I was talking with someone today and they were wondering....If your spouse had had multiple affairs (say 2 or 3 that you did not know about) but they decided they didn't want to be that way anymore and wanted to commit 100% to the marriage and to their spouse, should they confess the past affairs evne though they are long over? Is that causing unnecessary pain to the BS if the WS is recommitting to the marriage? As a BS myself, I feel like I have the "right" to know about the A's. But then again, I don't wish the kind horrific pain I have endured this last year on anyone (well, maybe OW BUT no one else!)

What are your opions?

I like to know things that are going to effect my life in a big way

pain is a given in life

suffering is an option

trying to live in a pain-free-bubble makes no sense to me

My opinion

Pep

I saw a really good movie recently called history of violence..which had nothing to do with infidelity but everything to do with undisclosed history and secret lives.

It illustrated both why a person might have a very good motivation to bury the past and try to move on..and also the pain and heartbreak of the spouse in even a very good marriage..when that marriage has been based on lies.

Anyone seen it?

I say it depends.

Post A pre D Day my wife was doing everything she could to please me. She was more attentive to my needs and things were great. For a while I beleived it was because we were away from each other for 4 weeks. This was really the best time in our M for me.

Post D Day she started firing away at me about how I caused the A by not doing this or being that. The usual stuff.

Now here is why I say it depends. If they are telling you to relieve their conscience then they dump it on you to get over it I would say NO I do not want to know. I do not want to carry that burden myself.

If they are telling you because they know what they did is wrong and they want to work with you to recover from their actions then I would want to know.

I believe my FWW just wanted to relieve her guilty conscience then has left it up to me to recover on my own. I really wish I had the guilty conscience back things were much better for me then. I would rather it eat away at her then me. I know that sounds selfish but that is the way I feel about it.

my H loved it

I did not see it

I would want to know if I WAS EXPOSED TO POTENTIALLY LETHAL DISEASE...AND A LIAR TO BOOT.

TRUST ME...if anybody wants the rose colored glasses back, it is ME! I want em sooooo bad! I want to blindly love. be all starry eyed again. but I can't. couldn't if i tried.

but I would STILL WANT TO KNOW TH4E TRUTH. even if I could have had the alternative. that is not living...not knowing the truth...and what in the hades kind of union is that at all? altered versions of truth? reality? morality?

if it is NOT acknowledged, IT CAN HAPPEN AGAIN....ADULTERY THAT IS...

in truth

finding out about H's infidelity made ME more cautious about my own boundary-crossings that could have led to myownself becoming a "wandering spouse"

I got smarter ... a LOT smarter .... about protecting myself from the ugliness which is "infidelity soulsickness"

Pep

When I first discovered my wife's affair, I considered acting as if nothing was going on and hoping it would burn out on its own. I remembered reading somewhere of some well known public figure who did that until his wife saw the light and came back.

Well that thought lasted about 24 hours. I confronted my wife, and everything that followed brought me here.

Isn't it odd that before discovery my wife and I were still making love, but after discovery suddenly she cuts me off (it was actually mutual because she claimed she had no desire to make love to me and therefore I said under those conditions I didn't want to either).

"finding out about H's infidelity made ME more cautious about my own boundary-crossings that could have led to myownself becoming a "wandering spouse"

Wow Pep. I am the exact opposite. I used to make sure I did not cross those boundries and now I wonder why I shouldn't. I think if you are told enough something was no big deal you might start to believe it.

I think if we can't feel pain then we can't feel love. I am suspicious that my SO had an affair within the last 6 months - I am snooping behind his back to find out the truth. I think you ask an excellent question. I have asked myself this question and think that if I had to choose, I would choose truth.

If anything, my suspicions led me to this site and what I have read here is that I have a lot of lovebusting behavior to get rid of myself. That its not all him after all. That doesn't excuse if he did something - but at least it gives us an opportunity to repair what we have together.

I may never find out. I am playing little games with God in the sense that I am trying to turn it over to Him and interpret His Will instead of my own. As for the truth, it shall set you free as they say. The other is the song by Envogue, FREE YOUR MIND AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW.

commit 100% to the marriage cannot occur if spouse is full of secrets and undisclosed past infidelities

If your spouse doesn't know who you are or what you've done, are they really in love with you, or just their false perception of who you are?

That kind of thinking reminds me of those people you see who sin their whole life, then at their death bed they beg for forgiveness and a clean conscious.

I'm not sure which is worse...

Not knowing but wondering what on earth is wrong and perhaps being the proverbial "last to know". Everybody else knows but doesn't want to hurt you by being the one to tell you.

Or, knowing and having to deal with the discovery of the total crushing of everything you thought you had.

I believe it is my right to know. Not only b/c of STDs but also good to know exactly what you're dealing with. The blind trust is gone.

Then again, once that line is crossed, how do you ever really go back? It's all so incredibly sad, isn't it?

When I found out about my WH's affair, I felt like I had just woken up in the Matrix! The world was suddenly a very ugly and terrible place - not at all what I thought it was. And worst of all, I was completely unsafe. My best friend was a liar and a cheat who betrayed me!

Remember the guy in "The Matrix" that wants back in and sells everyone else to go back to experiencing that great, but false life? He wants to forget he ever knew the truth.

I would rather live an authentic life than a beautiful lie! My H actually planned on breaking it off with OW when he got bored with her and having me never find out.

Knowing the truth gave me options. It let me know my H better and understand his weaknesses. Even if someone who ends an A doesn't plan on having another one, they are susceptible and it could happen again.

No, I would ALWAYS choose to know the truth about my life. It gives me much more control over my future.

AM

I've been struggling greatly with this lately and I think its all going to come up very soon. I believe our MC is steering us towards one big discussion where I ask everything I want to know...

I never would have believed any of this could happen and somehow in my mind I convince myself that maybe nothing physical really happened. But the more stories I read, the more similarities I see. Over and over I find myself thinking "yup W did that during that time too". And now that I've caught her in specific blatant lies I just cannot believe what she told me about the first affair. For a while I actually thought she did tell the truth to me. It took a very long time for the "believe none of what a WW says" to really sink in for me...

Someone told me that women worry more about whether the A had a strong emotional component and men worry more about whether it was physical. I am definitely hung up on that... I *think* I'm ready to hear the truth. I *think* I will be able to get over it but really hearing it is going to be different from just lots of suspiscions.

What *do* I want to know? How will I even be able to believe her? Now, a year later, I can see that nearly *every* discussion we've had has only divulged the absolute minimum information to get out of the discussion.

I know she thinks I shouldn't ask and should leave it in the past...

help!

you are 37

I am 20 years older

infidelity seems like a big old waste of what is left of my time

I am closer to the end of my life than you ... trust me ... the view is slightly different

I don't want to screw up & make God mad at me ~~~~~
<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Pep <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I am younger than you both..but Hs affair affected me as it did Pep.

I definitely tweaked my boundaries after learning more about affair dynamics.

Yes I DO want to know, and my WH has had many affairs and one has every right to know, it makes you realize what a lie you have lived.

Exactly. Sex is sex, been there. No use gambling with your soul. I'm more resolute than ever. And I was pretty hard-core on the issue to start with.

Sometimes I do long for the rose-colored glasses. They were only slightly tinted, but I miss them - Dru

No, I always want to know. And every sordid detail, too.

That to me is far less painful and maddening than that sickening feeling in the pit of the stomach (you know the one, BS) where you KNOW your spouse is lying (heck, you BOTH know they're lying) and you're both doing this quick mental calculation about how much the other one knows and what strategy to take next, like a freaking bloody game of mind chess. THAT is not marriage, it's war. And a travesty.

I really, really hate mind games and I especially resent being told I'm "crazy" or "imagining things" only to be proven right (always) in the end. Yes I feel vindicated at that point, but WHY did it have to get that far in the first place? Why is honesty from the get-go so hard?

Yes, the truth hurts...but my wild imagination hurt far worse. For instance I imagined the OW as some gorgeous model-type and when I finally found her photos, there was this frumpy, dumpy, plain Jane. Utterly unremarkable. Our imagination can get us all in a froth for nothing.

If WH had just admitted, "She's not very pretty but she was a surefire lay" (i.e. the truth) then I would have been spared the nightmare of imagining my competition as Pamela Anderson all those months. Now, I just see the OW's easy behavior as a consequence of her low self-esteem. So then I can almost pity her (note that I said almost <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />) which takes a lot less energy than hating someone with a passion.

Truth brings fantasy down to stark reality, much easier for this BS to bear.

~Silverwraith