Title says it all...

What would you do if you knew that one of your parents was having an affair behind the others back? Both are married but the other sees fit to make obvious and illicit phone calls and flirts with people thinking that no one notices.

Do you tell the other assuming that they don't already know or do you confront the floozy parent?... or just do your thing and leave him/her for it when they're, ''older'', let them fend for themselves, let nature do the teaching kind of thing?

It is a question of loyalty and principles. Do you stay quiet and let the cheating parent lie to your mother /father? Or do you tell the truth ? I would tell the truth and not collude with the cheating parent. So my loyalty would be with the parent who was being cheated on. After all if my parent valued the relationship so much why would they cheat?

Hmmmm... but then you risk jepordising their relationship and as a result the structure of your family, is it worth that?

Remember someone asking me this when I was younger, catch 22 scenario really. Said that I'd keep it to myself, you don't know what leads to what and why etc but its a difficult one.

I have been there and i grassed. I feel no way at all about it I'd rather have grown up in a single parent family then live a lie. My mother raised me, made sure my grades were up and taught me respect and wisdom. All I needed.

I have seen fake couples that supposedly hold together the family unit...not a pretty sight.

Who is to say the "innocent" partner is not clever enough to be keeping their own affair undetected from you ?
Meanwhile the "guilty" partner is waging their own really innocent infight ?

Either way, someone is cheating and is playing with fire or devaluing the relationship, which in effect ,makes a mockery of the said 'relationship' .
But isn' t it the case that some deceitful and unfair character types, like the security that a homelife can provide ,yet want to be savouring the delights out doors. In reality they are committed to no-one and giving the one who is not cheating a raw deal.
I have been victim to such behaviour when I was a child. My father was a cheating dirty dog. My mother suffered and from then, I decided that any man I found cheating on me ( and I make it my business to find out )will suffer, cause I am not putting up with that. If you want to have your affair, let me know beforehand and I will go my way, but if you want to cheat and have me as well,then it is not going to work. I am going to make it difficult for you. Not because you want to have another relationship but because I refuse to share or be shared.
But the question was, would you tell your parent and once again yes, I would tell. I have done it myself and it has been done to me. It built more trust and understanding between myself and my daughter and her father respects me because he knows that this is one woman he messed with who did not inwardly turn in and grieve. I flipped out on the culprit. That is why more than a decade down the line, he tells me that he loves my spirit and he gets wildly jealous if for one moment he detects that I might be seeing someone. And I showed my children that they don't have to put up with bad relationships.
Express sentiments that differentientate you from being a door mat. If you allow yourself to be treated in such a way, you will be walked all over.
A cheat is a cheat no matter how they want to word it and try to use psychology on you to make you think otherwise! If you buy into it, then you are damaging your own sense of self.