# Should you confess a one-night stand to your spouse?



## Alexandra

Some posters on here have expressed that they wish they had never known about the A. What do you think? Should you confess it? How long afterwards is too long?

What is the best way to confess it? What's the best way to respond? 

Tell me your opinions, experiences, scenarios, etc. Have at it.


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## Deejo

It's all so subjective.

There was a poster here some time ago who discovered her husband's one night stand after 20 years. By her own account, 20 wonderful years. The discovery left her completely disillusioned.


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## michzz

and I don't blame her for being disillusioned.


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## jessi

boy this is a tough one, 
I think each situation is different and each couple will handle the news differently. 
I think if the infidelity was a one night stand and meant nothing to the husband/wife and they ackowledged themselves as a mistake and the marriage was good other than the one incident than maybe it's best not to know......
If it's an affair where there is feelings for the OW/OM then an confession is in oder, it's not fair to the spouse and it's best to hear the news from them instead of someone else, that way they will also have a choice on how to handle the situation.
I think every couple is different with this kind of situation, some will feel strongly about it, others won't ........some will be open and understanding, some will end the marriage.....
I think this kind of news changes how you trust and what you believe it also opens one's self to all kinds of questions of self doubt, one answer isn't right for everyone here


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## OhGeesh

I've said it countless times and I'll say it again here:

I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW!!! 


It could be every year I don't care I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!!

The way I see it it's all about realities and the reality is if I'm happy, life is good, all tangible factors say our marriage is great and I'm freaking happy, don't screw it up and tell me!!

Normally affairs will prevent this happy utopia type of marriage from happenning, but I'm in one now, and she could be doing whatever..........I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!!


Some examples in life would be owning a previously wrecked or flooded car or a house with major termite damage or not built to code, but you would never know because there are no signs. If someone told you it would mess everything up and you would start to hate your car and house or "whatever".

If I'm happy and everything is great let me live in the dark and go do your thing........I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!!!


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## Choose2love

If its not affecting the quality of the marriage, dont need to know. If its the elephant in the room, and infecting the relationship in even small ways (reduced or stopped loving gestures, lack of intimacy and sex etc) the spouse knows something has changed anyway... come clean and move on, either together or apart.


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## christmaslady

So if you don't want to know and later find out (from other sources); how do you respond? Personally while I don't want to know....I also don't want to feel like a fool when everyone else knows and/or the OW knows and thinks that they are "getting over" on me. It is never easy to deal with, but I think that it would be easier if my significant other came to me, told me and we discussed it rather than hearing it in the streets, approaching them and having them lie etc. until they are ready to confront the truths.


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## DawnD

I honestly can say that I would confess, and that I would want my H to. He waited 18 months to tell me, and that about pushed me over the edge. I almost felt robbed, like I should have been told right then so I could decide what I wanted. Great he found that he wanted me, but maybe I wouldn't have wanted him, you know. We are working it out, but he also now realizes that us staying together should have been a choice we both make, not just him. That is just me though, I think everyone is really different when it comes to these things.


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## Atholk

Most times telling the spouse is just to salve your guilty conscious to make you feel better. So its really just about the cheaters emotional feelings really and not about wanting to enlighten the spouse.

If you're going to cheat, at least be a proper player, shut up about it and move on. If it blows up in the future, well that's the risk you were willing to take when you cheated anyway.

My hunch is the almost all cheaters that make a confession without the spouse trying to corner them into making one, come to regret it. Some marriages and families that would have continued on quite happily shatter when a one time drunken **** 12 years ago comes to light in a moment of weakness. In some cases telling is the most selfish and destructive cruelty.


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## boomer

I would most definitely want to be told. I do not know if I could forgive the action but I would try. In the event I found out on my own I don't even know what I would do.


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## swedish

To put me at a risk of an STD or worse and not tell me...no thanks. I would want to be respected enough to be told so I could decide where to go from there.


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## turnera

What kind of marriage do you have if you don't know the truth about each other? If you withhold painful secrets? How can you achieve a better marriage, if you dole out only what makes you look good? How can you ever feel safe with someone if you don't tell each other the truth?


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## brighterlight

Deejo said:


> It's all so subjective.
> 
> There was a poster here some time ago who discovered her husband's one night stand after 20 years. By her own account, 20 wonderful years. The discovery left her completely disillusioned.


On the other side of the coin, her husband will never forget it and it may eat at him. Can you imagine 20 years of holding that secret from someone you "love". I can't; sorry folks but I want to know so that I don't find out 20 years later and feel like my marriage has all been a lie. And what if you find out from someone else. Get it out in the open so you can live with a clean healthy conscience and be abel to honestly work on repairing your marriage.

I don't know about you guys but, if I had the one nighter, I don't think I could look at my W everyday in the face and not feel like I am betraying whatever trust we had in our marriage - and for 20 years eating away at me - no way. I don't see how you, as the cheater can be genuinely completely happy. In my opinion, come clean and deal with the fall out it's better than living a lie.


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## OhGeesh

turnera said:


> What kind of marriage do you have if you don't know the truth about each other? If you withhold painful secrets? How can you achieve a better marriage, if you dole out only what makes you look good? How can you ever feel safe with someone if you don't tell each other the truth?


I just told you didn't I? My life is freaking great!!

Date night, open, know each of our past lovers, have plans, share in each others dreams, sacrifice, raise kids, vacations, fun in the bedroom, hence I LOVE MY MARRIAGE!!

So, like I said, if she went on a trip and had a one night stand and still acted 95% the same. I DON'T WANT TO FREAKING KNOW!!

Understand or NO? My marriage, my choice, I don't want to know.


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## wifeinlove

that is a tough one. What would you gain from telling him? What is the cost? Can you live with not telling him?

I think its better to be told than to find out. On one hand, Im not sure if it is better to know something that may have no significance to your life right now. On the other, by not telling him you are taking away his choices/rights.

My husband lied to me for years, he took away all my choices and now 2 kids later, things are complicated. But at the end of the day... when he finally asked me "do you really want to know the truth? It may change your life" and I said "yes, Id rather live in a painful reality than beautiful illusion, I rather the truth than a lie, no matter the cost ". I have reconsidered this decision many times, because what he told me changed my life forever and there is no going back to what was before. 

In hindsight, though I needed to know though, because it was affecting everything. THe price of pain was worth the opportunity for change. But in your situation, I just cant see any opportunity for gain...

Im leaning towards... Live your lives together, be happy.... sometimes its true that what you dont know cant hurt you.


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## Kobo

OhGeesh said:


> I just told you didn't I? My life is freaking great!!
> 
> Date night, open, know each of our past lovers, have plans, share in each others dreams, sacrifice, raise kids, vacations, fun in the bedroom, hence I LOVE MY MARRIAGE!!
> 
> So, like I said, if she went on a trip and had a one night stand and still acted 95% the same. I DON'T WANT TO FREAKING KNOW!!
> 
> Understand or NO? My marriage, my choice, I don't want to know.


"...open, know each of our past lovers..." If she hasn't told you about one night stand(s) then these are not valid. Not to mention needing to both be checked for STDs and your neighbor telling his buddies about when he had your wifes feet behind her neck. Other than that the marraige is perfect.


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## manchild

This is not tough at all

NO you shouldn't tell 

Why? because telling your partner is only alleviating your own guilt and burden

now what do they have to look forward to?

1 everytime you leave their vicinity, maybe you are cheating
2 everytime an attractive member of the opposite sex walks by, maybe they are considering cheating
3 that the marriage once pure and innocent is tainted and it can never recover its absolute innoncence ever again
4 that for whatever reason they aren't good enough


so please please please if it is a one night stand do the right thing, keep it to yourself and bear the burden

on the other hand if it happens more than once.........perhaps you shouldn't be married?!?


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## DameEdna

Some interesting replies. 

I particularly admire OhGeesh for being so determined he wouldnt want to know.

In this day + age with the internet, both my hubby + I chat to others of the opposite sex. We used to do it openly in front of each other, until it became a huge issue. Now we keep it discrete. So that neither of us knows what each other is doing on the computer. I, for one, dislike the fact that he's sitting in the corner on the laptop probably flirting and chatting with another woman, whilst I am sat a few feet away watching TV

I have suspected he may have met at least one woman for coffee. I think I could handle that kind of "confession!" I think it would change the course of our TWENTY year marriage to find out if he had had a full blown affair, or had sex with others. 

I believe if I had that sort of confession to make (that's I may have had an affair/sex with others) I believe he would NOT want to know either.

There is something to be said about ignorance being bliss. We have a generally happy family life (with two teenagers) quite well off financially and go on some wonderful holidays. It's the kind of lifestyle we have grown to love and enjoy.

There ARE secrets between us, and I dont like it at all, but I have to balance out the rest of our life together and ignore those secrets. 

Not ideal for a marriage really but it seems to work for us.


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## cb45

the truth usually wins out in the end as best 4 everyone.

yes, it has its price. but it should bring out realities in marr'd life, not support illusions. 
yes, i can identify w/ those who wish to live a happy/charmed life. but F-4/F-5's r inevitable sometime in yer life(tornadoes 4 those outside USA) and if yer life is based on the sand of superficialities vs the rock of reality well,........


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## Lyn

Honesty and transparency (and love) is what heals marriages.

Best,

Lyn


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## tobiasmandrake

going through the same thing wife insists that Nothing happened but the pain that you go through is unbelievable the hurt feeling for not knowing which way to go almost feel as though i should not have known so i can understand


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## Runawaytrain

Gosh that depends. If it was a drunken one night stand and there really is no way your spouse could possibly find out. You don't know that person, they don't know you, you never see them again. It was a mistake, you feel like an ass but you've learned from it and it will never happen again, do NOT tell me. I wouldn't want to know. I really wouldn't. However, on the flip side, if there is the slightest chance I could find out anytime down the road such as if the OW knows me or communicates with me or friends of mine, I would much rather know from you then her. Trust me, I know this to be true because I found out about my husband's one night stand from the OW. He never would of told me. I wish she hadn't either because the one night stand happened when he was drunk and we were at the lowest point of our marriage considering divorce. I wasn't happy and neither was he. But things were getting better for us until the OW decided to spill her guts to me 5 months after the one night stand. Now our marriage is worse than it ever was because I feel completely disillusioned. I don't know what my vows mean anymore now that my H has broken them. When I found out, he confessed also to kissing two other women besides this OW during our five year marriage. I was much happier before I knew all this. What good did it really do. I'm still with him. Only now I'm depressed, anxious, self conscious, and scared out of my mind that it's going to happen again or I'm going to find something new out that happened maybe 2 years ago.


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## 2Boys

manchild said:


> This is not tough at all
> 
> NO you shouldn't tell
> 
> Why? because telling your partner is only alleviating your own guilt and burden
> 
> now what do they have to look forward to?
> 
> 1 everytime you leave their vicinity, maybe you are cheating
> 2 everytime an attractive member of the opposite sex walks by, maybe they are considering cheating
> 3 that the marriage once pure and innocent is tainted and it can never recover its absolute innoncence ever again
> 4 that for whatever reason they aren't good enough so please please please if it is a one night stand do the right thing, keep it to yourself and bear the burdenon the other hand if it happens more than once.........perhaps you shouldn't be married?!?


Well, I agree with this assessment. I am dealing with this and to tell you, it gives you one hell of head job.


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## gbrad

Whether it be a one night stand or an affair that lasts awhile; I would not want to know. What I don't know, doesn't hurt me, let me live in peace. Even with saying that, cheating is something I have always felt it is something I could forgive. If the person wants to be forgiven, wants to stay with me, and I want the same thing, then okay. 
At the same time, if it were me the one doing the cheating, I would do everything in my power to keep it a secret and keep the wife from finding out. It is bad enough that the act was done, they don't need the pain of knowing about it.


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## 2Boys

Gbrad, my situation is complicated and I am having trouble trying to move on. So many things has happened that just complicated the matter and kinda snowballed into this one huge mess.


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## RandomDude

Alexandra said:


> Some posters on here have expressed that they wish they had never known about the A. What do you think? Should you confess it? How long afterwards is too long?
> 
> What is the best way to confess it? What's the best way to respond?
> 
> Tell me your opinions, experiences, scenarios, etc. Have at it.


Years ago before marriage while me and the missus were still just bf/gf I had a one-night-stand in a party after the ridicolous disagreements and fights I had with her. I was incredibly drunk and to be honest I can't really remember much...

Ne ways, I've regretted it the next morning but too late - another girl who liked me at the party felt the NEED to get involved and tell the missus, I lied to her... but too bad, enough witnesses, and I had to confess. That destroyed our trust - and to this day has not even been fully repaired.

It was also a real challenge winning her back two years later, she is one of those "I'm this and that, so I deserve this and that" type of women. But one thing led to another, yet even then we only ended up physically involved our second time through. Until the baby bells rang... and... yeah, all hell broke loose.

We have always loved each other but this particular incident which shouldn't have happened and would NEVER ever happen again (I also can't drink anymore since I now have pancreatitis from excessive drinking) still haunts us. Looking back, it would have been better not for her to know.

It's enough that I have to put up with the guilt of what I did, she doesn't deserve to have to suffer it too, but she's been suffering it for years. Sometimes it's best not to know - ignorance is bliss yes? As long as it doesn't EVER happen again.


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## 2Boys

I still don't know if there was anyone else since I've been lied to to my face for the last 13 years. And yeah, it is hard to over come when he infected me with something.


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## joanne.kent

I have been reading that people would want to be told, but the question is would you tell. I am ashamed of what i did to my husband and all of the guilt that came along with knowing that i cheated even if we were seperated. A part of me did not want to tell him. The truth of the matter is no matter how many times i denied cheating on him when i finally came clean it was like a million pounds lifted off my shoulders. Yes my life would have been a hell of a lot easier if i would have kept it to myself, but my husband deserves to know. I had a lapse of judgement and i hurt the one man in the world i love the most.....i just had to tell him. Just keep in mind sometimes it gets rough and sometimes its like old times, but u may think it will never be the same. I have hope that one day it will be back to normal and what i did will be a distant memory.


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## swimmer

I have very mixed emotions on this. My H and I had a pool party at our house in which we all were very drunk just a couple of months ago. We have/had some very close friends, whom I later found out were swingers, that have shared in some major events our our lives, i.e. daughters wedding out of the country, etc. On this night, I found my H and the OW in my bathroom. She was naked and he was sitting on the toilet. He stated he "went there" but could not complete the act due to realizing what he was doing. Needless to say, it got very ugly, and he has been beating himself up with shame ever since. I haven't decided if I want to continue with this marriage or not. I have good days and then something will trigger and the images will re-appear and I set-back for days. The biggest thing that makes me want to "not" work it out, is that I asked him if I wouldn't have walked in, would he have told me about it? He said he didn't know. That itself, is the worst thing, because this would have been the 3 of them's deep dark dirty little secret while we continued to hang out with them. Knowing is a must in our case, because the only way this marriage has even the most remote possibility of working is the elimination of these friends. Even then, the hurt is all consuming!!


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## morituri

Swimmer,

As a fellow betrayed spouse, I am sorry that you have become a member of the club nobody should ever be a member of.

May I suggest that instead of reviving dead threads that are most likely going to be ignored, why don't you start a new one which will get much more visibility and more input from forum members.

You have come to the right place to get the emotional support you need. You are not alone.


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## Jellybeans

morituri said:


> May I suggest that instead of reviving dead threads that are most likely going to be ignored, why don't you start a new one which will get much more visibility and more input from forum members.


I agree. A lot of old threads have been getting brought back from the dead.


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## lovestruckout

There's an article written in Time magazine "why we have affairs - and why not to tell". In the spirit of this thread it's a good read. I personally don't agree, but then, I wish I never found out my wife had cheated on me throughout our marriage. But I also wish she had the ability to stop it on her own. Sadly, it would have gone on forever.


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## Runs like Dog

Would you refuse to tell your kid she's adopted?


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## Soccerfan73

I'm not a huge fan of STD's, so I would personally like to know if I was put in jeopardy of getting one by my wandering spouse.


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## Entropy3000

What you don't know can hurt you ... badly.

Also if it does not matter then why not have a series of ONSs when you know that you will not get caught? This is where the 68% of women would cheat and 75% of men would cheat if they knew they could get away with it. So just have blind trust in each other!?

If I had a ONS, I would know. It is foolish to believe that having a ONS would not impact your marriage. It most certainly would. For one, it makes you a cheater. Then why not cheat again?

I understand the question is different. About telling your spouse. BUT it leads to the thinking that as long as the BS does not know they are fine with it. It also feeds the the, it was just a mistake [email protected] How many times are we going to hear people blame a ONS on drinking. Total BS.


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## cowgirl70

I found out years after it happened. I always knew something had happened but thanks to FB I finally got confirmation.. It would have been so much easier to have heard it from my H. He made a mistake and we are moving forward as we would of then if he had been honest with me then. It is still painful but it is also fresh. You need to look at your marriage and see if it can with stand the blow. But you also need to make sure that they hear it from you & not someone else.


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