Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know your wife- if she the type who would rather know everything even if it hurts? Or would she rather you keep it to yourself? If she'd rather know and you choose not to tell her, then you are being selfish and betraying her further. If you know she would rather not hear about some one time indiscretion, then respect that and don't tell her.

Agree with this. Before we got married, DH and I talked about whether we would want to know if the other cheated. I know that he would want to know so were I ever to cheat, I would tell him, regardless of whether it was a one time f*ck up or a long term thing. He knows that I don't want to know if it was a one time f*ck up, that the guilt is his to deal with and to leave me out of it. I only want to know if it's a long term thing, at which point our marriage would be over.

It really depends on your wife, OP. As you can see, there are cheated on partners on both sides of this, some want to know, some don't.

That is a weird premarriage conversation

Really? Don't most couples talk about this "what if" at some point? Cheating is more likely to happen than not, at some point, statistically. My spouse and I had the conversations, we both said we prefer not to know. Actually, my words to my spouse were clear that if they cheat, they better be smart enough not to get caught and don't embarrass me. The thought of my spouse having sex with someone isn't paralyzing so much as dealing with the gossipers, and of course the potential of screwing up children in a divorce.

It takes a pretty vile person to happily lie to their life partner every day. Way more vile than the cheating.

If you keep it secret you damned well better feel bad about it.

I assume I am in the majority when I detail these facts: cheated, was never caught, never told spouse, don't really feel that guilty about it. Rarely think about it, I have moved on.

I mention this because of all these posts that cry: "you will look at your poor wife differently every morning over breakfast..." WTF? Seriously? I mean, I think to cheat in the first place you have to recognize the difference between AP lust and marital love. And compartmentalization.

Point being, of course you don't tell, OP. Shut your mouth, in a few years time, your AP will be a faded memory, no different than that girl you dated for a few months back in college (what was her name again?)

Anonymous wrote:I ended it and then quit my job so that I won't be on the same project that takes me to the city where I met her. While I can never be positive of anything, when I told her that I couldn't continue and that I couldn't see or contact her anymore, she said she understood and agreed that it was the right thing to do.

To the PP who said it wasn't a mistake, there are different levels of mistakes. My mistake was underestimating the magnitude of my actions. I was mistaken to think that this was just trivial and only affected me so I could handle it. That was a grave mistake and I will never forget it.

Your relationship with your wife has been permanently changed.

You can either keep this secret and live the rest of your life trying to atone for the fact that you lie by omission every morning when you see your wife's face, or you can tell her and deal with the fallout of your betrayal.

No matter what any of us thinks you should or shouldn't tell her, you need to be discussing this with a therapist. If you do decide to tell her you will want that guidance and support - and if you decide not to tell her, you're going to need some help coping with the fact you'll be living a lie for the rest of your life. Either way, professional guidance will help you salvage what you can and make the best choices moving forward.

Anonymous wrote:That's what I'm talking about. It's my burden. I don't want to give it to her. But I also don't know if it's right to tell her. Do I owe her that?

Honoring your marriage vows is what you "owe" her, but you've already effed that up. Re-devote yourself to your marriage, protect her by not telling her and wait until next time. Because you WILL stray again

Anonymous wrote:I ended it and then quit my job so that I won't be on the same project that takes me to the city where I met her. While I can never be positive of anything, when I told her that I couldn't continue and that I couldn't see or contact her anymore, she said she understood and agreed that it was the right thing to do.

To the PP who said it wasn't a mistake, there are different levels of mistakes. My mistake was underestimating the magnitude of my actions. I was mistaken to think that this was just trivial and only affected me so I could handle it. That was a grave mistake and I will never forget it.

You sound very remorseful and I feel for you. Truly.

My take is that you want to tell because it's eating you up inside. You don't want to grow old with this woman knowing you betrayed her.

But she may not be able to forgive.

Think therapy to start is the way to go.

Don't tell. But don't think it won't happen again, either.

I ended it and then quit my job so that I won't be on the same project that takes me to the city where I met her. While I can never be positive of anything, when I told her that I couldn't continue and that I couldn't see or contact her anymore, she said she understood and agreed that it was the right thing to do.

To the PP who said it wasn't a mistake, there are different levels of mistakes. My mistake was underestimating the magnitude of my actions. I was mistaken to think that this was just trivial and only affected me so I could handle it. That was a grave mistake and I will never forget it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know your wife- if she the type who would rather know everything even if it hurts? Or would she rather you keep it to yourself? If she'd rather know and you choose not to tell her, then you are being selfish and betraying her further. If you know she would rather not hear about some one time indiscretion, then respect that and don't tell her.

Agree with this. Before we got married, DH and I talked about whether we would want to know if the other cheated. I know that he would want to know so were I ever to cheat, I would tell him, regardless of whether it was a one time f*ck up or a long term thing. He knows that I don't want to know if it was a one time f*ck up, that the guilt is his to deal with and to leave me out of it. I only want to know if it's a long term thing, at which point our marriage would be over.

It really depends on your wife, OP. As you can see, there are cheated on partners on both sides of this, some want to know, some don't.

That is a weird premarriage conversation

OP - why/how did your affair end? And how do you know that your AP won't be happy about the affair being over and tell your wife?

OP, why did you cheat and why do you want to tell her? I don't think she would want to hear about your affair. Why do you want her to know?

Anonymous wrote:I had an affair. It was a mistake. I was weak and acted selfishly. It is over and I want to devote all of my energy to my marriage. Should I come clean to her or should I bury that secret?

An affair is not "a mistake." Leaving your coat at the gym is a mistake. Buying the wrong kind of milk is a mistake. An affair is a series, possibly hundreds or thousands, of willful lies and deceptions. Don't minimize it.

If she suspects, you are better off coming clean. If she suspects and asks and you deny (which is what most cheaters so), your trust is destroyed if it comes out later that you were lying all this time.

If she doesn't suspect, I recommend you confess to a counselor or a priest or a clergy. Unload the burden of guilt you are carrying, but don't saddle her with it unecessarily.

Anonymous wrote:You do not want your wife to know. I cheated on my husband and when he found out it destroyed him. He will never be the same because of my actions. It has also hurt my children in ways I can't describe. It has been over three years of hell.
You also need to get individual therapy and figure out why you did what you did and work on yourself so that you don't ever cheat again. You may think you won't do it again right now, but you may become vulnerable in the future.

PP, I hope you realize that the reason you probably cheated on your husband in the first place wasn't even for the sex. It was to set up the moment when you knew you were going to look into his eyes and tell him.

And destroy him. Probably you are very passive aggressive and had lots of resentment to your husband when you had the affair.

What you obviously didn't anticipate isn't just that it destroyed your husband, but hurt your children.

But that's because most cheaters are pretty stupid, but worse than being stupid, they don't think they're stupid. They think they're smarter than everyone else, but they're not. That's the worse kind of stupid.

Anonymous wrote:Personally, I'd be beyond pissed if I found out about it years later. The one thing I truly hate is being lied to. However, I think most people would rather not know. Only you know your wife well enough to know which category she falls under. Obviously if there's a child or STD involved you need to tell her.

What most people want is that their partner did not cheat on them. But it's too late for that at this stage.

Once the cheating has happened, the telling or not telling (or finding out some other way) is going to either happen or not. Any ill effects on the marriage from the telling, or not telling, is due to the cheating, and possibly the cover-up of the cheating--not from the finding out/not finding out.

Unfortunately, you can't unfuck a lady whore or a man whore (check the box for whichever applies).

There are no good choices for the cheater. Tell, and you risk blowing up the marriage. Don't tell, and you lose any hope of ever having an ethical honest loving relationship with your spouse--it's all a sham--and you can never make amends for what you did.

This kind of thinking--"should I tell or not tell"--should have happened BEFORE you put you cheated.

It amazes me that cheaters are such stupid people as to not even think about this AHEAD of time. If OP had done that and thought about consequences maybe he wouldn't have cheated.

Why do you cheating morons think the rest of us DON'T cheat when the marriage gets stale or for whatever reason? Not necessarily because we're paragons of virtue, because no one is. It's because of things like this. We actually think about the future i.e. dealing with the whole rest of our lives five seconds after getting our nut off in the whore and how unpleasant it might be to be in your position.

If it were true that the affair has no affected your marriage in any way, even undisclosed, then it might possibly be practical (but not ethical) to not tell.

However, affairs have ripple affects damaging to the marriage even if undisclosed, which the person who had the affair is in no position to judge. Unless OP you are greatly the exception, you do not have any good choices here. Either way--telling or not telling--will have extremely negative consequences for your marriage.

Unfortunately, son, you can't unfuck a whore.