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[quote=Anonymous]I'm launching this thread hoping for a thoughtful discussion, not dismissive or judgmental remarks about other people's big mistakes in life.  This discussion comes up in various threads on cheating - some people think it's better for the spouse to know, and some people say the spouse probably already does know and is making the choice to stay, and some people say it's not the place of the cheater-with-regrets to inform the spouse that she's married to a cheater.  I find all of those comments spectacularly unhelpful and would hope someone would not make the big decision to inform a wife of her cheating husband based on some throw-away remarks on an anonymous forum.  But I would still like to consider, in a less venomous way, what is in a spouse's best interests.

In my past I briefly cheated and made the decision to end it and come clean to my husband.  Our marriage nearly collapsed but did endure; most of the shock waves settled down within a year though I'm sure there will always be some issues.  You can't just wave a magic wand and make big mistakes go away.

But at the time, when I was receiving counseling during and after the crisis, my counselor scolded me soundly for telling my husband.  She said it was my cross to bear, that telling him was just meant to ease my own conscience but it transferred a big burden on to him, that if I were genuinely concerned about him I should have protected my marriage in the first place, and since I didn't, I shouldn't have made things worse by telling him something that would rock our marriage and his ego.  I should have made things better by living a better life, not trying to hope that coming clean would erase some of the damage.

And yet my husband, distressed as he was, said he definitely preferred to know than never to have known.  And I didn't see how I could go on for the rest of our lives keeping a big secret; to me, that would be continuing a deception and worsening the damage, whether or not he would ever find out.

I still don't know.  And I still sometimes think about it in relation to the wife of the man I cheated with.  I sometimes wonder if she would be better off knowing she's married to a cheater and if I should tell her, or just mind my own business and do no further harm to that marriage than I've already done.  I seriously don't think I would ever tell her, because I really want the past to remain in the past for my own sake.  I know the guy has been with other people before me and was looking for other women after me.  But it's not my problem any more.  As I see it, the best thing I can do is just move on and try to live a good life.  Maybe the occasional thought about contacting her is just my conscience rearing its ugly head again and wanting to find more peace, and I have to realize I can only find peace within myself, not by making things uglier around me.

I would appreciate reflections from others who have been in a similar situation, either as one cheated on or one who cheated in the past and regrets it.
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