SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

(sorry if I used a wrong abbreviation this is the first time I use these types of forums)

Well this is my first time posting here and I really need advice for my next steps.

A little bit of context:

I (f36) cheats on my husband (m36) for 2 and a half years ending it all in september 2019, we finish it because he moved to another country with his wife and children, i won't make myself a victim because i know what I did it was very wrong, I was selfish because it was good, fun, and even the fact that I knew it was wrong seemed to increase the pleasure, it's hard to explain but it was all new, it was like putting only the best parts in a relationship.

After all this falling in love with AP was simple, it was 2 ½ years of an emotional and physical affair, when it was over I was devastated, it seems that a family member had died, my husband who never suspected anything at all realized that I was not ok so I had to lie saying that an old friend had died, after that I looked for an IC to help deal with the loss and that's when I realized what the shit I was doing, I woke up one Sunday and BS was making coffee so I looked at him and couldn't believe what I did with him, the best man I ever met was by my side and yet I was selfish enough to look for something better knowing I would never find out, after a few sessions it seems that the counselor showed me the true face of the AP, I couldn't believe I defended AP when my husband was better in all aspects, it's hard to explain but it seemed like I was in a parallel universe and the counselor brought me back and threw reality in my face.

My point is I did a lot of things wrong and I take it all as my fault, my counselor says the next step is the truth, that I owe it to him, and I agree but I know this will end him. even more than I'm sure he didn't suspect anything, if I take this to the grave I can focus in our relationship and be the wife he deserves but my counselor said that my way of thinking is selfish and that selfishness which led me to cheat on my husband so I owe it to him.

My question is: what do I answer? I remember everything, but a lot has happened that will destroy him and I'm sure he will want to know all the little details. another question: none of my husband's friends(other than the AP) know about the affair and my husband doesn't have many friends to talk to, he has his sister and a best friend you think I should tell first so they can help my husband?

I know I have to tell but my god it's very hard, I waited for the holidays to end but I can't put it off anymore, this week I have to tell him but I confess I'm afraid of him wanting divorce.

Thank you.

Edit: I forgot to say but AP wifes is my husband's childhood friend, and I met AP because of that.

[This message edited by Emma1207 at 8:20 AM, January 7th (Tuesday)]

You need to tell him EVERYTHING !!!!!

I was you. I trickled truth even though the people here kept telling me over and over that he needed to know everything. If he asks you a question, answer it completely. If he wants a divorce, then he wants a divorce. He deserves the truth. Seriously, please don't be me.

I am a wayward spouse and all you will do by confessing is unload your guilt onto your H and possibly screw up his life regardless of whether he stays with you, he will find it hard to trust others going forward and it willgive him years of pain, who gains by your confession, no one.

Just behave from now on and let your guilt be your penance, dont let your guilt be his agony.

I will probably be a lone voice in this opinion

LifeDestroyer is right. You owe him the truth. He deserves to be able to make decisions in his life based on truth. It is possible those decisions will involve divorce, but that is unfortunately a legitimate consequence of your actions. The best thing you can do for him is to confess everything, apologize, answer all his questions, and work to become a better person and a safe partner. Dont delete evidence of the affair, and offer to turn this over to him as well, so he can see it and choose to delete it himself.

I understand your desire to hide it forever. The problem is that the affair doesnt end until the lies end. There have been many posters here who either learned of a partner's affair or had their own affair discovered years or decades later. This magnifies the depth of the betrayal, and BS (betrayed spouses) often comment about having their whole lives being a lie. You dont want to spend the rest of your life living a lie, and your husband deserves to not spend his living one too.

Now is the best time to deal with it because you are both young enough to rebuild your lives, together or apart, and you remember all the details. If he finds out in 20 years, you may he going through a divorce at 56, and you may not remember the information he needs to process and heal.

Look, i know how hard it will be to do what we will all tell you to do. I had to sit down with my husband just last night and go through my google photos to show him pics and screenshots before i deleted them. It was horrible, and in my case, he already knew the extent of my EAs (emotional affairs). Truly though, do you want to be a person who spends the rest of her life lying to the one person she promised to love and respect? Or do you want to be someone who can respect herself, and who is worthy of the love and respect of others? You need to tell him because he deserves the truth, even if it hurts. And you need to tell him because you deserve a chance at becoming a moral, honest, and mentally healthy person. You cant do that if you keep lying.

I am glad your counsellor is advising you to come clean. Maybe you can work together to plan the best way to do so. You may even decide to have a joint session, so your counsellor can facilitate the conversation and help you both through it.

You are right, Buzzy, you probably will be.

So Buzzy, did you not want your WW to tell you the details? Do now wish that she hadn't told a thing and lied to you for the rest of your marriage?

So many of us will tell you how we told most or some of the truth early on, and then slowly let out more information over time, destroying our betrayed partner with each little nugget. It's nearly ubiquitous. I told most (95%) but not all of it at first. It was the first nail in my marital coffin.

So here's what it comes down to. There are really only two approaches here:

1) tell the full truth and start to become the person you want to be. You will not have to hold onto the lie anymore. There will be shame, but that will dissipate over time. At some point, you will get to practice this new habit of telling the truth. You'll get better at it. You will become a better person. And, your IC will actually mean something.

or...

2) tell anything less than 100% of the truth (even 99.99%) and you will hold onto a lie, even the little lies. And we all know what little lies do. They fester. They enable bigger lies. Bigger lies lead to bigger problems, etc., and now you're suddenly wondering why your next marriage failed. Not telling the full truth will keep you on the same path you're on now. Literally said: the truth shall set you free.

Someone else is going to say this or already has. Your marriage is already over. When you cheat, you destroy the old marriage. Telling the truth gives you one solid chance to create a new marriage, if your BS wants it.

Whatever Buzzy is saying is both nonsense and definitely not endorsed by any therapist or counselor. Not telling the full truth is a lie. Omission is a lie.

I can't even tell you the opportunity you have in front of you. Each opportunity to tell the truth -- as excruciatingly painful as it will be -- is an opportunity to become a better person and reconcile.

Your counselor is outstanding. Stay with him/her. The risk to confess is less destructive than the risk of your affair coming to light, months, years or decades later when you least expect it. Do not assume you would have taken it to your grave. Unfaithful spouses are often forced to admit there affairs due to circumstances beyond their control, which never turns out well.

Confession will destroy him, but it's a tad bit of respect returned to him, from the significant amount you stole from him. Just so that you know, aside from the fact that your husband was unknowingly sharing his wife sexually with another man, your husband will eventually come to the realization that it would still be going had your lover not moved away, and that fate saved his marriage, not you wanting to be with him.

He will also put two and two together and determine your despondent nature after your AP moved away, wasn't a friend’s death, but in fact sadness over the loss of your AP. I'm assuming he sought to comfort you to some degree while you grieved. If so, he'll feel like a fool and greatly disrespected knowing the truth. I'm not saying this to remind you of your transgressions, but to help you understand in advance where his thoughts will lie and the depth of his despair.

[This message edited by Jorge at 7:49 PM, January 6th (Monday)]

Not confessing ... lots of disaster stories with that. This sort of secret doesn't go away. Until the full truth is known, as much as your spouse want's to know, there is no truth in the relationship, no real intimacy, the relationship is built on the lies of who you are pretending to be. Most BS, if/when they find out, don't consider the relationship as real until the last true DDay happens. Until then, the relationship is a fraud, with the Betrayed Spouse paying with stolen time, money, resources, and the loss of the life they could have had if you had respected them enough to give them the truth. Every person is different. Each person finds out what they want to, or need to, know to go on. Always start with the general revelation without the uncomfortable details, and ask/give the Betrayed spouse the option to ask for what details they want to or need to know. Once heard, it can't be unheard. Most know this instinctively. Let your betrayed spouse dictate the what and when regarding details. If asked, give the whole unvarnished truth.

10 years, hanging around here and on other sites as well.

Trickle truth, and secrets have a tendency to undermine and destroy relationships in the long run. This stuff changes you. Most beterayed spouses have a 6th sense about things. They usually know something ain't right. Though your husband may not have confronted you, he may suspect or know. He may in fact, be blaming himself for a troubled relationship, and, assuming all sorts of alternative reasons and blames to himself over the issues as well. There are lots of ways that old, distant, in the past affairs seem to eventually find their way out to be revealed. Perhaps someone else may have noticed your affair. Years from now, an idle conversation with the assumption that your husband long ago found out and you two worked it out, they say something to him about someone else who is cheating, asking the question, how did he cope with it?

There are lots if stories about Betrayed spouses finding out, 5, 10, 15, 40 years later... in many ways, it makes things extremely difficult and complicated to work through things years later...

Some betrayed spouses become extremely bitter about the years and decades stolen from them. A common description, title, take away, the betrayed spouses feel like they were forced to, "Live a Lie"....

Thank you all for the answers and yes I will confess everything to him, I'm afraid it will haunt me for the rest of my life if I keep it a secret and I know I would also want the truth if I were in his place. I was going to tell him tomorrow but he'll have an important meeting so I thought it better to tell him on Wednesday.

as soon as I can I post an update but I think I will have more questions than answers.

thank you all.

To help him and yourself, you should take time to draft a timeline, detailing the affair's beginning, end, how it was sustained, and all in between. Also, it would help to be prepared to make a statement of your wishes for the marriage moving forward and actions you have initiated to support that.

He will be traumatized, so his response can and will be anything from immediate divorce to immediate reconciliation. Everyone responds differently. Most importantly however is focus on how best to support him in his grief that exceeds the grief you had for your affair partner's departure by a thousand.

Jorge is right about what to expect. BS cant comment on your post right now because you have a stop sign. I am a madhatter (MH, both a BS and a WS), so I can post but i am only allowed to post from the wayward perspective If you want BS comments on what helped them with the trauma of dday, you may consider asking for it to be removed. It is entirely up to you though. You can also read in JFO (just found out) to see examples.

If i were you, i would take time to prepare how i told him. I am not advocating contiued lying or delaying too long, but you also dont need to confess tomorrow if you could use a week or two to be better prepared to help him after. You have the luxury to pick the best moment and method of discovery. Most WS dont get that. Use it to help him any way you can.

Thanks for the tips, I emailed the admins to remove the stop sign but I don't know maybe it's better to create another post, I don't want to postpone anymore, I should have confessed before the holidays but couldn't and I'm afraid to stay avoiding and losing courage.

Ok. I PM'd you so you have my advice wearing my other hat, since i dont know how long it will be before mods remove the stop sign and i understand your desire to confess before you lose your nerve and convince yourself not to.

You can do this. I am proud of you for even considering it in the first place. We are here for you. Keep posting.

I forgot to say but AP wifes is my husband's childhood friend, and I met AP because of that.

Emma1207,

I have alerted the Mods for you about removing the stop sign. I will be back a little bit later to see if I can be of some help. Hang in there.

The stop sign has been removed.

Thank you.

Hey, Emma1207

I'm normally a lurker on these forums but I figured I'd contribute my two cents.

Your husband deserves to know, and I'm glad you've chosen to confess this upcoming Wednesday. To make the process somewhat "tolerably" consider writing out two timelines depicting the affair. Make one censored that outlines the bare minimum but that doesn't sugarcoat, and the other that tells everything you recall.

Write about the start and end, and the emotions you felt during your affair. Do not hold back any details, big or small. Give the two written timelines to your husband after you confess, and consider finding a place to stay afterwords to give your husband time to process and come to terms with this new reality. (This may backfire, and would depend on how your husband takes the news. He could potentially attempt suicide or do something just as stupid if left alone)

Make sure you take full responsibility for the affair and your actions, don't let your husband take any of the blame. I could potentially see your husband blaming himself for introducing you to the AP through his best friend, do not let him do so. Reinforce this was strictly your choice, as you've stated above, you clearly aren't the victim.

Do you think you'd be able to inform the AP's wife, your husbands best friend about the affair? I ask because it would go a long way in showing that your done with the affair, and no longer "protecting" the AP from your actions. I hope you realize the extent of what you've done. Not only did you betray your husbands trust and throw your marital vows away, but you also jeopardized and helped ruin the marriage of his close friend, and perhaps even the friendship between them as well.

I apologize if this post was somewhat harsh, as a BS it is hard to not sympathize with what your husband will go through this upcoming Wednesday.

Good for you for deciding to the the right thing and confess.

Please take the time to tell the whole truth. Details can come later, but don't leave out main things as you are not going to help him or yourself. Trickle Truth (TT) hurts betrayed spouses more than the acts of the affair.

Also be sure to issue a no contact letter to the AP (and possibly include his wife in the letter).

It will be hard to come clean, but you will be better for it.