Lokil, you should read how affairs start....

Not many people get up one day and decide to go have an affair with someone they know. Those that do decide that like my WH�s OW are evil and it�s best not to get involved with them.

Affairs start innocently because we are all wired to have them so if you don�t consciously and willfully decide not to have an affair, it will happen.

And probably with this "friend"....its a snowball effect... You sleep with the OP once, you think I will never do that again and then all of a sudden it is a year later, your still sleeping with him and your BS finds out...That will be so much worse, you need to expose to protect yourself also....

Exactly, CCBIS.

Lokil, your being given sound advice, and its not being given to get you to bury yourself in trouble so we can feel good about "sticking it to the evil doer".

You may think your secret is safe, but theres a problem...

Can you guess what it is?

I did have an A. I told my H about the A within days. Want to know why? Because, my H was involved in a long-term A with his ex-girlfriend during the first 10 years of our M, and he didn't tell me about it. We were able to work through the A, once I found out, but the affects of knowing that he lied to me throughout most of our M were much more difficult to overcome. I didn't see any way that I would ever be able to trust him again. And what is a marriage without trust?

Our M is now in recovery, but it has taken us a long time to get to where we are now. I don't think anyone here wants to "punish" you. Some of us have been where you are now, and we know what works and what doesn't. I'm sure my H thought he could sweep his A under the rug and I would never find out about it. I did. You may not see how your H could ever find out, but the truth almost always surfaces eventually. Do you really want to live with that constant threat hanging over your head for the rest of your life?

We're giving you advice on how to save your M from the crushing effects of years of lies and deceit. You can't save it from the pain of an A. The A has already happened. That damage has already been done. We're simply trying to help you not damage your M even more by lying.

(my best Arnold Horseshack impression)

OOOO!!!

OOOO!!!

I know!!!!!

The lying about it was worse to me then the actually adultery...JMHO.

Me too.

I don't know I mean I believe you think so but the reality is that what hurts is that your spouse cheated, I mean what if your spoused lied to you about eating a candy bar and then you found out 21 years later would it destroy your marriage the same as finding out about an affair.

Its a compounded lie, over years...and you are still gonna be friends with OP...Your BS will be looking at that OP...If I found that out, that my H and friend were hiding this secret, that would just be so much worse....

Its not a lie about eating a candy bar...you slept with his friend.

I know... I know I slept with someone else every second I'm awake, it kills me everytime I talk to my husband on the phone.

My point was I don't really believe me not telling him is going to hurt him more than the fact I slept with my friends husband.

Of course not. But if your spouse lied to you about some other big thing, say committing a crime, then yes, that sort of thing could indeed destroy a marriage. If it's something that has the potential to negatively affect the other person in the marriage, then lying about it can indeed destroy the relationship.

If your H ate a candy bar and didn't tell you about it, it wouldn't really have much affect on you, would it? If your H committed a crime and didn't tell anyone, hoping not to get caught, it would affect you if he did get caught (even years later) and went to jail. If your H slept with another woman and didn't tell you, and you later found out about it, the effects on you would be devastating.

There is a difference between eating a candy bar and not telling your H (not a lie, just a simple fact that we can't tell each other every little thing we do every second of the day) and keeping something huge from him (like the fact that you had an A) because you don't want to suffer the ramifications of your own actions.

If you can't see that difference, then you may be a bit deficient in the area of morals.

And it will continue to kill you and eat you alive until you come clean and begin working through the process of recovering your M.

That, my friend, is what we are trying to save you from.

I've got a question.

Are you always right?

You wrote:

>My point was I don't really believe me not telling him is going to hurt him more than the fact I slept with my friends husband.


You also, once upon a time, believed you would never sleep with someone other than your husband.

I'd like to point out that you've been wrong at least once before. Can you concede that you might just be wrong here, too...or have you talked yourself into this belief so that you won't have to face that you've made a terrible mistake?

I want you to be healthy and happy - but neither of those things thrive in the midst of a lie.

First it is gonna eat away at you, it already is...its like a kid who gets an F on his report card and thinks hiding it is gonna solve his mother getting mad at him.

Yeah, he wont get yelled at for a while, but eventually his mom will find out and he will be in worse trouble for hiding it then if he just showed her the report card to begin with...

Either way Mom is gonna get mad.

I'd also like you to re read what CCBIS wrote about people being wired for affairs. If you can understand this, get through the confession, there is a good chance you and you husband can put boundries in place for the both of you so that this will NEVER happen again.

prolonging the inevitable...or sumthin like that...

I've been facing the mistake I made for the last 2 days I know it was wrong I know I [censored] up, I may tell my husband have not decided yet. I don't want to make a rush desicion out of guilt, I don't want to destroy other peopples lives just so i can have a clear concience.

Now that's just silly and self serving. Of course not knowing will hurt him because he can't protect himself from you if he doesn't know. He may choose to not be married to a cheater and that is his right. You have no right to deny him the right to make decisions about his own life. To not tell him is manipulative and deceitful; it is to trick him into staying married to you.

Can you imagine using that logic if the situation was about your neighbor's bookkeeper embezzling money from him? Wouldn't it sound insane to say that you didn't want to warn your neighbor about his stealing bookkeeper because you "didn't want to hurt him?"

Your justifications are silly, lokil. Your problem is that your husband will eventually find out some way - they always do - and the damage will be much greater if he hears it from the OM's wife. The damage will be HUGE when he finds out you lied to him about it too. Every day you don't tell him is a new lie added to the list. You are just compounding the crime and making it worse.