Triangulation and Parental Infidelity: Faithful Parents’ Attempts to Make Their Adult Children Feel Caught, Rumination, and Satisfaction in the Unfaithful Parent–Child Relationship

ABSTRACT

This study examined parent–child relationships wherein a parent engaged in an extramarital affair. Specifically, I investigated the impact of faithful parents’ attempts to make their adult children feel caught on satisfaction in their relationship with their unfaithful parent in both intact and divorced families. Data were collected from adult children whose mother or father engaged in infidelity (N = 196). Results from moderation regression analyses suggested that the relationship between feeling caught and satisfaction in the unfaithful parent–child relationship was conditional on participants’ parents’ marital status following the discovery of infidelity. Further, results from a moderated mediation regression analysis found that rumination about a parent’s infidelity had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between faithful parents’ attempts to make their adult children feel caught and satisfaction in the unfaithful parent–child relationship. Findings provide readers a greater understanding of the impact of parental infidelity on the parent–child relationship and suggest that family communication which promotes rumination about parental infidelity should be examined in future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Family communication
• family systems theory
• feeling caught
• parent-child satisfaction
• parental infidelity
• rumination
• triangulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.