Hi I am new here and hoping for some helpful insight. Just for some back story to help you all understand the situation, my spouse had an affair with no feelings whatsoever between them last September and I found out 6 months ago in January. It happened with the daughter of one of our very good friends who is about 8 years younger and very troubled in her life. My spouse's job required going to court which is how we met their family in the first place as our friend is a respected lawyer in our area. She has helped us very much in the past with legal issues of varying degrees, including related to my spouses's for taking the job and some false accusations. She was able to keep us up to date on the legal proceedings that occurred. Needless to say my spouse and I were under extreme stress at the time due to the legal issues and several other things that were happening with the "pandemic" and life in general. There has been no contact with the daughter since I found out and I have been wanting to sever all contact with their family completely as it is a constant reminder. However, the parents have no idea what happened and I would like to keep it that way. I do not want them to know at all, but I feel like we should tell them something instead of just ignoring them altogether. It's not fair to them because they had nothing to do with any of it. Any thoughts on what we could say to them without telling them what actually happened? I realize this may sound ridiculous to some, but for us it's a concern for the feelings of others. My spouse and I are working through it and so much closer than we have ever been and cutting them from our lives would be closure. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

Welcome to MB.

How long have you been married? Are there any children, both from the marriage or from other relationships? What ages?

How old are you and your spouse?

What sex are you and your spouse?

Just curious why that matters? I was trying to leave out as much personal info as I am already nervous about posting in a public forum.

Sorry I wasn’t trying to be rude at all.

Children: if you don't have children and are married for a short time, it might be worth considering if you want to save this, or consider finding a faithfull spouse.
If you have children, recovering the marriage is probably best for you all.

Ages: is there a legal component (affair partner under age)?

Same/different sex: men and women are general different and dynamics of a same sex relationship differ from male/female relatinship.

Are you legally married? In some countries people consider living together at the same level as marriage, but there are (in general) significant differences in the dynamics.

Take your time to read the basic concepts, the first/sticky topic in this subforum has links to subjects that will guide you in the right direction.

You are quite right to take steps to make sure you cannot be identified, but I don't think saying that you have two kids aged six and nine, that you've been married for 10 years, or who is a man and who a woman, will compromise your security. Those details do, however, affect how appropriate our advice will be.

Short answer: keeping this a secret might reduce your chances of succesfully recovering your marriage and exposure is in nearly all cases the least bad road to take. Considering that your husbands carreer/job might be impacted by exposing this, the circumstances might effect the advice.

MB in a nutshell:
Minimizing damage, maximizing chances of recovery for all involved. Short term consequences might seem bad, but in the long term it is always better to rip off a bandage and clean up than to let a wound fester.

Married 25 years heterosexual relationship no children. She was not underage in her 30s and yes we are staying together as indicated in original post. That is not the issue here. My question is what to tell her parents who we are friends with, without telling them what happened as I don’t want anyone to know. Trying to preserve feelings since we won’t be in contact with them anymore and I just thought someone may have an idea that I haven’t thought of yet. That’s all.

https://forum.marriagebuilders.com/...affair-start-here-first.html#Post2695379

https://www.marriagebuilders.com/when-should-an-affair-be-exposed.htm

A good article to read. Please come back with questions after reafing this.

Please read Exposure 101

Have you considered moving?