Truth, like sorrow, floats.

Your wife WILL find out, sooner or later, despite your intentions.

My husband had an affair in 1988. I found out in 2010. He had no intentions of telling me.

The more time that passes between your affair and your wife's discovery, the less chance you will have to save your marriage.

Follow the advice of every poster on your thread.

BV

Apparently he was just looking for validation to continue to lie and manipulate his wife. I hope he comes back and proves me wrong.

I enter the plea of insanity.

Come here under severe stress and anxiety of your own making... to the point that there is severe depression, fatigue, and suicidal ideations... and when the plan of care is provided?


Nah, I just want to keep doing what I've been doing...



Right, because it's worked SO WELL up until now....

Jay, you can spend all your time making up rationalizations for not telling her, and it all comes down to a few things:

-- You don't respect your wife enough to be honest with her.
-- You don't respect her ability to handle the truth.
-- Above all, you're afraid of the possible consequences for yourself of telling the truth, and you hold the goal of avoiding those consequences above any promises you might once have made to be honest with her. In a word, that's selfish of you.

I'm a man who had an affair 4 years ago, Jay. (So much for the thoroughness of your research about the "demographic" here.) I'm not proud of it. Quite the opposite. I only told my wife because things got to the point where, if I hadn't told, she'd have found out otherwise anyway from someone else; so I'm not here lording it over you like I was superior back when I was wayward.

But the thing is, I did come clean, and I gave my wife the chance to make her own decisions on the basis of the truth. And lucky me, she gave me a second chance that I didn't even deserve.

The upshot is, I don't have to live my life as a cover-up, waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. I don't have to make up chickenshit rationalizations about how I'm maintaining a lie & a deception in order to "protect her" when all I'd be doing in reality is simply covering my own [censored].

See, I've got something that you can still get: I've got my integrity back. And no chickenshit rationalization that you can ever come up with will ever be better than having your integrity back & knowing that (if your wife decides to keep you), she'll be deciding to keep you because she's all-in for you. I've got a great marriage again, and it's not based upon a lie.

Yours is based upon a lie right now. You can change it, but not until you fess up & start the road back.
Please ponder this.
And sleep well.

Methinks he was seeking some help in shutting up his SCREAMING CONSCIENCE! He needs to step over to gloryb.com and join the other sewer rats for that. But that will only work so long. The screams will get louder and louder with every passing year....

AND you don't have to listen to a SCREAMING conscience every day of your life....

I won't pass on my crass and rude interpetation of the mentioned site (never been there, but the name... sounds like something from a highway rest stop).

Something tells me he's a serial cheater who was lurking and had a flash of righteousness that was snuffed out when he heard what he didn't want to hear. THE TRUTH.

I actually feel sorry for him. I wish I'd asked him if he were of a faith that emphasized the sacrament of confession. That would have been a good way to ease him into taking responsibility for his transgressions and recovery therefrom.

Dammit!

Actually, NG, I think the faiths that allow you to confess and be forgiven by God, but don't require actual amends to the human you wronged, do a lot of harm to the world. My wayward father got his third marriage sanctioned by the Catholic Church and first two annulled (in the church's eyes, not the law) without ever making amends to any of us that he harmed...the church sanctioned his further selfishness.

I have no way to counter your precise experience other than to say for each questionable (or dodgy) situation like your Dad's, (or, more exactly, the story you believe of your Dad's situation) there are many thousands of folks who have been assisted back to the Path through the efforts of righteous and moral religious leaders, of whatever faith.

Exploring that option with jayf would have been something worthwhile, IMHO.

Ive confessed out loud to god countless times in tears. It doesnt help...

Confess. To. Your. Wife.

Confessing to God doesn't do much good when you have no intention of making amends. You must confess to your victim.

YOU inflicted the wound, so you need to put on your big boy pants and act like a man.

Yes, you are crying. Feeling guilty. So what will you DO about it?

How about confessing to your victim?

jayf, I'm glad you're back.

Dude, the issue of confessing to God, is that the feedback is not as plaintive as it would be if using a member of the clergy, and misses some of the point, anyway.

Confessing to God (or his earthly counterpart) for an offense against God, may very well erase that sin.

You are struggling because you KNOW, before you came here, now that you're here, and if you leave, that there remains the offense committed against your BW. Given the fact of free will and action, He cannot mandate that your offense against her is expunged, or punished in some way; He cannot order her to act in any such manner. She alone has the power to do that.

So, as much as you may feel that appealing directly to Him is sufficient, that is not the total recovery needed. Find a priest to whom you can make a proper confession. Get the "sin" formally expunged.

Then do what is necessary, for both of your well-beings, and confess to your BW. It is highly likely she suspects something, and quite possibly THE thing.

You appear to have the remorse needed. Can you find the courage?

That's because you have not repented. He has turned his face away from you because you have lies on your lips.

jayf,

There is a very good chance your BW already knows something is wrong, she at least knows you were emotionally involved with this OW. She might not have a full understanding of emotional affairs and how damaging they are. Often times "one time events" are actually are the culmination of months of attraction, flirting and conversation.

My W is still holding on to her secret as well and sometimes mentions being "guilty" when we pray together, I think and hope she will come clean some day.

God Bless
Gamma

Agreed ML. He has not repented. If he had, he would turn away from what he is doing i.e. deceiving his wife. Your own conscience condemns you Jayf.

Jayf,

There is not just one demographic here....

Like you, I also betrayed my wife.

I didn't chime in because what need to be said was already being covered beautifully.

Put your big boy pants on and man up!
Your wife deserves the truth from you.

No Excuses, No covering your own [censored]'. OK!

Just own what you did and tell the truth.

The affair is all on you!
The 5 yrs of hiding it was to protect you, not her, you've just been scared.
Regretfully, that's all on you too....


BTDT....

Please don't play any more games with your marriage.