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Is it better not to tell? Feeling conflicted.

66K views 240 replies 57 participants last post by  HurtinginTN 
#1 ·
I recently was went out-of-town and cheated on my husband of 8 years. I am not proud of what I've done, but I can't say that I completely regret the connection I had with the other person. Regardless, I will not be keeping in touch with the other person ( as he is in a relationship as well) and there likely no chance that we will ever run into each other again.

I admit that I am really scared to tell my husband. One part of me feels that I should tell him, but a larger part of me feels that telling him would be more hurtful than helpful to our relationship. I read all these articles and blogs about how marriages are never the same and many times worse-off after one partner admits to cheating, so what is the benefit of telling if I never plan on doing it again?

I am feeling guilty, but wouldn't it be better to be the only person that feels bad than to drag him down with me? I realize the longer I wait to tell, the worse it will be when/if I do.
 
#87 ·
I would suggest that you write everything you wish to say to your husband in a letter. Give the letter to your husband and sit with him while he reads it and have him not say anything until he finishes completely when you have written. I comment you for being honest. It is the right thing to do. Good luck.
 
#88 ·
If you are remorseful, feel for him - and you say you love him- AND your husband is a mature person, you may have easier path.

It is going to be hard, very hard for him, remember.

He may take time to react, it is natural. The anger grows over weeks and months. The agony of betrayal is takes really long to subside....

Hard for both of you.

Take a good care. Choose a right time, right place, and right ambiance. Use right words.

Accept responsibility for what you have done.

Again, take care.
 
#95 ·
I told him.
He didn't ask me any questions. Just cursed and left. I left too, to give him his space. I left him a note and he texted me that he doesn't want to see me for a couple of days.
Am heartbroken, but can't complain, this is what was coming to me.

Should I call and text and email or wait for him to contact me? Should I send him flowers? Is there anything I can do at this point?
 
#96 ·
Flowers????? Tell you what, why don't you sit down and journal what you are feeling. And your thoughts. Leave him alone, text him once in the morning to let him know your whereabouts and then in the evening once. Let him know that no response is necessary, and that you just wanted to check in. Give him access to all your e-mail accounts, and passwords. Do you have kids?
 
#97 ·
No kids. Why are email passwords necessary? If he asks for it I will give them to him, but what good will offering them up do? Even when our relationship was good, we never exchanged email passwords. We have a shared bank account but we don't even share our separate pins.

And I'm sorry, but I've never cheated on someone before! I don't know how to go about trying to reconcile. I will call him in the morning, to be honest I've never liked the whole text thing. It avoids confrontation. But sincerely, thank you for your assistance, I will give hims pace till the morning.
 
#99 ·
No kids. Why are email passwords necessary? If he asks for it I will give them to him, but what good will offering them up do? Even when our relationship was good, we never exchanged email passwords. We have a shared bank account but we don't even share our separate pins.
Transparency, that's why.

All good, healthy marriages are made of transparency, openness and honesty. Maybe if your marriage had had more transparency, you would not be in the fix you are now.

And I'm sorry, but I've never cheated on someone before! I don't know how to go about trying to reconcile. I will call him in the morning, to be honest I've never liked the whole text thing. It avoids confrontation. But sincerely, thank you for your assistance, I will give hims pace till the morning
You only have to steal once to be a thief. Same with adultery.

Like it or not you have been branded with the scarlet letter. Its a permanent scar that will never fade. Accept what you did, take ownership of it, and drop the defensiveness. You can not afford to be defensive now. Your marriage is on the line, and its up to you to do the heavy lifting and take the lashes to repair it.

Get in touch with a marriage counselor tomorrow and set up an intake for you and your husband. Be proactive and start working to show your husband you want to make things right.
 
#98 ·
Give him space. Let him contact you.

Where are you? With friends, family? Have you let him know where you are staying? If you haven't you need to or else he'll think you're with the other man. His mind is racing a million miles an hour right now trying to cope with the atom bomb you just dropped on him.

Just be accessible and ready to come to him when he needs you. You'll probably want to take some time off work. You are in for one hell of a toboggan ride.

He may cry and fall apart. At that moment he will be more unattractive to you than you have ever seen him. Just hold him and reassure him that you are there. The next few weeks may be a nightmare as he "triggers" with the thoughts of you having sex with the other man. You are going to say "I'm sorry" over a million times. Get used to those two words, because you will be saying them alot. Might as well have a tattoo of those two words inscribed on your chest.

Men are visual thinkers, and right now there is a XXX porno playing over and over in your husband's head of you doing the nastiest sexual things to the other guy that a man can imagine, even if no such things really did happen. But this is what he will see with his waking eyes, over... and over... and over.

I don't envy you the coming months.
 
#101 ·
Tell him you love him. Tell him you are giving him space and that you will check in with him daily.

Let him know when he is ready to talk you will be there for him.

He needs to process what you have told him.

Again, Just let him know you will be there when he is ready to see you. His emotions will be all over the place.

I am glad you told him. If you really love him then hang on tight when he is ready.
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#102 ·
I didn't read this whole thread but I am screaming inside. This sounds fairly similar to what my wife did, only I found out about it on my own. The lies started and continued until I finally said enough is enough sometime last week. No chance to reconcile by withholding or not telling the truth. It's going to hurt like hell either way he finds out. In my opinion it will be worse the longer you wait or if he finds out on his own.

You obviously didn't respect your husband or marriage vows enough not to do this regardless of your marriage circumstances.

Selfish. Your marriage as you know it is over. Accept that fact and be ready for whatever he decides is best for him.

Edit-just read you told him. Hang on, the roller coaster is about to go full speed ahead.
 
#103 ·
You did the right thing in telling him. Your husband has a lot of questions right now. His imagination is running wild. He feels rejected, hurt and betrayed and doesn't know if he trusts you or can ever trust you again. He may be getting advice from friends, and the advice can be as brutal as some of the comments you've read here. When I found out, all but one person told me to leave her. That one person said, "do you love her? "what do you want", and then told me stories of couples she knew (and i knew) who had gone through the same thing and recovered. I was shocked. All of those couples seemed to me to have strong and happy marriages. The woman who gave the advice was my mother.

I've seen several suggestions, and I'll just pass them on without making a recommendation. One is for the WS to take a polygraph addressing if this was the only time, if you are committed to the marriage, if you love him. Don't tell him you are getting one and don't wait for him to request it. Just do it. If you fail, I wouldn't pass that along. If you pass, I'd send that along as a gift in lieu of flowers. Another suggestion I've seen is a fishbowl. The bowl is filled with any and every question he has. You answer each and every question honestly. If there are a lot of questions, you can spread out the process over time.
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#110 ·
One of my favorite contrition songs. You should listen to it. Its by Linda Rhonstadt. Its a song about somebody who would do anything, ANYTHING to restore what she lost.

Love has no pride.

I've had bad dreams too many times
To think that they don't mean much anymore
And fine times have gone and left my sad home
And the friends who once cared just walk out my door

But love has no pride when I call out your name
And love has no pride when there's no one to blame
But I'd give anything to see you again

I've been alone too many nights
To think that you could come back again
I've heard you talk
She's crazy to stay
But this love hurt's me so
I don't care what you say

But love has no pride when I call out your name
And love has no pride when there's no one to blame
But I'd give anything to see you again

If I could buy your love
Then I'd surely try my friend
And if I could pray
My prayers would never end
But if you want me to beg
I'll fall down on my knees
And ask you to come back
I'd be pleading for you to come back
I'd beg for you to come back to me

Love has no pride when I call out your name
And love has no pride when there's no one but myself to blame
But I'd give anything to see you again
Yes I'd give anything to see you again

If you aren't willing to do it. You don't want it that bad.
 
#116 ·
As I was reading this thread, I was trying to see things from the OP's advantage. She could choose to not tell her H and hope and pray that he doesn't find out. Then she could continue a marriage in which she feels empowered, capable of fooling around and getting away with whatever she wants and then thinking less and less of her husband because then she will start to wonder, how could he not know?

The other risk would be if her husband found out through other means; risk his feelings of having been betrayed twice and risking the collapse of her marriage at a time inconvenient for the OP.

This is why I am a big supporter of snooping now. I don't ever want to be in a relationship where I am making sacrifices for him only to learn that he is doing whatever he GDW pleases.

Before I unwound the EA situation with my boyfriend, I remember while we had busy (good busy I thought) weekend, Sunday was St. Patrick's Day. We stayed in and watched TV and drank a bit much.

He decided to bring up an unpleasant incident 3 months earlier in which a strange woman in the airport had approached us. When I realised that there was no common language between us, I tried to ignore her and create some space between us. (My personal security is never second to making some stranger feel comfortable). HE felt that I behaved "selfishly" towards her.

My boyfriend then went on to remind me of a less than positive remark I had made about him. I then reminded him that that was during the time that he was seeing his EA and I didn't like that I was being put in the one down position. She was just a friend, he said. (I later on found quite a bit of information that would suggest that if she was just a friend, then I was certainly getting a raw deal as a girlfriend,)

Now what was interesting about this exchange was that I later found out that his EA was one of those types that did the binge drinking, pub crawl stuff with her friends. HE had been invited to St. Pat's reveries with her the year before, lots of photos of the evening with him right there with her on her FB (this was before he met me), but not this year......because of me, I guess.

I really don't like it when anyone, in particular my partner, is dredging up some non issue to demonise me because he's missing something about an inappropriate relationship that he's supposed to be over.

These days, once I decide that the complaint is a non-issue, I do start digging deeper. Are you missing something or someone? Is there something you should be telling me? This is one way how affairs do get out to the BS.

OP, you could have slipped up too.
 
#129 ·
Leslie, I'm sending you compassion and hope. I commend you for your honesty. Carrying such a dark secret would have poisoned you and your relationship w/ your husband. Yes, some of the responses have been harsh, but as the bandit pointed out they are coming form people with fresh wounds. Right now your husband has been similarly wounded. It will take time and patience for him to heal. You will get differing advice as to how much detail to give him. I would suggest that you ask him what he wants to know, and then be as forthright as you can be. I, for one, did not want a lot of detail. I wanted to know who and why. It may be that you don't really know why at this point. I suggest that you see an IC as well as an MC to try to find out what it is about you that allowed this to happen. My wife was never able to address the affair directly. She answered my questions in terms of hypotheticals, such as "Why would someone do this or that?" In answering these questions she revealed a lot of intimate details about herself that I had not discovered in over 25 years of marriage. And now to offer the hope part- we are still together and we still lover each other more than 10 yrs later. My prayers are with you and your husband.
 
#130 ·
I personally wouldnt tell. Would you want to leave your husband and want to break your family (have kids)? There are somethings we will have to live with in secret, he also probably has secrets himself. I beleive you will grow out of it and realize your family is most important over everything and nothing should and can break that. All the best.
 
#132 ·
Give him space, as he requested. Follow his lead. A couple of days cooling off won't hurt you or the marriage. If you think it will help, write down your thoughts and then read it to him in counseling (that is if you don't think you can get out what you want to say, due to the stress of the situation).

You are going to find out about what is called triggering. You or he, will not know what triggers him initially, but you will find out. It could be something as innocuous as a street sign, or him not being able to contact you or find you for a mere moment in time. He could go into a depression, or he could become very clingy. He may want sex all the time (which is called hysterical bonding) in trying to take back what is his. Or he could get physically sick and throw up at your touch. No one knows how the betrayed spouse will react.

Get some books and read them. There is a reading list available.

Did either of you ever state to one another that any infidelity would be quits?
 
#152 ·
Did either of you ever state to one another that any infidelity would be quits?
This was probably the main reason why I didn't want to tell him. He has been cheated on before by previous girlfriends and told me it was a dealbreaker. I've never cheated on or been cheated on by anyone else before.

I hate to ask what is likely a stupid question, but sometimes the obvious can get missed. Have you told him you are sorry?
Yes, I have. I am trying to take the advice from some other thread about trying to keep reinforcing what I'm sorry about when I apologize. I am also telling him that I love him, because I sincerely do...I know it's something I have to show more than ever. I just hope he gives me the chance to.

I am giving him space.

We may be able to help you find some of those answers but you have to give us more details on the steps that lead you to be sexually intimate with the OM.
Maybe later tonight.
 
#133 ·
Don't feel like you're the only one Leslie. My marriage was really good when I cheated to. It took my EA for my wife and I to realize that we had both become complacent and comfortable in the relationship - we had stopped "dating" each other.

I hate to ask what is likely a stupid question, but sometimes the obvious can get missed. Have you told him you are sorry? You cannot say it too many times, even if he wants his space. That and "I love you" (assuming it's genuine) he cannot hear to many times. Hearing them may cause him to backlash at you with questions like, "then why the fvck did you do this to me?" Answer as best you can and say them again. And again. And again.
 
#134 · (Edited)
Many of you are serious? You really recommend taking the victim's choices away? Sick...it's all just sick.

You've no right. Once you pass from entitlement into "protection", you've entered into the place where only one belongs. You are not a "God", you have no right in this place.

To treat another with appropriate care...one must let go of self. If you truly respect another you really are in a position of "letting go". Until you understand it is no longer under your control you've really learned nothing and clearly care only for yourself. "I" as a betrayed owe you anything? You are owed absolutely nothing. You deserve nothing. You harbor a secret that will forever taint your future. For everyday YOU choose YOU, you prove you really are nothing.

I guess our level of integrity is always at our own whim. Pity...for a good person is one of humility and understands he is selfish and works contrary to his autonomic reaction to "life". Because, life, the living of life, is little more than the selfish application of our "integrity". Sadly, it is rarely for the good of another.

Choose as you will. I've no doubt your guide will be you...surely not him. Your sin will become deeper and deeper.
 
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