the same time, that you have been cutting
yourself as a way to relieve the tension over your mother’s adultery.

If either of your parents blames you for telling, they are merely
compounding the wrongness. That’s like blaming the shopkeeper for people
stealing. “If he didn’t own that store, people would not steal.” That
makes no sense.

In a similar way it makes no sense for your mother to say, “It’s not my
fault, it’s hers for telling.” Blame falls on the doer of the deed, not
the one reacting to the deed.

As our late friend said, the key for a child’s well-being is finding
someone who actually cares about them. Hopefully, one or both of your
parents will step up and help you. But if neither does, find an adult who
cares about you and who can teach you to cope in non-destructive ways.

Wayne & Tamara