Woman reveals how her children blame her for her husband's affair

She says her daughters blame her for breaking up her 'happy' home.

When Anna married her now ex-husband Josh, she thought she'd be married to him for the rest of her life. It never occurred to her that they'd end up divorced and - even worse - that her own daughters would blame her for the split.

However, life doesn't always turn out as planned (does it ever, really?). After 15 years and two children together, Anna and Josh reached the end of their road.

It all happened after a family holiday together, she told Kidspot.

"He told me he didn't love me any more and that he was moving out. I was blindsided and so confused. He had never even mentioned that he was unhappy," Anna told the Australian website.

She dug deeper and found out that her husband had been using dating apps for three years. Some "friends of friends" had even seen him with other women but weren't sure whether they should say something.

"Take it from me, the answer is: you should always say something," Anna told Kidspot.

"Throughout all of this, our daughters Saskia, 9, and Matilda, 5, have done their best to cope with the surprise news that their mum and dad weren't going to be living together and that they'd now have two homes.

"Josh and I agreed from the day we split that the best thing for the girls was to present a unified front. We'd tell them that, although we loved each other very much as a family, Mummy and Daddy didn't love each other in that special way married people do any more, and that we were better off living apart," she recalled.

As Anna kept finding out about the different affairs, her daughters blamed her for "breaking up the marriage". She said it felt like "a slap in the face".

"Saskia has struggled more than her little sister with the break up, and she's been struggling to deal with her anger. Sometimes I can see that she's so full of rage but doesn't know what to do with it and it breaks my heart.

Her daughter has since developed violent behaviour towards her mother.

"Once, she threw a cup at my head when I asked her to pick up her shoes and it smashed against the wall. Josh doesn't think it's a problem but I've been taking her to see a psychologist to try to help her deal with her feelings."

During one of her violent outbursts, Saskia told her mother she'd destroyed the family.

"'What makes you think I broke up with your dad?' I asked. 'We've told you it was a decision we made together'."

Her daughter said she thought that because she'd never seen her mother cry about dad leaving. "If you wanted him to stay you would have been crying."

"I was shocked," Anna recalled. "If only Saskia knew how many thousands of tears I'd shed in the months since Josh left, and how I'd begged him to go to marriage counselling to try to sort things out.

"And what about Josh? I'd bet everything I have that he hasn't cried in front of the girls about the end of our marriage."

The mother admits she wanted to tell her daughter the truth right there and then but knew it was best to keep it neutral, so the girls didn't feel like they had to take sides.

"I did tell Saskia that I've cried a lot about the end of our marriage, but that I did it in private because I didn't want her to worry. And now I make sure I'm more open with my children about my feelings, so hopefully they'll learn to do the same."