This is a continuation of the I cheated string.

I want to tell my husband. But how do I tell him? I know that telling him details would really hurt him. The OM and I had 5 sexual experiences but during those 5 times we did everything imaginable. In limo's, hotels, oral sex in cars, intense orgasms. Stuff I have never been able to do with my husband.

I have cut off all contact with the OM. I feel very weak about this and realize that I have to tell my husband if this is going to work. I owe him that.

But how much do I have to tell him? Do I need to give details? He will ask so what do I do?

How do you tell him? You just come right out and come clean with your lies and decit. Do you enjoy looking at your husband knowing you've lied and betrayed him? Do you enjoy skeletons hanging in your closet? Tell him the basis of what has happened and then deal with the details as he needs to ask them. My wife told me the details of her affair but only as I asked them. The details in many ways I think has helped me but also haunted me. Stop today with living in the lie you are in and putting your husband in and for god sakes I hope you had protected sex with the OM and if not do not put your husband at any risk - get yourself tested.

Come clean and just tell him - I am sure he may already suspect this and is looking for the truth. Give it to him - he deserves it.

Also - I don't think your husband needs to hear you bragging about your sexual escapades with this other man - if he wants detail then give them to him but don't throw them at him the way you did in your post cause they will injury him and it's plain 'ol not needed.

<small>[ April 08, 2003, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: promiseherthemoon ]</small>

I appreciate your comments and sense of urgency. I want to tell but am worried about the how to tell.

How did she tell you? Can I avoid details because I dont think I could ever admit the personal details of the things I did with the OM. They are not something I have ever done.

I realize that I need to deal with the pain of this but I dont think of am capable of telling him everything and if that is the case is it worth telling him anything?

It is not my intention to brag. I guess the question is if my husband wants explicite details which I know he will, can I not tell him.

It would kill him to know. It would kill me to tell him and I think end any chance of us getting back together.

So How to tell??? Any advice?

Here's a link that should help with what you are tring to get the courage to do.
Stilltogether's advice on how to tell spouse

I hope you are able to do it soon, and that you will yet spend many happy years with H.

SS

Julia - Plain and simple here, Honesty is Honesty tell the truth - as painful as it may be your husband needs to know. Put the shoe on the other foot, what would you want if you were in your husbands spot? There is no more room for lies here, come clean. Tell him whatever he requests to know, I think you owe him at least that much. I know I would much rather hear the truth. My wife delayed a bit on telling me she had sex with another man but I sensed it and she came clean and she answered all my questions. Was I hurt and shocked by what she told me?? HELL YES I was. Was I glad she was honest? H-O-N-E-S-T-Y is all I want and I am sure your husband wants. Stop the pain and the lies and lay it all out on the table. Own up to what you've done and be a lady about it.

Read The Policy of Radical Honesty Does that answer your question? Part of the problem you have with your husband is that you are not telling him the truth in order to "protect" him. In the process of protecting him you are destroying your relationship - which is about the worst way you could hurt him. So, the cure is worse than the disease. Start being honest. If you had been honest about how you were feeling about your relationship in the past, you would not be in the situation you are in now. Stop the bleeding. My wife confessed saying: "I have to tell you I have been an unfaithful wife, and you can do with me what you want - throw me out or whatever." The humility was helpful, as was the honesty. Since you know about Marriage Builders, I would suggest you add that you are willing to work on your marriage if he is, and you have found some resources that can help you do that. If he has ANY violent tendencies, I would suggest you tell him in the presence of a counselor. If your counselor suggests telling him is NOT a good policy, find one that is competent.

Hi Julia,

Honesty is what you husband will want, it is what he needs. Yes, be prepared for him to be hurt, be prepared for him to be angry.

If you want to work on your marriage, be honest about that. If you are willing to do anything to prove to him that it is over, such as quiting your job and getting a new job then do it. Tell him you have already started looking for a new job.

He will know if you are holding back, and he will know if you are being honest.

He may ask the same question more than once, this will be a great shock to him. Be prepared to answer the same questions more than once.

As far as the SF area, things you have done with OM and not your H, do you know for certain that he did not want to do these things or was he holding back because he thought you did not want to do these things. Have you two ever discussed this issue?

You can tell your H you found this website, tell him about the Harley principles, are you willing to incorporate them into your marriage? If so, tell your H that, let him read about it and ask if he he wants to incorporate them into your M.

We are also here to support your H if he wants.

I encourage that you both go to counseling. If your H is willing to try to make the M work, find a good pro marriage counselor.

Good luck.

The sooner you come clean the better chance you'll have of making things work in my opinion. You need to find a way to get the first words out of your mouth, the rest will come. If he is like me, he'll want to know the details even if they're painful. The reality, no matter how difficult, will probably be better than the things he'll imagine if you don't provide him with the facts. If he senses you are still hiding something then you're not doing either of you any favors. You HAVE to be 100% truthful. You've already commited the act that could destroy your marriage, the words and details probably won't make or break you at this point. I'm new here, I just found out on sunday. It's been a brutal 48 hours (I can't believe it's only been 48 hours, it feels like a week), but I'm already doing better than I was at first. I am already confident that we can make it. It will be hard, but we can do it. One of the saving graces is that my wife told me, and I think she's been honest since she came clean. It matters a lot that you are going to volunteer this information. It might be what saves you. Go tell him and get started on the road that lies ahead of you. Good luck.

Julia T,

I sense that your H love you very much and also he is a resonable person. You know him better than any of us. You know when to pick the time and where to pick the time. You know you have to do this. Learn from all the replies to you on "how". Continuing A would not only destroy your M, your H, your kids (if you have any) and also OM's M, OMW, their kids.

Read again how A should end. As many others already encourage you, you have to be brutally honest and you have to tell him you want to come clean. You want to come clean and not to hurt him anymore. Answer all the questions honstestly. Also if you read how A should end, you know you have to ammend your H. Move work if you have to, let your H "guard" your fence. Let him guard all the trigger for you to contact OM. NC with OM is a must. At the end let him know abot this web site, ask him to come here to learn and also probably getting conseling from Steve Harley or Jennifer. Let him know many has Survive Affair in their marriage and live happier M.

You sexual intensity w/ OM is undestandable, female organ is between your ear and male organ is between our legs. When you give your heart to someone, you will giving up and reaching what you don't have with your H. You never give your H a chance !, you open your legs for your H but do both for OM.

You know, your H maybe already suspect it.

-rh-

Not so long ago Julia I was in the same boat as you - how to tell, when to tell, what to tell!

I found the longer I left it the worse it made me feel, the guilt was just eating me up. (Of course, some will say 'good you deserve it', that's fine)

You have to be completely honest with your man, even if you decide to leave hubby for other reasons stated in your previous post or maybe one day he may leave you for whatever reason - if the relationship fails for whatever reason, leave or be left, knowing that you've been completely honest with him - I carried around my secret affairs for years and you can never shut them away in your mind - something always sets off a trigger!

As for how much to tell, play it by ear, there's only so much these guys can take at one time! Weeks after my revelations to my husband, he's still asking me little questions but be prepared, he will be very hurt and very angy (as is to be expected)

With regard to how much detail about the sex, again play it by ear - I assure you, he will ask. I said nothing to start with, I refused to answer because I didn't want to hurt him (more than the relevation of sexual affairs had already torn him apart) I wanted to protect him from the details. However, eventually I must admit I did get tired of hearing the same question, it seemed to be the only real question left that he wanted an answer to - so I told him, 'yes he was better, yes he was bigger, blah blah' - he was stunned as you can imagine, but finally it was all out in the open! I had nothing else to tell. I had so many emotions going around me, relief that it was all out, fear of what was going to happen next. There was tears (on both side) , anger(obviously on his side) name calling (from him) disgrace (on my part). You name it for 2-3 days our lives were turned upside down - but I look back and I don't regret telling him.

You have to go through this

1. if you ever want to get things straight in your marriage, you can't expect things to ever get better if you're not prepared to be completely honest about what made everything go wrong in the first place, and

2. for you, if you decide to leave for other reasons because you will always know and always carry it around with you, that there was so many things going on within your marriage that your husband didn't know and wasn't part of.

Julia also be prepared for a slatting in here, I've seen other posts with regard to spouses giving full extensive detail of their sexual conduct with the Other Person, and replies being mailed back that 'she only did it to hurt you' 'she can't love you if she told you THAT'. With me I was pushed and pushed and pushed for these details, no I didn't do it to hurt him and yes I do love him. He will ask Julia, his ego and self asteem are going to get knocked to the wall so just be gentle but be honest.

I know that there is very little time for the WS (wayward spouse) here but as one, to one, a huge huge burden will be lifted, pain will ensue after for both your husband and you. It's not all going to get magically better just because it is off your shoulders but eventually further on down the road when the dust has begun to settle at least you know that you have had the courage to be absolutely honest about your actions and you will be a better person for it!

I wish you all the luck in the world Julia, bite the bullet and do it soon - you owe it to your husband and yourself!

XX

Hey I did it. I strated crying one night and couldn't stop and out my confession came. Afterwards my H told me I had balls of steel to do what I did, and even though it hurt him, he knew how much courage and honor it took to admit what I did. I don't think he would have been as forgiving if he had foundout on his own. The good people here convinced me that I had to tell. And I am glad we did cause now we are on our way to recovery.

AS for the details, IMHO , only tell him what he asks for. And in some cases white lies would be helpful. I don't buy into the radical honesty.. at ALL costs. I would never tell my H that my orgasims were mind blowing, why would he need to know that? Of couse it felt good, it was an ORGASIM, you see what I mean? ( FTR the one time was not and the OM had performance problems and couldn't 'finish' <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> ) He might want to know when , where, how, but those are all just basic details.

Just tell and the questions will come out for you to answer, and answer the best you can, with care for his feelings. good luck.

You mentioned that your H wants to go to marriage counseling, didn't you? One possibility is to set that up, and plan on telling him in one of your sessions. You could even meet one-on-one with the counselor first, and give him/her a heads up.

Regardless of the method you choose, it is imperative that you tell your H and soon. For two big reasons. First, he has a right to know. He is in this marriage under the implied assumption that you've been faithful to him. He deserves the chance to decide for himself (vs. you deciding for him) to stay with complete knowledge of your situation. Second, this secret will continue to build a wall between you that will completely kill any chance for the two of you to have a close and fulfilling relationship. Recovery with this secret would be a charade.

Good luck,
Martes

Julia-

I found out from my XWW when she simply came in one day and told me that she had feelings for someone else. If your H has no clue, it's going to painful regardless of how you break it. I'd suggest giving him the big picture but holding back on specifics. I know others might disagree but in my case our C advised that going over specifics of the A was counter productive to R. Maybe later it's appropriate but not when the bomb first drops...Good luck...

PS I agree 100% with euphoria. Though I hated to hear the news, I was SO grateful that my XW had the courage to come forward and let me know what was going on!

<small>[ April 09, 2003, 10:17 AM: Message edited by: litchfield ]</small>

Julia,

It has been mentioned that you contact a counselor and have a meeting with this counselor. More than a few posters here have choosen this route. They talk with the counselor and discuss how to tell the spouse of the A. In some cases, the spouse is informed with the counselor present to help a bit.

Another approach is a letter, with a closing that states that you will answer any questions he has.

Finally, about the details. You OWE him all of the information he asks for. Believe it, his imagination will be running overtime, so things my be worse in his mind than reality.

However, having said that it is fair to warn him to think very carefully about what and why he wants to know because the details will hurt. If he decides after this that he wants to hear the details tell him. Honesty, is crucial but so is kindness and care. The latter two won't overcome the pain, but as time passes he will appreciate you kindness and care in telling him.

There is no way to put lipstick on this pig; it will hurt him deeply no matter how you approach this.

I would offer you more advice, but I don't know enough more about your situation. If you could answer the questions I posted in the other thread perhaps some more can be discussed.

God Bless,

JL

How about this honey you married a slut and I'm very sorry that I ruined your life.

Sorry to be so blunt.......but damn 5 times you didn't feel guilty after the first? You had to do it again and again and again and again to feel the shame.

I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for you. You have no clue what kind of pain that causes.

Carl

CARL

I reported your last post to MB administrators, because of name-calling.

Pepper

<small>[ April 09, 2003, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</small>

Pepper I apologize if my statement offended you. it's just very painful to hear things like that in that detail.

I dont blame you Carl for what you said. You have the right to how you feel. I dont agree with how you said it but obviously the graffic detail of my message struck a cord. I think my husband will react in a similar fashion and I also dont blame him. I deserve to be called names. I made a committment and I broke it.

I know I have to tell him.

Julia

Dear Julia,

This is just my opinion, but I would suggest that you begin a plan of how to do this.

First, I think you should begin making love bank deposits. Then, confess to a counselor or minister. After a while, have your husband come in with the counselor/minister, and tell him in that person's office. This will be more of a neutral location, and there will be another person there to whom your H can vent to, if it is needed.

Afterwards, tell your H that you will answer any and all questions truthfully, but you would like to have some time between the time that he asks the questions, and when you provide the answers. Perhaps as short as an hour, or as long as one day. That day, you will have time to think about the question, and really think about your answer. My personal opinion is that the question and answer should be written so that there is no question as to what was said.

Be sure to give him some time. This will be the most painful thing he ever has to hear. However, remember that it is not telling him that causes the pain, it is your past action. He deserves to know the whole truth so that he can make an informed decision about his future.

Lastly, please accept my congratulations for ending the affair. There are many on this board who have spouses who flaunt their affairs in front of their spouses for months. It is always refreshing to see a WS who honestly believes that he/she has made a mistake.