Dear Jane,
I’ve been living at home with my parents since graduating from college a few months ago, and it’s been quite an adjustment.
During the past four years (while at university), I only visited home for short periods during the holidays.
I don’t have any siblings, so my parents have had the whole house to themselves most of the time.
My dad has an office downstairs, which he uses to work from home a few days a week, but neither of my parents spend any time in there outside of my dad’s 9-5 workday.
Lately, I’ve been going into my dad’s office to FaceTime my boyfriend late at night.
Dear Jane: I caught my dad doing something disgusting and he is begging me not to tell my mother.
He lives in California and I live on the East Coast, so we usually call at around midnight— when my mother is already in bed and my dad is typically in the living room watching TV.
You see, my bedroom is right next to my parents’ room, so I don’t want to wake my mother. The living room and kitchen in our house are open-plan, so I wouldn’t have any privacy there either.
So I’ve been slipping into the office late at night, and haven’t felt the need to tell my dad.
But last night, I got the fright of my life.
I walked into the office, and my dad was there sitting at his computer… and then I saw what was on the screen.
He was on a porn site, watching an extremely shocking scene.
I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it was a traumatic experience for me.
My dad quickly exited of the page and immediately started trying to calm me down. I was in a bit of a panic.
I asked him if my mom knew he watched that kind of porn, and he told me she didn’t and begged me not to tell her.
My mother and I are extremely close and I don’t want to keep secrets from her, especially because this is something I feel she should know about.
Should I tell her what I saw, or spare her the details and try to make peace with knowing about my dad’s secret habit?
From,
Disgusted Daughter
International best-selling author Jane Green offers sage advice on readers’ most burning issues in her agony aunt column
Dear Disgusted Daughter,
I am so sorry you had to see this.
It’s hard enough imagining our parents as sexual beings, let alone those with predilections that you may find risqué and uncomfortable.
It is completely understandable that you feel as traumatized as you do. My first piece of advice is to find a professional who can help you work through this trauma in a completely safe place.
You may well be talking to friends, but I believe a professional would be more beneficial in this instance.
I won’t say much about what exactly your father was watching and pornography in general, other than to try and reassure you that however upsetting this was to witness, porn is now a part of our daily lives, whether we like it or not.
That said, I understand why you feel the need to protect your mother. And you absolutely should not feel that you have to keep your father’s secret.
That would be a burden far too weighty to carry. And trust me when I tell you that if you do keep it, it will something you carry your entire life.
Of course, you won’t want to be the one to bring pain to your mother by telling her – not to mention that your father would also see it as a betrayal.
Perhaps the way out of this one is to tell your father, with absolute conviction, that he has to be the one to tell your mother, and that if he does not, it will force you into the terrible position of having to do so yourself.
It will then be up to your parents to sort this out themselves. I wish you well.
