Even though it seems that I've made the unpopular choice of not telling my husband about my A, I still feel it is the best decision in my particular situation. I realize that it is a secret and does not conform to the radical honesty belief of MB, but it is what feels right right now. Who knows if that will change.

I think that the important part is that I've ended the A, recommitted to my M, and am working hard to give my H and family the love and attention they deserve. The A won't go away, but it has faded in the recesses of my mind and I no longer feel that terrible pull to be with OM. I've emerged from the fog and see him for what he really is.

I do not feel that my H is weak and could not handle the truth. I just feel that I love him so much I don't want to hurt him with it. The A is over and done with - I'm moving on and hoping that the MB site will help me restore fully to the love we shared back when we were first married.

Hmmm... well, my thoughts are that it was never the affair that would ruin your marriage. It is the deception, the lies by omission, the fact that your H doesn't have the power of knowing who he is really married to, and being able to choose for himself what he really wants.

I understand your feelings. I just also feel like somehow he will find out and it would be so much better for you if he heard it from you and not from some other source! I think it hurts more when the BS finds out from some other source rather than their own spouse.

It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, it might be years from now? Who knows... All our dirt comes to the surface sooner or later.

For example,

When you first realized that you were feeling tempted to have an affair--your husband should have been privy to THAT information. That is the deception that started chipping away at your relationship. You have probably been told everything I have said by other MBers but I am curious as to why you felt you couldn't talk to your H during the very beginning stages of your A--before things got so out of hand???

Now you have to live with this big secret always nagging your thoughts and interactions with your H. How miserable is that--living a pretend life??? Dr.Harley calls someone like you a conflict-avoider and a protector liar.

It's just that whatever problem you had with your H is still unresolved? Is there something wrong with your sex life? Is there anything wrong with your communication or the time you spend together? Was it your focus that got off-track--what?

Was it only your problem and the affair brought you back to reality? Is that why you feel your H doesn't need to know?

I'm not asking for all these answers, but just wondering what stands out to you and what could help you see how your relationship is still very vulnerable, IMO...

neverthought,

I have been the WS, I came close one time, I lied to my W when I went to meet an old GF from HS. I was only with her for a few minutes, and told her this is not right and went home to my W. I put the block on it for ten years, but my W would make little comments that would make me think about it, I thought she knew, or was just fishing. And then somthing happened, we ran into someone that knew about that night, my hart almost jumped out of my chest, I played the eye contact avoidance game and just sweated it out, not that she would have found out, but when we got home I told her, I couldn't take it, she asked me if that was all there was to it, and said dont do it again, I know she was hurt, but in our situation I think she is starting to believe I am as truthful as I say.

You will have to live with the thing's that come up as reminders, and the tension they create, I know I wont ever do it again.

<small>[ August 19, 2002, 08:04 AM: Message edited by: dredthesilence ]</small>

NT;
You are unfortunately making the wrong choice. A choice that will hurt you, your H, and your relationship forever.
For you, it is denial and not facing your own demons; not good. For your H, it is a false sense of security, it is a mound of dust swept under the carpet on which he will continually trip, and not know why, and for your R, because it will NEVER be as candid and honest as it needs to be while you are guarded and he is clueless.
Perhaps this might help:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> To Tell or not To Tell
by Peggy Vaughan

People who have had an affair often wonder whether or not they should tell their spouse. Every person must make this "to tell or not to tell" decision for themselves. However, there are some factors to consider that might not at first be obvious. While there's an understandable caution about the potential risk of telling about an affair, there's also a risk if it's "not" disclosed. <strong>In marriages where affairs are kept secret, certain topics of discussion are avoided because the deceiving partner fears being discovered and the other is reluctant to appear suspicious. This causes many relationships to be dominated by dishonesty and deception. It's doubtful that a couple can keep something like this hidden for the rest of their lives without a terrible strain developing. A large part of the high divorce rate may be due to the alienation caused by the dishonesty inherent in affairs, even if the affairs are never confronted. So it may be that there is no escape from the pain, regardless of whether the affair is kept hidden or exposed.</strong>
This is not meant to diminish the pain of finding out. But one of the advantages of volunteering the information about an affair instead of waiting until it's unexpectedly discovered is that it allows a degree of preparation that can significantly reduce the pain of finding out. The person doing the telling has a responsibility to take steps to increase the likelihood that the disclosure will lead to building a closer relationship rather than tearing it apart. First of all, they need to be motivated by a desire to improve the relationship, not a desire to unload their feelings of guilt. They also need to be prepared to hang in and work through their partner's reactions to the information, regardless of what those reactions may be.
So it's not a simple matter of whether or not to tell. It's a matter of why, when, and how. Perhaps the most responsible course is one that doesn't rule out telling "at some point," and uses that thinking to consistently improve the honesty and commitment to the relationship in such a way as to make it possible to eventually "tell." In the meantime, this will have the benefit of strengthening the relationship, regardless of whether it leads to telling about the affair.

</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

Not sure, not sure, not sure.....
In an ideal world, yes, we would all be honest with each other, tell each other everything. reality is, we dont. we tend to avoid things which upset a friend or put a relationship at risk. I mean, that's only human, isn't it.

I think the important thing is not whether you tell your spouse or not. The important thing is that you draw for youself the lessons learnt, that you work on the causes of the A. That includes being more honest to each other. Whether you can, under these new circumstances, keep the secret for yourself, I dont know. I think you have to play it as you go and be honest with yourself. if you're observing that holding this secret back inhibits the progress of your relationship, then you should tell, definately.

"But it is what feels right now."

Decisions based on feelings instead of moral principles tend to come back to bite ya in the [censored] eventually! You made the decision to have the A based on your feelings ... remember? Do you trust your feelings at this point to be your moral compass?

"I think that the important part is that I've ended the A."

CONGRATULATIONS! You've ended a very important PART of the A.

"Working hard to give my H and my family the love and attention they deserve."

CONGRATULATIONS again ... on giving your family a PART of what they deserve! (love and attention) I think they deserve a whole you. Are you whole? What do I mean by whole? Honest. Accountable. Are you prepared to live the rest of your life dishonestly?

"I've emerged from the fog and see him for what he really is."

CONGRATULATIONS! What is he, really? And, since you are emerging from the fog, can you see YOURSELF for what you "really are"? I think you are a REALLY GOOD person. I think this REALLY GOOD person will suffer living as a liar the rest of her marriage.

Are you prepared to be a liar the rest of your marriage? Is that is what is good for you? Is is good for your H to live a dishonest marriage ... one where you have decided for him what he deserves?

PLEASE do this:

CALL FOR COUNSELING WITH THE MARRIAGE BUILDER PROFESSIONALS

You are making great progress. And we all applaud you for this step.

There are more steps to having a great marriage. Dishonesty is not a step toward intimacy, and you know it.

God Bless.

Pepper <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

<small>[ August 19, 2002, 10:46 AM: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</small>

NT

I was unhappy in my marriage and had the A. Never addressed the issues with my BS and things got deep with the OM. I was (and am) still struggling to come to terms with the A ending. My H had started to suspect and question me. I pondered long and hard - do I tell him or not? Anyone I asked shreiked "Don't be so foolish, of course you shouldn't tell him". I had a gut feeling that told me that if I was firstly honest with him, and secondly gave him what he had been asking for and probing for, at least everything was out in the open. I also thought, that my unhappiness would even out and give him the choice of whether or not he wanted to be with me (I don't mean this in a spiteful way, just that he would have an even choice, rather than me solely making a decision about our M).

Long and short of it, H decided to do some snooping on the very day I was thinking I should tell him. He found e-mail communication between myself and two of my friends. Luckily he did not find the correspondence between myself and OM. This has devastated him. Not just the finding out about the A, but that he feels belittled and that my friends "egged me on and actively encouraged me" to have the R with OM. He hates that I have discussed some of my innermost feelings about him with other people. He says he felt like a "bit part player" in his own life.

What do I wish now? Other than I had been more honest with my H before the A started, that I had told him. I do not know if you situation would be the same, but you cannot base any relationship on dishonesty.

Take care and think carefully about what is motivating you to hold this back.

This may sound a little harsh, but reality bites!
In having the affair, you were completely selfish. In choosing to continue to hide it from you spouse (therefore lying to him) you are continuing to be completely selfish. You are not thinking of his feelings, regardless of what you say. It's your own posterior that you are looking to protect. Deny that all you want, but THAT'S the truth.
Reality is, you screwed up big time. You have already hurt your H deeply, he just doesn't know it yet. Reality is, lies hurt way more than the truth. The longer the deception, the worse the pain, the harder it will be to get over it. It doesn't matter what you do, or if he never 'finds out', this will haunt you, and affect your marriage FOREVER.
Own up to your mistake. Take responsibility. Be an adult. Tell him the truth. If you actually care about him, you owe him that much. Anything less is total disrespect for him.
As a BS who was lied to way too long...If you love him, you'll tell him.

If you read Torn Asunder, you will see that your reasoning is flawed. You say you're trying to protect HIM, but I think you are really protecting yourself from the consequences. Ask my H, he did that for 6 years. THAT was almost the end of our marriage, knowing I had lived a lie. I eventually dealt with the pain of the affair, but THE LIES LIVE ON FOREVER. I really think that eventually it WILL come out. It hurts a LOT less if it comes from the spouse willingly. My H didn't want to tell as he promised OW he never would. So he had a bond with her for 6 years which was stronger than our marriage vows.

DO THE RIGHT THING

Have you thought how would you feel if your H had been the one who had the A and held your same point of view? What if you found out years from now about your H's A and he still did not come forward with the truth? Would you still beleive that your H had your best interests at heart by not telling you about his A?

Let me clue you on a dirty little secret. More than half the married men have had an A. Are you sure that your H is not one of them?

<small>[ August 19, 2002, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: TooMuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

Pepper:

"CONGRATULATIONS! You've ended a very important PART of the A."

EXACTLY!! My W's "A" ended last November, for crying out loud. But the things that really threatens to tear our M apart, the lies about contact and the "personal privacy", continue. They're very sinister.

I didn't find out about the first A that my W had 12 years ago. OMW did, but didn't tell me. She made OM move her and their kids to another state. If I'd known, I could have done something about it on MY end, but I didn't. My W didn't even talk to OM for a few years between As, but when she felt she wasn't getting enough out of our M, and I wasn't "receptive" to her problems (voiced incompletely, for obvious reasons - the omission!), she had another A with the same OM!

End the lies. Nothing short of telling your H the entire truth will be sufficient.

NT,

AS you know I have posted to you before stating I think you should tell your H. You have gotten virtually an unanimous decision on this.

Your statement is that you don't want to needlessly hurt your H. I can understand that.

Your statement is that the affair is over and you don't want to risk losing H and breaking up the family. I can understand that.

You suggest that at some future time you will tell you H, MAYBE.

You see as time goes on this is going to get harder for you to do. What concerns me is that you had the affair in the first place. Your H hasn't changed has he?? Whatever he was failing to do in the past he probably is failing to do now, because he doesn't know he has failed. Yes, HE FAILED or you wouldn't have been susceptible to the affair. The affair was your fault, but the marriage was partly his problem.

So my question to you is What has changed with your H?

Why is this important? Because as life goes on you be tempted again, and what will stop you? The knowledge of this past affair? You are ending it because you see the OM as a jerk. But what if the OM isn't a jerk, or had not treated you poorly? Then what would have happened? Your H is powerless to help you. So how are you going to defend yourself?

You see the honesty question is about more than just telling. It is allowing you mate to help you if he/she will.

I realize that telling him later might be better if you are successful in rebuilding your marriage. It will have to be your effort. Your H cannot be expected to help, because he doesn' know it is trouble. You coming up a few years from now saying: We're in trouble, won't have the impact it should because he doesn't know he has been introuble for years.

NT, I am not pushing you to tell now. However, I do know that later will be harder. I do know if he finds out himself, it will be harder. I do know that he doesn't know that you have been so unhappy in this marriage and could be again.

This is truely your decision. If you don't tell him, I will do my best to help and answer questions. But, I suspect you will begiin to see the difficulty of only one person working on the marriage. Choose wisely and whatever you choose I hope you and your H become a very happily married couple.

God Bless,

JL

NT:

Please cut and paste JL's comments into my post to you above. This is EXACTLY why my W had a second A with her OM. EXACTLY.

I couldn't help her before the second one because I didn't know what I was dealing with, and she couldn't tell me. Also, I found out about her second A by accident, she didn't tell me. Our efforts to rebuild trust have been VERY difficult for that reason. It would have been far better if she had told me.

Neverthought....where did you go?

I suspect that you say you MIGHT tell your husband later because you know it is the right thing to do, and also to appease us that you will do the right thing eventually.

I was a virgin when I married, the type you would least suspect of having an affair. I could not even believe it myself. But, my husband had TWO affairs and I also had TWO affairs. I suspected his first affair, but did not actually realize it for TRUTH until years later. It was after all of the others had come out. I will tell you that it was harder to deal with than all the others. Simply because I had lived with a lie for so many years. Knowing that he had kept that from me for so long was harder to accept than the fact that he had the affair.

I really believe that we are not "affair" type people. But, the reason that they kept occuring was that we kept sweeping whatever was lacking or wrong under the rug. We are not confrontational type people. My husband is quiet and gently and sweet. To tell him would be to stir up something in him (ANGER) that I never saw. We never dealt with our core problem...UNTIL the two years of therapy!

It was only after the therapy that I was able to tell my husband that if it EVER happend again for either of us, there would be no counseling, no discussion, PERIOD. It was over. Finished! However, I do feel confident and safe that it won't happen again.

Now you may say that you know for certain that you will never have another affair. And you know for certain that your husband would never do that to you. I thought that too. But, you can NEVER know that for sure.

And once all of it is out on the table, you can be open and honest and it is so much easer to work on your issues. Just this past Sunday my husband and I were walking and TALKING honestly like we are able to do now and I expressed to him that I felt we were getting into a little of a rut. His was quick to pay attention and say "ok, then let's talk about what we need to do".

In the past, I would have just stuffed it.

You have been given so much good advice. I hope that you are reading. I hope that you don't start the topic and then go away because you are not hearing what you want to hear. I hope that in some way we can help you have a marriage that is better than you ever dreamed of having.

God bless.

<small>[ August 20, 2002, 07:54 AM: Message edited by: Susan ]</small>

Another reason to tell your H the truth is that it helps to prevent another affair. The years when my H was lying, he was drinking, depressed, and almost moved out AGAIN to live the single life. Now that I know everything, our marriage finally has TRUE intimacy. It's not easy, but it's the only FAIR way. Otherwise you hold all of the cards and your H is left feeling confused but not sure why.

I don't know, maybe my way of thinking is still foggy, but it seems to me that if the A is over (and it is), it makes sense to put it in the past, forget about it, and move on toward making my marriage better. I see the A as a wake-up call, but it also enlightened me, made me appreciate my H so very much more. I am only now able to think rationally about how much I put at risk and how very selfish I was. It just seems to me that to tell him about it will only serve the purpose of hurting him and making him worry and question every time I go to school. He doesn't deserve that...

And to answer the other questions that were put forth...Would I want to know if my H had an A? Truthfully, I don't think I would want to know, because then I'd feel insecure forever and I know that I have a hard time with forgiveness. So for me, not knowing would probably be better.

And no, I don't know that my H has never had an A. But in my heart, I know that he would never do that to me. He is too good, too loyal, too loving - all the things that I temporarily misplaced in myself but have begun to work on healing and improving.

Are there any WS who have not told and what has happened? Are there any BS who, like me, would rather not have known?

Not KNOW??!! There is no possibility that my M would have gotten to the point it is NOW if my H had not confessed. The hurt and agony were the worst of my life..but MOST important, IT IS MY LIFE,TOO! I get to decide what I want now...he decided what he wanted when had the affair, now it's MY turn...I can be selfish or tender but it's based on the real deal.

I will say I am GRATEFUL that he confessed..I hate what he did but his telling me shows that he is REALLY sorry and that he REALLY trusts me. It has been hard and horrible, I won't say differently. But WE are a COUPLE again..closer and so open with each other.

I will never be grateful for his affair but I thank GOD I know about it.

How did you handle ending the affair with the OM?
What did you do? What was his response or how did he take it?

<small>[ August 20, 2002, 03:15 PM: Message edited by: Susan ]</small>

Neverthought,

I know my response will not be popular but I agree with you. I discovered last October that my W was having an A. Last August we had had a major blow up and I had asked her whether she was still in love with me. She eventually admitted she could not say she was. From September on, I was fighting to make changes in our relationship not knowing there was another relationship going on. She immediately ended her A when I discovered an e-mail on Oct. 6 (at least as far as I know) and we've been working hard ever since. While things are going well, I still have feelings of overwhelming sadness sometimes and I just don't look at her the same way anymore. I guess I had her on a pedestal and never thought she could do some of the things she did. I recently told her that I wish she had taken our August crisis and decided to dedicate her efforts to the M and ended the A then. I don't think I would have ever found out and I wouldn't feel the pain and sadness I do sometimes. The end result if you are serious about working on your M can be the same whether you tell him or not and I don't think you are being selfish for not saying anything. I know many others will disagree but you need to do what works for me. I wish my wife had handled it the way you propose. Good luck, if you are determined it can work.