Radical Honesty Question - 01/22/07 07:06 PM
I found your site while looking for resources on forgiveness. My husband cheated on me just 7 days after our wedding with his ex girlfriend in an alcohol-induced goodbye ceremony. I just found out last week.
We are newlyweds. Neither of us have a history of cheating. I feel strongly that I can forgive him. We are now very interested in following the Marriage Builders program to keep something like this from happening again. However, there is one problem.
The question I have is with regard to Radical Honesty. I had an online affair for two weeks prior to my learning about my husband's betrayal. I was trying to end it but I was clearly addicted and sliding down a slippery slope. I did it because the man online met my emotional needs because my husband is currently deployed to Iraq and we have no communication except for an occassional phone call. My husband won't write letters and he has no internet access.
Due to health problems, I had been quarantined for over a month. I was alone and afraid and had nobody to talk to most days. I craved attention so I went after an anonymous "attention fix" online in a chat room. The fix turned into a friendship that included cyber sex and phone sex. I knew it was wrong and tried to end it but could not control my urges to talk to cyberguy.
The day I learned of my husband's infidelity, I was finally able to stop because I could see from my own pain how much it could hurt my husband. I haven't spoken with the man (or anyone else) since.
My question is, do I tell my husband about my cyber affair? The Policy of Radical Honesty says that I should and I can see the benefits of revealing, thus having to account for my online behavior in the future. Then, my brain tells me that it's over and it is not going to happen again so why cause my husband the same pain I have been experiencing? What good will come of telling him? There's even a part of me that WANTS him to feel that same pain so I hesitate telling him for fear that I may be trying to punish him for his behavior. I also fear that if I tell him, it will affect his entusiasm to chat with me when his internet connex arrives. We have been waiting for months to see and talk to each other online and this could ruin the possibility of us trying to build our marriage long distance via the internet. He is also in the dangerous position of war right now and knowing what I did could make him vulnerable to injury if he is so preoccupied with what I am doing at home.
My question to you all is, should I reveal the cyber-affair to my husband?
We are newlyweds. Neither of us have a history of cheating. I feel strongly that I can forgive him. We are now very interested in following the Marriage Builders program to keep something like this from happening again. However, there is one problem.
The question I have is with regard to Radical Honesty. I had an online affair for two weeks prior to my learning about my husband's betrayal. I was trying to end it but I was clearly addicted and sliding down a slippery slope. I did it because the man online met my emotional needs because my husband is currently deployed to Iraq and we have no communication except for an occassional phone call. My husband won't write letters and he has no internet access.
Due to health problems, I had been quarantined for over a month. I was alone and afraid and had nobody to talk to most days. I craved attention so I went after an anonymous "attention fix" online in a chat room. The fix turned into a friendship that included cyber sex and phone sex. I knew it was wrong and tried to end it but could not control my urges to talk to cyberguy.
The day I learned of my husband's infidelity, I was finally able to stop because I could see from my own pain how much it could hurt my husband. I haven't spoken with the man (or anyone else) since.
My question is, do I tell my husband about my cyber affair? The Policy of Radical Honesty says that I should and I can see the benefits of revealing, thus having to account for my online behavior in the future. Then, my brain tells me that it's over and it is not going to happen again so why cause my husband the same pain I have been experiencing? What good will come of telling him? There's even a part of me that WANTS him to feel that same pain so I hesitate telling him for fear that I may be trying to punish him for his behavior. I also fear that if I tell him, it will affect his entusiasm to chat with me when his internet connex arrives. We have been waiting for months to see and talk to each other online and this could ruin the possibility of us trying to build our marriage long distance via the internet. He is also in the dangerous position of war right now and knowing what I did could make him vulnerable to injury if he is so preoccupied with what I am doing at home.
My question to you all is, should I reveal the cyber-affair to my husband?