First of all I will give you a little info on my situation. I have been married for almost 15 years. We married young, we were 19 years old. We had our shares of ups and downs like any other couple. We have truly been through so much together and things that people say could make or break a marriage have only made us stronger. We've gone through some really rough times this past couple of years,I had 2 EA's and he had one as well. I just told him about my second EA yesterday. They say guilt is a very powerful emotion and I can attest to that. I have trouble living with myself for my total lack of descretion. He says he will forgive me because we only kissed and it didn't go any further. Yet, he senses that I am holding back. And I am. I woke last night in a sweat and complete and utter fear had taken over me. I want to come clean with everything but the reason I haven't told him so far is to protect him from pain. I also fear he will leave me.I have no excuses for myself, I know my that I have made some really bad choices. I feel that I don't even deserve his forgiveness. I am a Christian and have asked God to forgive me. I cannot however forgive myself. My sister's advice is "if you want to end up divorced then tell him". What I really lack is courage. I feel like my whole life is a lie. I also have two wonderful children that I don't want to see hurt. I know I should have thought of that when I acted so foolishly. Too late now I guess.

Hello,

I think you know what the correct thing is to do and that it is to be honest with your husband. Otherwise your marriage is based on a foundation of lies. If the roles were reversed, wouldn't you wish your husband to be honest with you? It is a classic response of cheating spouse to withhold the truth from the betrayed spouse on the grounds they are protecting them from further pain. The reality is that the cheating spouse wishes to avoid the consequences of their actions.

I am assuming you slept with this other person which means you disrespected your husband and put his health at risk. Unfortuntately you continue to disrespect and humiliate him by refusing to be honest and truthful with him. Your husband already senses you are not telling him the truth.
This will be like a cancer eating away at your marriage. The very least is that your husband deserve the truth from you and hopefully the both of you will work together in overcoming the pain of your betrayal. Either you have a marriage based on truth and honesty or a marriage based on lies and dishonesty. The choice is yours. I wish you luck.

Just read your post and saw that this wasn't your first, so I went back and read some of your other posts. The ones I read was about how you felt about your H's A and how crazy you were feeling - trying to find out more. Now you know how he is probably feeling. YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM THE WHOLE TRUTH- isn't that what you wanted from him? I know it isn't easy, but you can't work on fixing this until you do, because it probably will come out at some point. I wish my H would have told me - I would have more respect for him if he had. Instead the only way I got the truth was when he was cornered and had no other choice. I wish sometimes he would be in my shoes so he could see what I'm going through. I also wish I could be in his shoes so I could understand him better. Ask yourself what you wanted to know and talk about when you found out about him.

Good luck

d'nile,

So were both of the EA's really PA's? Is that what you are telling us? You said a few things I thought I would comment on further. Bryan has already touched on them as well. You said </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I also fear he will leave me.I have no excuses for myself, I know my that I have made some really bad choices.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Why do you fear this now? Why didn't you fear it before the A's? I ask you this for a simple reason. If your H decides to really work on this marriage what are YOU going to do to protect him, the marriage and your children? Don't tell me "never do it again", because that is not a plan nor is it an action, and clearly such a statement does not work as you have had two A's. So sit down and make a plan, and I think you know what part of the plan needs to be don't you? Yes, it is HONESTY, "radical honesty" as discussed by Harley in his articles here.

The benefits of radical honesty are many but several come to mind. One if your marriage continues it will be based on honesty and the knowledge that your H has to do a better job of being an H to you, BUT it also means you have to change your behaviors to protect your H. These changes on the part of your H and you, must be done with an agreement as to what the plan should be. Please read about the Policy of Joint Agreement, POJA.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I feel that I don't even deserve his forgiveness. I am a Christian and have asked God to forgive me. I cannot however forgive myself. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You won't be able to forgive yourself until you ask your H for forgiveness, and he needs to know what he is forgiving. Right now he does not know. Whether you deserve your H's forgiveness or not is NOT for you to say, just your H. Let him decide. My guess is that if he learns of these things from you rather than from somewhere else, he will be inclined to forgive you, if you have a plan to protect him. Talk to him, tell him, and see if you two can use the POJA to start to build a better marriage.

REad, post, ask questions, but tell your H. If you fear his reactions make arrangements to tell him in front of a 3rd person, such as a counselor, a clergyman, or friend.

Please read and think about this.

God Bless,

JL

d'nile,

I also went back to read your earlier posts and came away disturbed. It would help us a lot if you gave us a time line of when you and your H had your EA's. You do realize that you had completely withdrawn from him when he "found" the online lady. It also seems that he has done everything he could to make amends.

You also said in one post </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I learned about MB back in Jan when my H was having a EA online. He felt guilty and told me EVERYTHING. It hasn't been an easy road to recovery but we have managed none the less. He was truly repentent, and has completely tried his best to right the wrongs and tried to make me happy. I realize that he is not the only one at fault, and there were reasons that led up to the EA. I also had a few skeletons to admit. My defense mechanism that I always resort to when things are going bad is to imagine a different life where things could be better with someone else. My problem is, now that everything is going well (and he has been absolutly wonderful)I still wonder what it would be like to be single. And wonder if I could meet someone else that could make me happy. Then I think," What are you thinking, You have a beautiful home, two beautiful children, a nice car, and all the security and comfort anyone could ever want".How stupid could one be. And I know deep inside that if I ever lost him I would totally regret it. You see, we were married at 19 years of age. And never really got to experience life on our own. I think we both have regrets but won't really admit them. And we wouldn't want to bring our children any heartache and pain. He insists he is happy and denies to me that he feels otherwise so I don't talk to him about these wild oats that we have never sown. Any advice on how to stay content would be very much appreciated. Thanks. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Does that mean when you made this post which was in 03, that you were already in an A? So why you start your trip toward honesty with being forthcoming with us so that we can offer advice that makes sense to YOUR situation, not the situation you would like us to believe.

You see the problem is if he has done all he can do, and you are still cheating on him, how can he ever feel comfortable with you again. You need to be very honest with him, and very honest with yourself.

He knows you are withholding information, and that will only erode his confidence in you and more importantly confidence in himself. You may not realize this but what may end the marriage is not what you did, but his lack of confidence in himself that he can be a good enough H to you. The only hope is honesty.

Please think about this.

God Bless,

JL

I firmly believe that, if you want your relationship to work, then you must be honest. My wife cheated on me a number of times ten years ago before we were married. When we got married she vowed to herself and her close friends to never do cheat again. However, she never resolved the issues that led her to cheat. She never told me so that she lived our whole life together needing to lie. Her unresolved issues and never being honest kept us apart and caused problems throughout our marriage. Recently she started to have more affairs. I caught her, but did not tell her. When I confronted her she lied. Her lying to me when I begged her to tell the truth and when I told her that all I wanted was the truth was the worst moment of my life and is the hardest thing for me to try and forgive. She then continued to tell me part of truth and lie. If she has just been honest with me from the start … I recommend telling the complete truth and letting the chips fall as they may. If you do not tell the complete truth you will deny yourself the ability to heal, deny your marriage the ability to become complete and prevent your partner from every being truly close to you. You will not be able to address the causes of why you did what you did or truly heal. Only the truth.

To Just learning ............thanks for your support. The things you said were pretty harsh and if I ever want to feel condemned I will ask for your advice again. The EA's were not PA's. And why in the world would I lie on a forum. Isn't the whole thing I was trying to do is to get honest. I was refering to something else that happened a long time ago. It was a one night thing. Well I did tell my H this morning. The cards are all on the table and now they have to fall as they will. I just wonder if it was the right thing to do because my H will not try to deal with this he always sweeps everything under the rug and we all have to walk on eggshells because his the feelings always come back in anger. He explodes over the littlest things. Physically this will take its toll. I was wondering why I was plagued with anxiety over telling him all this and I realized that I was most afraid of his anger. He's never physically abused us he just goes into a rage. That's how my dad was and my mother lived a life of lying just not to upset dad. She lied about stupid things and I realized I don't want to live my life full of lies and deceit. Thank you to everyone else that responded for your support. I guess all I can say about being a WS is that no one can punish us more than we punish ourselves. And I can't speak for every one but I know in my case a lot of the reason I didn't want to tell H is because I am very ashamed of what I have done. I buried it deep inside and I wanted nothing else but to forget it and make it all go away but it doesn't and you cant live with yourself and you can't sleep at night. Hopefully things will get better. Thanks.

Hello,

I think you did the best thing. All the cards are on the table and you are being honest and truthful. In the long run this is how you wish to live your life and I commend you for your honesty.
I wish you the best.

d'nile,

I apologize if you thought I was condemning you. It was not the intent of the post. It's intent was to gather information as I was getting very confused between what you said now, and what you said earlier.

I needed to know what you were talking about hence the questions to clarify things.

However, you have now told your H what you needed to. I congratulate you for that. As for his anger, it is something that needs to be addressed. As you may well know anger is considered to be a 'secondary' emotion driven by primary once such as fear, pain, frustration, etc. If he can identify what is driving the anger, it will help both of you handle it.

I wish you the best.

JL

Hi D'nial,

Am I missing something here? If I am reading your post right, you mentioned that you had a second EA and only kissed but you are holding more back? Is that right?
Look, I believe in honesty. That is my number one value. This is not a little white lie here. This is an afair that needs to come out regardless of the out come. You cannot be forgiven when that lie is still circulating. You need to come clean for your own sanity.
When you do decide to get it out in the open, make sure you have a plan ready. For instance; "Look, I realize there is a problem in our marriage so I did some research to find a reputable marriage counselor. There is something that I need to tell you...." Or however you want to start.
I feel that honesty ties a marriage together. From there, trust, respect and moral values are born. Without that what do you do you have???? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

You know the right thing to do, you just need a little push. We will be here for you!

Ali

Thanks JL. Ali, did you read my last post? I absolutely DID NOT sleep with either one of the EA'S, hence they would not have been EA's they would have been PA'S. What I was refering when I said I was holding back was a one night thing and I did own up to it. It is all out now. No plan as of yet. We have tried MC in the past. He will not open up to a stranger. He says he can handle this on his own. I did suggest this websight but he says it will only keep it fresh. He is trying hard to sweep it under the rug. After much coxing I got him to agree to at least read " How to survive an affair ". Whether he does or not I do not know. I told him that the trust will come again, and I do not plan to EVER keep secrets or put our marriage in jeopardy again. I would not have opened these wounds had I not planned to change, I mean really, what would the point be, just to hurt him and do nothing about it. No that's not what it is about.
Oh, this is a tough process. How do I help him through this awful pain that I have caused? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> Thanks all for listening. D'nile