I KNEW something was wrong. I just thought there was something wrong with ME - why else would it be that my own husband didn't love me anymore? Because THAT is how I felt.

Do you want your wife to feel that way?

We have told you, over and over again and it's all in the basic concepts and in the coping with infidelity articles on the site.

You can't build a recovery based on lies and you can't build a happy marriage without a commitment to being open and honest. Your BW can't protect herself if she doesn't know the truth about what you have been doing behind her back.

It seems to me that you just don't want to hear it because you are more interested in protecting yourself and/or your OW than your W.

Here's Dr. Harley's article that answers your question:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3405_dishonesty.html

Because the truth will always out. You have not made her aware of this OW. You have nothing stopping you from going back to her in a time of weakness. If you tell your wife you can heal from it and be stronger for it. It won't eat at you like it has been doing for so long. You're here asking this question because of guilt. Guilt is a good thing for you to feel. It let's you know you're doing something wrong. The only way is to tell her the truth and let her decide. Don't wait for her to ask or to pry it out. Step up and be a man and tell her the truth for her sake, your sake, and that of your marriage. Radical honesty. She will thank you for it in the end.

There will always be an elephant in the room. A foggy air of dishonesty.

And she will find out, the truth always comes out. No matter how fast the lie, the truth out runs in the end.

There are plenty of betrayed spouses on here, who find out of an affair years later. They are more likely to end up divorced, as the injury of years of betrayal and dishonesty is what kills the marriage.

Your choice, rebuild your marriage on the quicksand of lies by omission, or find the hard ground of the truth. And hitting the ground may hurt initially, but there is a solid foundation for the future.

Jurist,

What got you into this mess? Having a secret second life, and lying to your W, just spill everything all at once make your sincere apologies and hope for the best.

Do you want to carry this weight around for the rest of your life? There is a good chance your BW is waiting for you to come clean and knows already from your body language.

You also need to make your confession to the betrayed husband of the woman you had this affair with they were your victims as well.

God Bless
Gamma

So, by not telling your wife, you can protect the love you have for the OW, and thus protect your affair. No recovered WS would still "care deeply for" the OW unless they were still in the fog. Your affair is ongoing. You really haven't ended it. It will end when it is exposed. Start by telling your wife.

It's just the Right Thing to do.

She already doesn't believe you according to what you stated, at least part of the time and her gut suspicion will remain vigilant until she can find out the truth.

True intimacy is unavailable to you and your W until her gut instinct can be put at ease.

Put it all on the line, answering everything she wants to know and then follow up by offering and scheduling a polygraph test to assure her for her peace of mind.

let me ask you this way...

What does it say about YOUR conscience and character that you could live with KNOWING you are keeping truth from her?

A person of conscience who has TRULY turned away from their waywardness would not be ABLE to keep things secret, IMO.

If your doctor did surgery on you to remove a tumor, would you want him to leave part of it in because you might be upset if you saw how big the tumor was? If the bank made an error in the amount of 50,000 dollar, would you want the whole 50,000 dollars back or just 35,000?

The whole truth is the only truth.

In other words, you are lying to her for your own selfish gain. You are knowingly tricking her into staying with you. That is manipulate and cruel.

The solution to infidelity is honesty, not more lies. Don't cruelly deny your wife the right to make decisions about her own life. She is not your PET.

It hurts your wife to lie to her about her own life. It also means you are UNREPENTANT and therefore DANGEROUS to her. You are an unrepentant adulterer and a liar. How is that safe for her? She cannot protect herself FROM YOU if she doesn't know everything.

A person who is unrepentant will do it again whenever it is convenient. But if she knows everything you did, she can better protect herself from you. OR she may decide to dump you. That is her right - a right you have cruelly denied her for SELFISH GAIN.

I have to agree with all the others. It is the RIGHT THING TO DO to confess completely and let your wife decide what to do with the information. Ultimately you will feel better that you did the right thing, and a weight will be lifted off your heart. You won't be able to continue to live a lie indefinitely anyway - it will eat at you. If you confess though while telling her you are profoundly sorry, you realize what you did was horribly wrong and you are begging for her forgiveness, she may very well give you another chance and you will have a chance to one day have a great marriage again.

You've rebuilt nothing but a facade.

You "deeply care for" another woman and you lie to your wife daily. You treat her like a child, deciding what she should and should not know, and view her as undeserving and/or incapable of handling the truth about her life.

If she leaves? It is her choice, just as it was your choice to lead a secret life.

Oh, and she WILL find out. Truth floats. I found out about my husband's first affair, conducted in 1987, in 2010.

He, like you, NEVER intended to tell me.

Man up.

BV

As I told my husband just yesterday - If you still long for the OW and tell me, we can face it and find a way to deal with it...if you still long for her and hide it we cannot deal with it and it is much more likely to destroy us in the end.

Is it the lies, the hidden longing, the words that do not match the feelings? I don't know, but I know that it is destructive in the end. Also, it is morally wrong to deny your spouse the right to make a choice about her own life based on the truth.

She has no way to find out. It was all online, therefore we know none of the same people. Nobody saw us together, because we were never together. In this situation there is no common thread to tie us together, therefore my wife will never know if I never tell her. If she doesn't know she will never be hurt. Why do people believe she and I cannot have an intimate bond if I keep this from her?

Because secrets are never good. What if she found out? How would she react? I would rather be told then to find out. Its your life but trust me you cannot hide things forever and your wife is not dumb sooner or later she will find out. When she does its not going to be pretty.

She will find out. Maybe not this time, but as an unrepentant cheater, you will do it again. You need EPs in place that she agrees to.

And, Buddy, there is no such thing as an "intimate" bond based on anything but 100% openness and honesty. The fact that you even question this is shameful.

Of course, it is within the realm of possibility that she will never find out. However, your marriage probably would not last even if that were the case. Dr. Harley explains that there is a very narrow path to recovery after infidelity (including internet infidelity). If you deviate from that path, your marriage probably won't make it. Refusing to become completely transparent with your wife is a huge deviation which would likely end up wrecking your marriage, regardless of whether she discovers this.

You shouldn't tell her because you are afraid she will find out; you should tell her because you love her enough to show her the extent of her injuries so she can start to heal; you should tell her because you love her enough to protect her by enabling her to hold you accountable; you should tell her because you love her enough to want her to make decisions about her own life based on the truth. The question isn't whether you can get away with it; the question is whether you love her enough to stop trying to get away with it. Do you love her that much?

You can't have an intimate bond with someone you are deceiving. What kind of a person TRICKS and manipulates another person into staying married to him? An unrepentant liar and cheater, that's who. Your wife might choose not to stay married to such a person.

You have denied her the right to make her own decisions about her own life. That is sick and cruel.

Anyway, there is nothing we can do to help you if your goal is to deceive your wife. You are wasting valuable board time.

What if she would choose NOT to stay married to an unrepentant liar and cheater? How will she make that decision to leave if you don't tell her?