Do you have anything constructive to add? No one else has been half as eager to make me feel worse. This is your opinion and all you will ever see me as. Doesn't make it true.

Should an affair be revealed?

I have been letting you in on some clues to infidelity when a spouse is unwilling to be truthful. But there are a few, of course, who are honest enough to tell their spouses about an affair without being confronted. Guilt sometimes sets in right after the first sexual encounter, and it continues to build as one lie is added to another. Depression follows guilt and it's not unusual for a wayward spouse to even consider suicide as a way to escape the nightmare he or she has created. As an act of desperation, honesty is sometimes seized as a last resort, often in an effort to relieve the feelings of guilt.

From my perspective, honesty is part of the solution to infidelity, and so I'll take honesty for whatever reason, even if it's to relieve a feeling of guilt and depression. The revelation of an affair is very hard on an unsuspecting spouse, of course, but at the same time, it's the first step toward marital reconciliation.

Most unfaithful spouses know that their affair is one of the most heartless acts they could ever inflict on their spouse. So one of their reasons to be dishonest is to protect their spouse from emotional pain. "Why add insult to injury," they reason. "What I did was wrong, but why put my spouse through needless pain by revealing this thoughtless act?" As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don't think they will ever be discovered, and so they don't expect their unfaithfulness to hurt their spouse.

But I am one of the very few that advocate the revelation of affairs at all costs, even when the wayward spouse has no feelings of guilt or depression to overcome. I believe that honesty is so essential to the success of marriage, that hiding past infidelity makes a marriage dishonest, preventing emotional closeness and intimacy.

It isn't honesty that causes the pain, it's the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it's in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity.

It's patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth.

It's not only patronizing, but it's also false to assume that your spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Illusions do not make us happy, they cause us to wander through life, bumping into barriers that are invisible to us because of the illusion that is created. Truth, on the other hand, reveals those barriers, and sheds light on them so that we can see well enough to overcome them. The unsuspecting spouse of an unfaithful husband or wife wonders why their marriage is not more fulfilling and more intimate. Knowledge of an affair would make it clear why all efforts have failed.

After revealing an affair, your spouse will no longer trust you. But lack of trust does not ruin a marriage, it's the lack of care and protection that ruins marriages. Your spouse should not trust you, and the sooner your spouse realizes it, the better.

I respect your opinion, and I'm sure you're right, but it is not the OP that I'm concerned with protecting. Like I said, I made a mistake. I would rather make up a fictional person than harm those this would harm. I would never forgive myself for that. My husband may one day forgive me for the sexting. That's minor compared to the other. I screwed up in a big way. Nothing illegal, but potentially damaging nonetheless.

How did the talk with your H go last night?

Do you have anything constructive to add? No one else has been half as eager to make me feel worse. This is your opinion and all you will ever see me as. Doesn't make it true.

Should an affair be revealed?

I have been letting you in on some clues to infidelity when a spouse is unwilling to be truthful. But there are a few, of course, who are honest enough to tell their spouses about an affair without being confronted. Guilt sometimes sets in right after the first sexual encounter, and it continues to build as one lie is added to another. Depression follows guilt and it's not unusual for a wayward spouse to even consider suicide as a way to escape the nightmare he or she has created. As an act of desperation, honesty is sometimes seized as a last resort, often in an effort to relieve the feelings of guilt.

From my perspective, honesty is part of the solution to infidelity, and so I'll take honesty for whatever reason, even if it's to relieve a feeling of guilt and depression. The revelation of an affair is very hard on an unsuspecting spouse, of course, but at the same time, it's the first step toward marital reconciliation.

Most unfaithful spouses know that their affair is one of the most heartless acts they could ever inflict on their spouse. So one of their reasons to be dishonest is to protect their spouse from emotional pain. "Why add insult to injury," they reason. "What I did was wrong, but why put my spouse through needless pain by revealing this thoughtless act?" As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don't think they will ever be discovered, and so they don't expect their unfaithfulness to hurt their spouse.

But I am one of the very few that advocate the revelation of affairs at all costs, even when the wayward spouse has no feelings of guilt or depression to overcome. I believe that honesty is so essential to the success of marriage, that hiding past infidelity makes a marriage dishonest, preventing emotional closeness and intimacy.

It isn't honesty that causes the pain, it's the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it's in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity.

It's patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth.

It's not only patronizing, but it's also false to assume that your spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Illusions do not make us happy, they cause us to wander through life, bumping into barriers that are invisible to us because of the illusion that is created. Truth, on the other hand, reveals those barriers, and sheds light on them so that we can see well enough to overcome them. The unsuspecting spouse of an unfaithful husband or wife wonders why their marriage is not more fulfilling and more intimate. Knowledge of an affair would make it clear why all efforts have failed.

After revealing an affair, your spouse will no longer trust you. But lack of trust does not ruin a marriage, it's the lack of care and protection that ruins marriages. Your spouse should not trust you, and the sooner your spouse realizes it, the better.

We have both gone and done our own things all along,

I'm baffled. When you told your husband about the texts -- HE DIDN'T ASK YOU WHO IT WAS? What kind of guy doesn't want to know who is threatening his marriage? What kind of guy doesn't want to protect his wife?

I do understand that. I never expected sympathy. But I feel I would be in a better position to receive help if I had simply gone to the main forum and asked about how I could possibly get my husband to start recognizing and meeting my emotional need for SF.

Radical honesty has burned me many, many times. I have felt nothing but regret for telling him about the texts. It hurt more than it helped. But it had to be done.

The sexting? Because it made me feel attractive. Something I was missing.

The sexting? Because it made me feel attractive to other men . Something I was missing.

And everyone cheerfully skipped over the part where I mentioned that he flirts too. My girlfriends flirt with him. His female friends flirt with him. I don't have a problem with it because I know he's attractive and I know he's mine.

If he has a problem with his friends flirting with me, or me flirting with his friends, or with my female friends (in fun) then he has a responsibility of telling me that. Because in ten years, he hasn't.

I don't have a problem with it because I know he's attractive and I know he's mine.

I would rather make up a fictional person than harm those this would harm accept the responsibility and consequences for what I've done.

We had a couple of 'friends' that we are no longer friends with and do not see or talk to, that were telling us that the other was cheating.

Do you know how hard it is to avoid someone who is on TV and radio? I can block phone numbers and email addresses, but I can't stop the face or voice from reaching me. That's why moving would be pointless. Anyway. Back to recovery.

Anyway. Back to recovery.

Do you know how hard it is to avoid someone who is on TV and radio

I've never had a friend closer than my husband before we started to have these problems with SF. Talking to him about it seemed to fall on deaf ears. This friend is a mutual friend of ours, his friend before she became mine. There is always more to the story, and it would hurt other people more than it would help if this person's identity were discovered. I messed up, but I don't have to mess up a bunch of other people's lives just to try and salvage my marriage. I would honestly rather it ended than to hurt the people who would be hurt. No one wants that.

My mistake; my burden.

Maybe he has cheated on me. That has crossed my mind many, many times, with the lack of interest issue. We had a couple of 'friends' that we are no longer friends with and do not see or talk to, that were telling us that the other was cheating. The wife would tell me DH was cheating, the husband would tell me DH was cheating, and they would both tell DH that I was. It got worse. They started telling friends of DH that I was cheating. I don't know what they told people about DH, just what I learned they were saying about me. We discovered what was happening, and ditched those people. But the thoughts they planted in our heads about the other won't go away.

If he was doing any of the things I was told he was, well, I would be upset, but I wouldn't want a divorce. He knows about the sexting and doesn't want a divorce. He wants to work it out, just like I do.

Do you know how hard it is to avoid someone who is on TV and radio?