Sarah, that quote also matches my experience. I won't go into the details, but my wifes affair was TERRIBLY destructive to our relationship before I found out. The long, slow, subtle emotinal torture I endured during that time was in many ways WORSE than the the intense pain after the revelation of the affair. Which is one of the reasons I am an advocate of telling.

There is one other thing in your posts which I wish to comment on, because it also matches my experience,a nd it is related. My wife thought I could not meet the emotional needs she was getting met by the OM, because she thought I was "just not that kind of guy". She now says I meet them far better than he ever did. She did not know me. You do not know your husband. You can't, because you have put an invisible emotional wall between you and he that he cannot see and cannot bridge. It can only be broken by exposure.

You may feel that the experience I allude to in the first paragraph does not apply to your husband, but because of the emotinal barrier between you, you can't know if that is true or not.

And, oh, yeah...my wife told me partly because she WAS trying to work on the marriage, but it wasn't working, and realized that the dishonesty of keeping that information from me was hindering her efforts. Our marriage was better two weeks after DDay than it had ever been before in our married life, despite my intense mood swings, obsessing and pain (no coincidence that we read SAA and took the questionaires the first week).

Sarie, DON'T tell your husband! It will only bring on turmoil. I wish I had not said anything about my affair to my husband. I would still be pulling it off right now and the feelings for the OM would be going away (at least that's what everyone says about the infatuation of an affair). Give it plenty of time. If you can't take not telling him any more go ahead and tell, but otherwise KEEP QUIET!!!

Hi there,

I disagree completely with S.H.

I think "to tell or not to tell" is something that everyone has to decide for themselves.
There are many things that have to be considered before someone actually decides to "tell or to stay quiet".

Every situation is different.

Of course it will bring in "turmoil" and the BS will be devasted! This is NORMAL!
And yet the result isn't usually as bad as the "lies" were.

I believe that "opening up and being honest" is the first step. The BS has the right to know the "truth".
If the BS decides to "forgive and work on the marriage" he will know what he is "forgiving" and the chances for a future "healthy" relationship are great!


Even though it was the "worse" experience of my life, I'm gratefull that I know about my WS affair.
I'm gratefull that he "opened up and was honest" after I found out.
If he would of admitted it on his own, I'm sure that "Recovery" would of "speeded up" a little more but altogether "I love my "new" life!"

Once it was out in the open, he did indeed have the "best sleep" since months!

He said that he would of eventually went "NUTS" if the "Bomb hadn't of "exploded!"

It was a great "relief" for him and he now has "inner peace" because there are absolutely NO secrets and NO lies involved.
We've both "cleaned the mess" as a team and we're "moving on" successfully.

take care
bb

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by S.H.:
<strong> Sarie, DON'T tell your husband! It will only bring on turmoil. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Baloney, it was your AFFAIR that brought on the turmoil, not the exposure. Your H has a RIGHT to know he is married to a cheat and a liar, that is why you had to tell him.

Interesting. Into the mind of a WS. At what point did you start to know that this friendship was wrong? And why did you not stop it at that point? What did you think of as a reason to push forward? What did you husband do to justify this forward movement in the relationship? Just curious as to your thought process.

It really makes me wonder how two people can love each other so much at their wedding day, and time can erode it away. I wish you luck with your final decision. But remember, the truth will set you free... god bless.

Sarie:

I hope you're coming around 2 the idea of telling your H.

At the beginning of this, you said:

"I know you can't possibly understand but to you that have a unfaithful spouse, believe me, they can also love you."

Yeah, yeah. I can "possibly understand." I understand this very well, and why you should tell your H, also very well, from firsthand experience.

My W's A with "Rat Meat" started about 13 years ago. I never knew. They ended it after about 4 or 5 years, and he moved 2 another state. She hired him as a consultant about 3 or 4 years ago, and the A resumed via email and 2wice when they were on travel 2gether. She thought she had ended it again over 2 years ago, and was planning on even2ally telling me about it, but I stumbled across the emails just 3 months after she thought she'd ended it.

My point here is that, if you don't tell, and hash through your marital problems via complete honesty with your H, you will likely have another A. My W did. If she had told me after the first time, or if I'd found out then, I would have been able 2 help her prevent it from happening again. How? By being the H she was missing. Honesty is a 2-way street. If you're not being honest with your H about who you are, what you've done, and what you need, at best he's just trying 2 meet needs you don't have. At worst, he's someone you don't know, possibly with a secret 2nd life of his own because YOU haven't been meeting HIS needs all these years.

If you TELL your H, I'd bet you'd be pleasantly surprised at how interested he will be in figuring out what went wrong and what he can do 2 fix it. I sure surprised MY W that way. Many others do, probably more than do not by a long margin.

If you DON'T tell your H, don't be 2 surprised if, as he grows on his own and someday becomes wiser 2 the ways of the world, and YOU, such that he figures out what happened all those years before that day. What do you think he'll want 2 do then? Will your M be worth saving 2 him at that time?

I ask you these questions because my IC from last year tried 2 suggest that I would have been better off not knowing about my W's A. I asked him, "what if I stumbled across those emails in my 70s? What if I realize my W's affections have been divided between 2 people most of our lives at that age?" Even now, when I think about it, I realize that, though I will always love my W (we've been M'd for 28 years now), I wouldn't want 2 continue living with her after all that. She and I have a LOT 2 do 2 recover from the past 13 years - she needs 2 completely sever contact with RM for the rest of her life and decide whether she wants her family intact (she says she does), and I have 2 correct my past mistakes and do a better job at meeting her needs and making her feel safe 2 confide in me when she's unhappy.

It's a lot of work, true recovery, but it's a heckuva lot better than living a lie.

Pull your head out.

-ol' 2long

Sarie:

I hope you're coming around 2 the idea of telling your H.

At the beginning of this, you said:

"I know you can't possibly understand but to you that have a unfaithful spouse, believe me, they can also love you."

Yeah, yeah. I can "possibly understand." I understand this very well, and why you should tell your H, also very well, from firsthand experience.

My W's A with "Rat Meat" started about 13 years ago. I never knew. They ended it after about 4 or 5 years, and he moved 2 another state. She hired him as a consultant about 3 or 4 years ago, and the A resumed via email and 2wice when they were on travel 2gether. She thought she had ended it again over 2 years ago, and was planning on even2ally telling me about it, but I stumbled across the emails just 3 months after she thought she'd ended it.

My point here is that, if you don't tell, and hash through your marital problems via complete honesty with your H, you will likely have another A. My W did. If she had told me after the first time, or if I'd found out then, I would have been able 2 help her prevent it from happening again. How? By being the H she was missing. Honesty is a 2-way street. If you're not being honest with your H about who you are, what you've done, and what you need, at best he's just trying 2 meet needs you don't have. At worst, he's someone you don't know, possibly with a secret 2nd life of his own because YOU haven't been meeting HIS needs all these years.

If you TELL your H, I'd bet you'd be pleasantly surprised at how interested he will be in figuring out what went wrong and what he can do 2 fix it. I sure surprised MY W that way. Many others do, probably more than do not by a long margin.

If you DON'T tell your H, don't be 2 surprised if, as he grows on his own and someday becomes wiser 2 the ways of the world, and YOU, such that he figures out what happened all those years before that day. What do you think he'll want 2 do then? Will your M be worth saving 2 him at that time?

I ask you these questions because my IC from last year tried 2 suggest that I would have been better off not knowing about my W's A. I asked him, "what if I stumbled across those emails in my 70s? What if I realize my W's affections have been divided between 2 people most of our lives at that age?" Even now, when I think about it, I realize that, though I will always love my W (we've been M'd for 28 years now), I wouldn't want 2 continue living with her after all that. She and I have a LOT 2 do 2 recover from the past 13 years - she needs 2 completely sever contact with RM for the rest of her life and decide whether she wants her family intact (she says she does), and I have 2 correct my past mistakes and do a better job at meeting her needs and making her feel safe 2 confide in me when she's unhappy.

It's a lot of work, true recovery, but it's a heckuva lot better than living a lie.

Pull your head out.

-ol' 2long