Ok,

In my continuing soap opera of a life I have just had a talk with my little brother and he is looking for advice. I suggested he come here but he doesn't think that worked out well for me. So here is our topic of discussion.

He had a ONS (I'm learning these abbreviations) while on a sales trip, when he came home he and his wife were having a date night and she told him that she would never want to know if he cheated on her unless he didn't love her anymore. So now he thinks he should just not tell and make sure it never happens again. I bet she already knows in her heart since he is a terrible liar and looks like a sick puppy all the time now.

He has no STD's (was tested and wore a condom) and disgustingly does not know the womans name or won't tell me.

So I am disgusted with him, I think I need to take him to the gym and beat him up for a while before I can talk to him again. What do you guys think I should do?

Buy your brother a copy of THIS BOOK

I personally find that a VERY odd thing for his wife to say out of the blue...I'm thinking 2 things about it:

Either,

1. Your brother is lying and is using twisted wayward logic to rationalize and justify not telling his wife about his actions.

or

2. His wife has cheated herself and doesn't wish to tell your brother.

I do not think a marriage that has no intimacy is worth one red cent...Like Dr. Harley, I think that radical honesty in a marriage is critical....I think your brother's wife should most certainly know about your brother's ONS...

Mrs. W

I don't believe this. This sounds like a wayward fabrication that is pretty much refuted by your last sentence. If she doesn't want to know then why would he tell her even if happens again?

The chances of it happening again are much greater if she doesn't know.

I definitely agree that I am not getting the whole story, but I don't have a good feeling for what I am missing. I doubt that she has cheated from knowing her, she is very much the type to avoid conflict and just make everything peaceful.

I don't think the comment was out of the blue, I would guess that my brother was leading up to telling her and she stopped him with this comment. I'll get him the book and see what we do from there.

I still want to beat him up but he is afraid to go in to spar with me now.

I dunno. Living through this pain has made me reassess all the Harley hardline stuff.

I'd say, if you want to confess to an old affair of any length and type, your marriage better now be in a REALLY REALLY good place.

If an affair is in the past, and the WS is committed and things are going better and better, this would be my thought:

When the relationship gets to an 8 or 9 on a scale of 10, the past confession may bind them and take it to a 10.

If the relationship is a 4,5,6, a confession like that could blow up everything that might be improving and could have become great.

This assumes:

1. The affair is past in the WS's heart and not crippling his marital progress.

and

2. There is no suspicion in the BS that is holding them back.

In all honesty....I wish my WW's affair had ended naturally and maybe I'd heard about it in a teary confession five years from now when we were in a great place in our marriage.

I do not believe that a minor, old affair somehow freezea the wayward's heart and makes it impossible for them to love their spouse and improve their marriage.

And yet the lack of intimacy in marriage can often be traced back to just such an event and has been documented in many books so Mike I wonder where you are pulling this observation from?

6YL,

Thats a tough one, in my wifes family infidelity is common, out of 5 siblings, I know of 1 who has cheated on spouse and 2 who had their spouse cheat on them, the wronged parties just don't know. Every time I see teh spouses it triggers those memories. How is your relationship with your SIL?

NJ

Whatever happened to your thread on Christianity and Infidelity that one was rather fun?

Roughly national statistics.

I think on these boards "lack" of intimacy becomes a black and white issue. If after an a, a WS moves the needle well into the gray zone of caring and protection, then there definitely is an opportunity to clear the final hudle with that sort of radical honesty.

But...a one night fling 10 years ago? Come on, for someone teeering on the brink of divorce, not the time to add that on.

IMO...

Well the case I was actually thinking of, retold in Torn Assunder was of a ONS 25 years prior. Upon confession (their marriage had degenerated over that 25 years) they were actually able to recover.

Hmmmmmm....

I think my experience is relevant here. After all, I'm living through this very thing right now.

I had my incredibly stupid ONS just under 20 years ago, and kept it to myself until my wife confessed her A four months ago.

Had I 'fessed up back then, our marriage would have ended on the spot. Waking up the next morning I realized the gravity of what I had done and was sickened by it. From that point forward, I resolved to never, ever, put myself in a position where that stupidity could be repeated. (A pretty good instinctive response in the days before MB was a glimmer in Dr. Harley's eyes, dontcha think?)

Our kids were pre-schoolers, and I didn't want to destroy our lives over one bit of idiocy that I KNEW would NEVER be repeated.

Fast forward to November of 2008. Bombshell time two weeks after having major joint replacement surgery and I'm somewhat physically helpless. The mental anguish I had put myself through over the previous two decades stayed my hand upon the revelations.

I already knew I was no angel. I didn't hit her with my cane, much as I wanted to. I didn't start screaming imprecations. I did go off the deep end, but quietly by myself while I pondered what I'd been told. I also knew that something like this could be overcome. I had done it myself.

Good people sometimes make bad decisions and can do horrible things. I knew this, and if gave me strength. I told her the very next day about my fall from grace. I wanted to give her hope that our M could be saved. I wanted to give her some dignity after her confession and a chance to see that she wasn't alone in the world. And yes, I want a chance to clear a conscience that had been stained all these years, I admit to that as well.


Amen. At least in my case, it didn't. The wakeup call turned out not to be enough to affair-proof from the other side, partially due to later inattentiveness on my part. But that's a whole 'nother story that many of you are already familiar with....

---

BH 49
FWW 47
S23, S22
EA 4/07?-1/09
PA 6/07-10/08
NC Broken 8 times
NC finally firmly established 1/23/09
Making baby steps in Recovery, with a long way to go.

... or 3. She knows about the ONS and told him that just to avoid conflict about it.

My FWW is a bit like that... in public (in private, it's another matter). And she cheated for 2 years.

Yeah...I lived with that type of thinking for 2 years and it about killed me and my marriage. I couldn't let myself get close to my H because there was this huge obstacle in the way...my secret. And that huge obstacle was slowly crushing me too.

Tell your brother that ignoring it with the thought that it will never happen again and he will now devote himself to his wife looks great on paper...but it will slowly destroy exactly what he thinks he is protecting.

Does this mean she would have wanted to end the marriage if she knew the truth and was denied that opportunity by your dishonesty?

I am assuming that the A was in the not too distant past.

IMHO, your little brother is telling his confession to alieviate.>sp? his guilt.
deciet is still a lie, and if you like/respect/egad! love- your SIL, I would not want to be part of that deciet.

If little bro won't come here (he'd get his head chewed off- he probably knows that) that is his choice.

Tell him how you feel, I beleive if you are still around MB you have a pretty strong opinion of RA and LB's. And tell him you are done being part of his deciet.

Don't become his "guilt valve" - by allowing him to purge his guilt by talking to you. You know who he should be talking to- he knows who he should be talking to.

I would not be part of it. My husbands bro's do this [censored] all the time, they act rotten to their girlfriends/wives and I think they comizerate> i know sp. funky
to make themselves feel better. blech! My husband used to feel sorry for wives/girlfriends, but in later years has learned to listen, but not comment.

I think your brother needs to ask himself if he wants to be in a marriage with a woman who doesn't want to know if he's betraying the marriage.

By implication, this is what she would do herself - not ever tell. So who knows whether she will, or has?

What does this mean simply in terms of potential STDs, doubtful pregnancies, etc?

If you're not brave enough to deal with the truth of your life, the truth will inevitably bite you in the a$$ somewhere down the line.

TA

Can a person really know this? I know most of us have said "If my spouse were ever unfaithful, I'd have them out on the lawn with their bags packed so fast their head would be spinning" but in actuality it doesn't always turn out like that. So while I hear your rationalization for not telling, I have to say I doubt its validity.


Perhaps you changed and improved your marriage without ever having confessed, but you lived with this:

The mental anguish I had put myself through over the previous two decades ...

and this:

The wakeup call turned out not to be enough to affair-proof from the other side, partially due to later inattentiveness on my part.

Who's to say what might have happened if the two of you had learned early on to practice radical honesty?

So your brother is confiding in YOU. How about his buddies?
How about other family members?

Is she the last to know?

That would be the biggest hurt to me. That everyone knew. And nobody tells. For years you will all know this "secret" about how crappy their marriage is.

And yet they put this facade of a happy marriage out there.

If he won't tell her, somebody should. For her own sake.