SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I could do with some advice.

Married 15 years. Had extremely intense unrequited feelings for a colleague a few years ago. H found out, very angry, told me never to mention him ever again. I didn’t deal with it. I became split. Person I was at home, person I was outside of home. Had an extremely brief PA with a colleague of the colleague. Moved jobs. Ended up embroiled with another colleague - this one a 10 month PA. We were found out at work and told not to see each other. But respective partners do not know. The relationship is not active (since April).

I am a mess, I know. I need to go to SLAA. There’s a lot I need to face up to in terms of my inability to maintain boundaries with men.

I left home in August. I made the decision that I was doing what I knew my husband would do were he to know. It was so painful. I did not want to disclose - I don’t want to collapse his world, and I wanted to avoid an ugly divorce for the sake of my children. I am not protecting myself, I am protecting them. I have no self esteem and think I deserve nothing but pain and punishment.

I have told him I have an issue with sex, and boundaries, and validation. I have disclosed the crappy one-night PA. I thought that alone would make him understand that he should not love me and that he was better off without me. But he still loves me and is being so kind to me, he is giving me the space to work things out. Things are very peaceful and loving between us now, better than they have been for years. We miss each other.

I understand that I have not been a safe partner for him, and I am trying to protect him from me.

I love him very much, and if I could I would start again. I want to do the work and I’m willing to do what it takes - tracking apps, anything. I have been completely persuaded by reading this forum that I cannot go back and have an authentic relationship with him unless he knows who it is he is loving. But I think telling him the truth will break him and break us.

He has an issue himself around sex. Part of our troubles stemmed from him becoming fixated on who I’d slept with before we were together and highly suspicious about whether I was being faithful (this before anything happened. I fulfilled the prophecy). I cannot believe he has forgiven me for what he knows (literally - I think he has just buried it) and I don’t believe he will forgive me for becoming emotionally involved with someone else even if it is over. He has trusted me after I told him that I felt trapped by his lack of trust and suspicion. The one thing he asks for is faithfulness. And I broke all of it.

So, my question to this forum: is full disclosure really the best choice here? If I have already left, should I just continue on this path to divorce no matter how painful it is to me (and to him), when there’s still so much love left, and continue to hold this secret? (Yes, there is risk of uncontrolled disclosure from other sources). Or is the authentic and brave thing to do to choose the truth which is 99% likely to lead to divorce anyway, but a very ugly and heartbroken one where our children are the ones to lose?

And if I should disclose, how on earth do I do it? Where do I start? I am lost.

[This message edited by Splitlife at 11:24 AM, Saturday, September 23rd]

Not sure what you want to do, but if you want to try again, you need to disclose first. If you can, let a therapist help you with that. If not, you may want to write a long letter of confession, with your feelings towards him, your issues, timeline, again your feelings towards him and fears and hopes for the future. That way you will be able to convey all relevant info without your shame and his anger getting in the way.

I think you need to tell him everything. His heart and mind need to know who he is loving so he can make healthy choices for himself. Depriving him of this information is a kind of abuse in my mind....he has one life; please don't let him be deluded and defrauded over the most important things.

You already know the right thing to do. By continuing to withhold information you are continuing the affairs. If you reconcile, and he learns later who you really are, it will be FAR more devastating than if you told him now. Don't use your kids as a reason. By being honest and doing the work on yourself now, you have a higher chance of being a safe partner for someone in the future. It may just not be with your husband.
Stay strong.

I see a lot of you but little of him in your post.

I want to make the following suggestion:

Be totally frank with him. Ask him what he wants and see if you two can find a common path.

Ask him to sit down with you and start by sharing that you aren’t certain divorce is what you want but that you feel this immense weight that you need to deal with irrespective of how your relationship goes. Then tell him you want him to know the truth and what you are doing to improve yourself.
Then tell him the truth. Tell him what actions you are taking to change. Share what progress you feel or see and how you envision healing. Not the marriage – but YOU.
Make it clear you need to heal irrespective of your relationship.
Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Tell him you feel like you don’t deserve this marriage but that if you had the option you would choose to stay.
Ask him what he wants.

Ask yourself what you two can do to get the goal that you two agree to.
If that goal is divorce by his choice, then so be it.
If it’s to slow the process down, so be it.
If it’s to work on the marriage, so be it.

Only… don’t leave with a decision. Leave with a decision and a PLAN.
Like – we have decided mutually to divorce so let’s get a mediator on this.
Or… - We have decided to pause things and see if we can save the marriage so it’s your task to book an MC and we both commit to seeing him for 3 months.

I want to add my voice to what Bigger has said. I would like to add that if you find it helpful to discuss your journey with us then please continue as you travel this sometimes lonely path.

Splitlife,

Yes tell him everything.

He can then process if he wishes to stay with you based on truth, you can't get yourself out of the hole you made with lies with more lies.

Possibly you even went into the marriage lying about your history.

Also telling him everything allows you to be honest with your next partner, if it comes to that, you can tell that person I regret my behavior and I told him everything because I wanted to become truthful for the rest of my life. I now value my integrity.

I mean this with kindness, but I read your post and my first thought was "who are you really trying to convince with this one, your BH or yourself?"

There is a lot of self-talk about your issues with boundaries, sex and validation. Also, I pick up some massive undertones of self-esteem in the toilet and no self-love. You sort of alluded to the fact that why would your husband want to love you because of who and what you are (perhaps you see yourself as some sort of monster).

I have to pause and assure you that while your affairs do not show you in a positive light, you are by no means a horrible, awful person that is not worthy of a personal redemption. You took a monumental first step here today by making your first post on the topic. The woman that you were that had that PA is in the past. The woman you are going to be from here forward is completely in your control.

It is also clear from your post that despite the very terrible things you have done, that you still have a pretty deep love for your husband and at the very least you are very conflicted as to what to do about that going forward. I want to push back on one thing you said, you are not protecting your children nor your husband from you by running away and trying to hide from your affairs. Your affairs took time away from your relationship with your husband, but they also took time away from your children. So either way, your children have lost out on you now and as you did mention, in a divorce situation, they would lose out, but those are the consequences to the affair you choose to have. I'm sure you can remember a time in the recent past, during your A that you were maybe texting or calling your AP in the presence of your kids and/or husband, you were giving your time, the only thing that we have that is finite, to your AP and taking it from them. So, as I say, the hurt and suffering that your family may have to go through as a result of your affairs has been baked in for a while now.

You are right about your read on the forum here. You can never really be fully committed to your marriage or frankly as a mother until you unburden yourself about what you have done. Your relationship with your BH can never be a close and intimate bond if you are keeping these tremendously large secrets from him. Also, by keeping those secrets, you are robbing him of his agency and importantly his time. You have correctly deduced that one of the possible outcomes here is that he does leave you and end the marriage, which he would be well within his rights to do. He deserves to know the truth about his wife so that he can have all the information necessary to make decisions about his own future and the future of your children.

I think for how to disclose, you should do it very soon and you should do it in full transparency from the beginning. Sit down and dedicate time to writing out a timeline of your affair from the beginning all the way through to the end as you mentioned in April. Go through your phone records, emails, text logs, calendar invites, or wherever else you may have information about times and dates of your A to construct a detailed and accurate timeline. This is a useful exercise because not only will it help you to see your affairs in this more cold and calculated way, but human memory is a funny thing sometimes, along the way you will remember details that you had forgotten. I mean, just yesterday I was reminded of a breakfast that I went to my senior year of high school for a scholarship that I won because one of my good friends and high school classmates sent me the senior pictures of her son. Random I know, but thinking about senior year and high school and suddenly I'm reminded of May 2003 attending a breakfast, where it was, who else was there, etc. Something that happened over 20 years ago, not affair related of course, but it was tucked away in memory and not something I've probably thought about in the years since it happened. My point being that your affair and those events are much more recent, but maybe it is a text or call that reminds you of additional details that you can put into this timeline.

Once you've got the timeline ready, you should share this with your husband and do it soon. If you have family or friends who can take care of the children, I would make arrangements for them to be elsewhere while you reveal. Since you mentioned you already moved out, it doesn't seem like you need to have packed a go bag, but of course be ready to leave. Disclosure is not easy at all, I don't want to pretend that it is quick and painless, it is anything but that, but it is a necessary first step towards R or D in this instance. I've tried to impress upon waywards in this forum that unburdening yourself and coming clean is one of the most freeing feelings you will ever have since it is also a step towards living an authentic and present life.

Hi,

This is a very common discussion among both WS's and BS's. The general, collective wisdom on SI is to tell the whole truth, and I'll offer you my perspective on why that is.

First, let's clarify something so that we're on the same page. Infidelity, by its very definition, requires the WS to do some very unkind things. It involves lying. It involves hiding. It involves gas lighting, minimizing, and cover-ups. It involves living a double life. It involves selfishness and entitlement. And more than anything, it involves betrayal.

What it doesn't involve is truth, rationality, empathy, self-respect, dignity, or kindness. It robs the BS of their agency, of their choice. It even risks their health. Who knows? One of those men you were with may have had an STI. If you slept with him and then your husband, you may have passed that on to him, and he never even had a say in taking that risk. Or your AP's spouse may find out and come looking for your husband to take some revenge/payback on him. You just don't know. You've already put your husbands health and life in possible danger, and he's completely unaware of that fact.

Let me ask you this simple question. Are liars good people? I'm not talking about hiding a surprise party here. I mean lies that hurt people. Like infidelity. When you were a little girl and people asked what you wanted to be someday, did you say, "I want to be a liar and cheat on my husband, then hide it!" I don't think so. My guess is, whatever you wanted to be, you probably saw yourself as a good person, someone you are proud of being, someone with integrity, authenticity, dignity and respect.

Somewhere along the way, probably due to trauma in your life, what you never wanted to be... became who you are.

There is no unkind act in the world that is "made right" by preforming another unkind act. In other words, if you are a liar, you don't stop being a liar by lying about it more. If you commit a crime, commiting another crime doesn't make it better.

What many WS's do, both during the A and afterward, is come up with excuses and justifications that seem to make sense to them, but in reality, are really just a way to cover up their own bad deeds, and harm their spouses more. The most popular of these false narratives is the, "I did the bad thing, they didn't, so I should be the one to suffer, and they should live in ignorant bliss". We tell ourselves we are doing "the kind thing" by lying and hiding the facts and truth about our previous lying and hiding, and by removing all choice, trust, truth and safety from our spouses and choosing to control their lives, relationships and outcomes for them. Ones that always, conveniently, hide our lies and abuses from them. If I told you a story about another person who cheated on their spouse, lied to them, took health risks, and then hid it all, what would you think of them? Would you say, "Wow, what a prince! Sounds like a great person, I want to be just like them!" Or would you say, "Sounds like a real dirtbag to me"? Which are you? Would you rather be a liar and continue to be a liar, or be a liar who realized her mistakes and did her best to change her life and be a better person?

Does continuing to lie to your spouse sound loving?
Does taking hiding the truth and taking away their choice sound kind and empathetic?
Does making sure you never get caught sound like the responsible thing to do?
Do you go to bed at night feeling like a good person, knowing that you've successfully lied to your spouse and gotten away with abusing them and treating them like dirt?

Even if the affair(s) are 100% over and done, and even if you never have another affair, you are STILL, from the BS's point of view, having the affair, because you are still lying about it and covering it up. And let me tell you from experience, no one EVER feels loved and respected by having their spouse lie, cheat and dishonor them. Never. The abuse continues because the lies continue, because the coverup continues, because you have all the power here and he has none, no choice, no knowledge, and no ablity to make decisions for himself in his own life. It's all about YOU, the WS, and what's most convenient and least painful for you. That's not a personal attack, that's just how it is in a WS/BS relationship that is still underground.

Look, let's get one thing straight. For a moment, let's take your spouse out of the picture altogether, and let's instead focus on yourself. People who love themselves, who have healthy boundaries, self-respect, dignity, authenticity... don't have affairs. Not even because of what it would do to their spouse, but because that's simply NOT WHO THEY ARE. If I gave you a gun and asked you to go shoot a person (and promised you'd get away with it) would you do it? Why not? Well, for most people, it would be because they simply refuse to be that kind of person. They could never sleep at night having killed a person. They could never live with themselves having debased themselves and others in such a way. So... infidelity is no different. Yeah, you lied and cheated on your spouse. But before that ever even happened, you disrepected yourself first. You lied to yourself, and made excuses and justifications about why this would be okay to do. Think about yourself as a little girl again... if you could go back and time and tell that little girl what she grew up to be and what she did to herself and her spouse, would you be proud to do that? What do think she would think of her future self?

Please... please be the kind of person that little girl would be proud of. You can't undo what you did, but you make can make choices about who you will be today. You can own your mistakes and earn back your dignity, or you can continue to live a lie. Think of a person you really trust and respect, someone who you wish you could be more like... and then be more like them.

So my advice? Sit down, and tell your spouse EVERYTHING. No trickle truth, no "saving you more pain", no "you don't need to know that, it won't matter", and no "I admitted to one, that's the same as admitting to all of them". Tell him about each and every affair, how it started, what happened, how it ended, and how you felt about it. (When it comes to the intimacy, start by saying if it was an EA or PA, and then ask them how much detail they want about that). Here's a tip I'll share - the lies are 100x worse than the infidelity. By being 100% honest, you are starting down a path of rebuilding trust. More importantly however, for now, is helping your spouse to put together the pieces of what really happened. You know everything, they know nothing, and that's a terrifying and frustrating place to be in for them. Even though it is so very painful to hear about being cheated on, once heard, it's over, and that's a small relief. That is, unless lies still exist. And then every single time another bit of truth trickles out, the clock resets, the pain and the anger and the hurt and the humiliation resets as well, and the people here refer to that as "going back to square 0". It's WORSE than the affair because at this point, you are aware of the pain they are in and the damage done, and yet, if you choose to keep lying, then are you are still hurting them, and that's the most painful feeling in the world. It's evil. Don't do that to them. Don't do it to yourself.

I wish you luck. This whole thing is a shit-show, but there is reason to hope. I'm almost at year 8 now after d-day, and we're working through it. You can too. But if there is to be any hope at all (and even if there is no hope) it must start with honesty and accountability.

From a BS perspective, there's a huge difference in finding out via confession as opposed to discovery from an outside source. My H confessed to three affairs on DDay, none of which I knew anything about, and was painfully honest with me as we navigated R. That honesty made all the difference. It helped me to trust him again, because he was telling me things that he knew I didn't want to hear and that he certainly didn't want to share, but it was the truth. And the truth is what recovery is all about, whether you R or D.

Do you have the resources to go to therapy?

I am going to go a different approach here.

Often times cheating is about self worth. Self worth is based on how we view ourselves. And we can start changing that today. It’s about becoming very clear about our values and why they are important to us.

For me, restoration of my integrity was one of the things I needed in order to clear that path for myself to begin to hold my head high again. Whether you divorce or reconcile, you have to fix the relationship with yourself.

I think tell him everything you said here. I know you don’t want to hurt him, but it’s hurtful he can’t understand why his marriage is broken. There is no solid ground for either of you to stand on in order to move forward. My vote is go into therapy and tell him all you said here.

Let go of the outcome. I know you are afraid. I was too when I chose to confess. It was the worst days of my life to try and stay open and honest. But that courage of doing the right thing is part of recovery and moving forward. Keep posting. I know you are in a lot of pain, I have been there and it was the darkest days of my life. But you can step out in the light, redeem yourself for you and that is the only way you can be redeemed in the eyes of other. Sending you love and prayers.

[This message edited by hikingout at 7:23 PM, Tuesday, September 19th]

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to respond.

Your messages have been very hard to read and to take in. But I am grateful for them.

I don’t need much reminding that I have done my husband great harm. I have reacted to my own episodes of abuse and trauma in negative ways, I’ve run away and gone into states of denial and high ego instead of confronting it head on. (By way of context -not excuse- all of my issues arose after the death of my father, who was a narcissist abuser and an alcoholic). I want, and have to, believe in myself as a good person who can do the ‘next right thing’. I do want to put my husband at the centre of the conversation . I do love him.

In response to various posters: no, I did not lie about my sexual past when I got married. But I think I’ve been in denial for a long time about what sex means to me. No, I did not sleep with multiple men at the same time; sex life with my husband was at zero by the time I had extramarital affairs.

I really appreciate those who’ve written with thoughts about how to disclose.

I can see now that I have to give him the agency to decide the future:not just whether we reconcile or divorce, but also what *kind* of divorce we have. I
I thought it was cowardly to make him decide the future when I couldn’t: now I see that it is imperative. He decides not just if but how we divorce.

What I want is just to learn how to be a safe partner. I want to choose the truth, and to be brave enough to say it. If he will have me, I want to do learn how to have an authentic relationship with the father of my children. I don’t genuinely know if he will accept me, once I disclose, but I do accept it is what I have to do. So it is very helpful to hear about how to go about it.

Splitlife, you said:

I left home in August. I made the decision that I was doing what I knew my husband would do were he to know. It was so painful. I did not want to disclose - I don’t want to collapse his world, and I want to avoid an ugly divorce for the sake of my children. I am not protecting myself, I am protecting them. I have no self esteem and think I deserve nothing but pain and punishment.

I can certainly hear and understand the pain you're suffering. I know that now you've decided to fully reveal your cheating to your BS (betrayed spouse). It takes a lot of thought and a timeline to do it honestly, without minimizing. One of the things I told myself to help me keep secrets was, "What he doesn't know won't hurt him." Another was, "If I tell him the worst part (that I had sex with another man), he would have no need to know the details or other things I did behind his back. Not so! He deserves the truth, so he can make decisions about his future.

He needs to know it all. He deserves to know it all. Also, don't think you're protecting him or your kids with your lies. I told myself that, too. It's yourself you're protecting. Do lots of reading here and it'll help you moving forward. You are very brave to come here and tell your story. A great book to read is, How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda McDonald.

Courage!

When my H confessed, he "knew" that I would not want him back based on me saying to others repeatedly over the years that if my H ever cheated on me, I was done. Psh. We never know until those shoes are on our feet. Lo and behold, DDay came and I was...not done. It took me about three hours to realize that I wanted to R. But he didn't believe me and he didn't think he deserved me. He had it set in his head that I could never forgive him and never want him again. You were doing the same thing he did. I'm so glad that you've decided to give your H the truth and see what happens. It could turn out well in the long run. I wish you all the luck!

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 9:31 PM, Wednesday, September 20th]

In response to various posters: no, I did not lie about my sexual past when I got married. But I think I’ve been in denial for a long time about what sex means to me. No, I did not sleep with multiple men at the same time; sex life with my husband was at zero by the time I had extramarital affairs.

This is not an attack and is said in good faith, maybe it's how we understood your original post, but you had a PA with a colleague and then you had a PA with another colleague. You also described an EA, but I didn't get the sense it was physical and it wasn't clear that it wasn't one of the other two men you described. My understanding is that there were at least two different PA partners. I didn't suspect that they were concurrent PAs or anything of that nature. I know that in my post I think I may have used plural for APs, because as I read your post you had more than one AP, hence the use of plural. Again, not said as an attack or to shame you, whether you had 1 or 2 or 102 partners is none of my business and I am not judging, but rather it is important that you have the facts and stories straight to share with the one who it does matter to, and that is your BH. Your BH is going to want to know details and so you will be able to put names to it rather than AP1, AP2, APx.

I will say it again, none of us here on SI are going to stand in judgment of you for your affairs, because well, look around sister, all of us here because infidelity impacted our lives just like it has you. Whether there is a single solitary AP or a litany of APs, the brokenness and things that you have to fix are the same completely independent of those details. I don't mean that to be crass, because the details of affairs and AP(s) matter, but to those of us here, we are trying to help you with the disclosure and that is again where a timeline can help you put together the truthful and cohesive story and sequencing of events.

Former BH here.

So, my question to this forum: is full disclosure really the best choice here?

I believe you know the answer to this question, which is, of course you need to/should tell the full truth and he deserves to hear the full truth.

My vote is for you to choose truth(fulness).

You mentioned you needed SLAA, a great twelve step program. Have you been diagnosed with SLA? Has a therapist referred the SLAA program to you? Have you found a group near you? Have you started to attend meetings? If so, you know that truthfulness, transparency and restitution are hallmarks of all 12 step programs. You will be dealing with this subject again and again both in meetings and with a sponsor and that will be very very good for you. Truthfulness to yourself and others will be a large part of the antedote that you are seeking and so very much need. Who better to begin that truth(fulness) journey with than the one you've wronged the most, your BH, right? Please dont let the cop -out of continuing to lie to him by ommission in the name of sparing him more pain keep you from taking this vital step forward toward your own recovery. He may still stay with you. He may leave for good. Either way, speaking truth begins to (re)build integrity in you and is vital to providing restitution to your BH. This cannot be accomplished by perpetuating a lie.

I leave you with this. D. H. Lawrence said, "Freedom is a very great reality, but it means above all things, freedom from lies."

The one thing I did right on D-Day was confess everything. The multiple As, the secret emails, chat apps, etc. and so on. Answered, and continue to answer, every question openly. It was only later in IC that I learned I needed to do it for myself along with my BW. I have no secrets in my life anymore and we are now in our 5th year of R. This may or may not happen the same way for you, but getting honest with yourself and letting go of the outcome will be the best thing you could ever do.

I am sorry you have found yourself here, and I am really sorry for your partner.

I have not read all of the responses thus far, but I will say that Bigger hits the nail on the head, as usual. Daddy Dom added so much wisdom with his response. Bigger is a betrayed fiancé and Daddy Dom is a wayward spouse, so you get perspectives from both sides.

There is one thing in your post that gives me pause... that is your partner. You said this about him.

He has an issue himself around sex. Part of our troubles stemmed from him becoming fixated on who I’d slept with before we were together and highly suspicious about whether I was being faithful (this before anything happened. I fulfilled the prophecy).

You said that he forgave you for what he has learned so far about your betrayal. Maybe, maybe not. Usually, from my experience, people do not forgive that easily or quickly... he could be the exception.

Now then, you also said that you had a 10 month Physical Affair that neither he nor your affair partner's wife knows about.

He needs to know everything that happened so far with you before he can know what he is reconciling with... right? If I make a deal with someone, I want to know what I am dealing with before I shake hands and sign the agreement.

If he has that jealous a personality, how in the world is he going to handle learning about your 10 month physical affair? How will he ever develop any trust in you becoming safe? Maybe he can. You know him better than we internet strangers.

I hope you are successful in overcoming your issues. If you two reconcile I wish you both success and the best.

[This message edited by lrpprl at 2:13 PM, Thursday, September 21st]

Thank you again to everyone who has replied with such heartfelt and helpful wisdom.
I don’t expect there to be any chance of R after full disclosure. I think he will always love me but he will see our marriage bonds as truly severed.
It may be the honourable and right thing for me to do to choose truth, it may allow me to live an authentic life, but the path leaves *him* broken and traumatised. Hence, my futile wish that i could just proceed on my original plan which was to remove me from his life so I don’t cause him this damage. I hear what you are all saying about how the damage is already done and that the lies are the corrosive thing whatever the outcome. It makes me feel sick to my stomach but I know I need to face it.
I have been referred to SLAA by my therapist but have not yet started or gone to a meeting. I went to a few AA meetings with my dad so know of the 12 steps (much good that did him). I don’t know whether I should wait and cover disclosure as one of the steps, or at least until I feel in a more stable mental place (I sometimes entertain thoughts of self harm and worse). Or perhaps the best thing to do is disclose as soon as possible so that those feelings of R that are emerging on both sides don’t become stronger.

To be totally and utterly clear: I won’t R unless it’s having told him the truth.