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I have told no one. But I certainly don't blame any BS for doing so. The only reason I haven't told anyone, is because we are attempting R, have two grown sons, and I don't want the complication of also dealing with their anger and possible relationship problems with their father while we are trying hard to work this out.

If/when there comes a time where I throw in the towel, you can bet your ass they will know it wasn't me who broke trust. And so will everyone else who matters. I haven't even told my best friend because she's a hairdresser and has a big mouth, and I don't want to take any chances of it getting around to the boys.

Is it possible he is telling people in reaction to what they are saying? You say he is telling people he's not close to. For instance at WH's work Christmas party, I got to hear from one of his coworkers how lucky I was to be married to him and how amazing he was for about 3-5 minutes straight. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut and not say if you think he's so great then you can have him, because he is not that great and had a year long affair with a 24 year old year old that most of you despise!

Situations like that can make it really hard to bite your tongue, really, really hard. So, is he perhaps telling people who are raving about how wonderful you are possible? I am not saying you are not wonderful, are not working on yourself to be safe or anything like that, it's just that when a BS is recovering from this trauma, sometimes we don't like to hear that.

If that's not the case, I don't know. Maybe talk to him about your feelings, but prepared that he may not react well.

What do you mean by talking smack? Like your H and others are making fun of it?

if you hadnt cheated then he couldnt be telling anyone that you did. its not the exposure that is the problem, its your actions.

i get why you want it kept secret. but again, if youd not done it then there would be nothing to tell. sorta like do the crime and pay with the time.

do something shitty to another and they talk about it.

The people he is telling aren't people who have his best interest in mind. And that is what my issue is. He has already told everyone to keep their opinions of me to themselves and that he does not want to hear it. He has chosen to forgive me and stay married to me. I have made myself "safe" and completely transparent with him. But as I mentioned, I think that this may be being done unconsciously on his part. Do I care what these people think of me, honestly no. Why? Because these are the same people who do not have a spotless record in their life either. So I take what they say with a grain of salt. What matters to me is my HUSBAND's opinion. My CHILDRENS opinion. And at this time we are all on the same page of putting our family back together and being happy and moving forward. I understand completely that this comes with the territory as many of you have stated. However, if the person being told isn't someone who can offer judgment free honesty or advice and are only looking for gossip I think that it should not be discussed. Our marriage is NOT GOSSIP material. I hold my head up when I am around people that know. And I remember that I am a human being and so are they. I have come to terms with what I have done. And are beyond remorseful for what I have done and how I destroyed my Husband. We are 10 months in and I have been doing everything asked of me and then some. I will never give my husband any reason ever again to not trust me. This is something that we have been working on TOGETHER. Without the help of anyone outside our marriage. And those who have offered unsolicited advice have been put into their place by him. My thoughts are that just recently it has been discussed with some individuals who quite honestly have no right to be in our marriage. Just my opinion.

My healing didn't begin until I told someone. We went 8 months like nothing happened. No one knew except our ic's and our marriage counselor. The only problem was..."something happened". My world ended.

You may want to keep this little thing under wraps to minimize the fallout. The problem is that this isn't a little thing. It has destroyed your husband inside and out. You might as well have slipped arsenic in his food for months. He'll never be the same again. I can speak from experience, this is the biggest thing he has ever tried to live through. It kills him every day.

I wound up telling my wife's employer. Her parents. Her children. I got tired of keeping her secret while it burned a hole in me like the acid it was/is.

She didn't have any skin in the whole reconciliation game until her affair cost her something. It pales compared to being on the receiving end of adultery, but she began to get it once the cat was out of the bag.

HurtWS, do you see the irony in the second to last sentence of your last post?

You said:

Do I care what these people think of me, honestly no.

But earlier you said:

It's like I am being given that scarlet Letter "A" to wear everywhere because he keeps telling people. And it kinda makes me look bad.

Which one is it?

I'm willing to put money on the fact that you don't like him disclosing it because it makes you feel more shame. The thing with shame is, you cannot heal it if you don't face it.

Have you considered at all the shame your BS feels for being betrayed...how difficult it is to disclose that fact to others?

Put yourself in your BHs shoes. Stop worrying about yourself.

The people he is telling aren't people who have his best interest in mind. And that is what my issue is.

You don't get to decide if these people have his best interests in mind. Your BH does. He is an adult and gets to decide for himself.

And are beyond remorseful for what I have done

Your posts show regret, but certainly not remorse and definitely not empathy. The sooner you realize that and stop focusing on yourself and truly begin to work on yourself, the greater the chances you have of R.

my h is a self employed contractor and know a lot of people who are contractors and people in Real estate. He actually told a lot them. One realtor he told, later on when it come to sell out house we didn't use her to sell the house. She was mad and then got mad at him for getting back together with me. She was giving him shit for not using her to sell our house and for him R with me. He later regret telling her. Another contractor got mad at him for a job once and then again giving him shit his choice to R. That's when he regret telling certain people especially in the business world.

To me, why would he tell those people this? I didn't know. I don't care. He can tell whoever. I didn't think any of the business people should of known but that was not my choice to make. He told who he wanted to. That's his business.

My h actually speaks highly of me. One way I know is that we have meant a lot of new people and they tell me they can tell how much my H cares about me by the way he talks about me.

For some reason or another your BS felt he needed to tell people that maybe you don't think should not but he thought so at one point or another he should.

maybe hes trying to work it all out in his head and he uses people as a sounding board, not for their advice but to help himself. maybe a bit of why should he pretend its all perfect and hide your secrets.

also he may feel its safer talking about it so it provides a way to let steam out. even if he says it with all love its a way off letting his pain out. why strangers? they are safer emotionally.

sorta like strangers are his version of si is to you. to let it out and to try to learn from it.

i dont think its particularly wise what hes doing (opening windows into the marriage) but (and its a huge but) anything other than accepting this is how he handles and processes this isnt a wise battle for you to fight. win or lose it he wont appreciate your opinions on this.

id advise just accepting it

BW here. I told plenty of people. I would be extremely angry if WH told me not to. The way I was acting the first few months (struggling to get out of bed, etc) I would have found it hard NOT to tell people, just to explain the state I was in.

For example - I had to leave my job as a direct result of what happened. We might be meeting up with some friends soon who w haven't seen for a while, but the last time we met I had just got that new job. Now, if the question comes up as to why I left that job suddenly, WH is fine with it if I want to tell them the truth. I haven't decided either way, but I am not happy to compound the situation with more lies and half truths, and trying to remember who I have told which story to. I personally won't do it.

Also - why should the betrayed spouse tell some half baked story about personal problems or similar, which could lead people to believe they had something to do with it?

[This message edited by DebraVation at 4:56 PM, February 28th (Tuesday)]

My thoughts are that just recently it has been discussed with some individuals who quite honestly have no right to be in our marriage

I'm sure your BH felt the same way.

From where I sit, it sounds like you want to control a great deal of this. Isn't wanting to control what your BS knew a huge part of the issues you are facing today? And truly--is it HIS best interest at stake, or yours?

You do know that saying others who may have an opinion on your behavior don't have stellar behavior is minimizing, don't you? We control what WE do. What others do is immaterial. It doesn't matter if Nancy or Joe behave a certain way. We don't control them. We control ourselves. Comparing your behavior to others is a slippery slope and has no upside.

As far as inviting someone else into the marriage, well, I think that ship has sailed, don't you?

While I am one to believe emotions and feelings are real, I am also one to believe that we incur consequences to our actions, and perhaps the circle of friends knowing that an affair was involved in the recent marital issues is one of those. Perhaps the discomfort you are feeling is one of healing and growing and acceptance, which is necessary.

Cat

If my BS wants to share with anyone what has turned his world upside down, why his life at the moment is a living hell or why he is moving as far away as possible, my BS can. I have no problem with it.

Why would I have a problem with it? I did not take his feelings into consideration when i was unfaithful to him. I did not think of the consequences when I was unfaithful. I did not seem to mind when I would lie to him to his face.

This is what I think, what I feel and believe the consequences are for breaking my vows to him.

Sorry, but his telling people doesn't make you look bad. Your decision to cheat on your spouse makes you look bad.

You made a selfish choice that hurt an innocent person, so you look like a selfish person who hurts innocent people.

You are not a victim of anything but your own poor judgement and lack of boundaries. I am sure you feel frustrated/ hurt/ angry and all sorts of things. But you are complaining to the wrong person. Your spouse didn't cause you to feel those thing, you have done it to yourself.

"...it has been discussed with some individuals who quite honestly have no right to be in our marriage"

As others have pointed out, you brought your AP into your marriage.

Gently, you sound defensive and unremorseful.

Best of luck, you have some work to do.

Just because it really hasn't been talked about...do you know the level of shame he is feeling? Being cheated on is incredibly humiliating. I hear it is even worse for men. My mother had to pack us up and move us out of our home town because she couldn't take the gossip about my dad. As for me, I didn't/haven't told anybody in several circles if my and my ex-fwh's lives because I didn't want his affair to change how people saw me, didn't want people gossiping about me and saying how they weren't surprised or they thought I deserved it. And I didn't tell some people because I was trying to protect my husband...which when you think about it is really stupid. He obviously didn't care about protecting me. If your husband needs to do this, he needs to do this. The only thing you can do is decide whether you want to stay and take it or if you want to leave.

As a BS my whole reality shifted on each DDay.... You wake up one day in this life that you didn't know you were living. It doesn't seem real. You have been lied to so much that you don't actually know what is true and what isn't.

You denied your BH his reality. Him telling people helps him reclaim his reality and his life. He needs to do that to heal. It isn't about you it is about his healing. If you can't support him in his healing then you have the right to decide to D but you don't have the right to control how he heals.

Personally, I haven't told anyone except our son and his fiancé. The reason I haven't is because I haven't wanted anyone else's opinions. My choice. Our son and his fiancé were told because they live with us and it is quite noticeable that things were not okay.

WH was terrified when I told him our son knew. He was terrified that I would tell my parents-because he hasn't had any parents for 24 years now and mine are all he has now. He is afraid of what their opinion of him will be.

Its my decision though. As others have said, he made the choice to bring someone else into our M, he chose to make those decisions for years. He hurt me more than anyone ever could and left me with scars that will never go away. This is my story. This was done to me intentionally. If I need to tell everyone I have ever met, thats my decision. My life, My pain, My decision.

As I have read before- my pain, my rules.

Also, others have said, him telling people isn't making you look bad, your actions made you look bad. If you don't like how the consequences feel, it really is something you should have thought of before betraying your BH.

Let him deal with his pain how he feels he needs to deal with it. He may regret it at some point but it will have been his choice. If you interfere and he stops talking about it, he may resent you for it.

If my WH asked me not to tell anyone, it would infuriate me also. If he doesn't want to look bad, he shouldn't have done it.

Lately, I have had a few times when I felt the need to talk to my sister about it but resisted because we socialize with her and her husband and I just don't want the uneasiness that would probably follow, but if the time comes when I can't hold it in any longer, he better damn well not say boo to me about it.

Hi Hurt,

Wouldjust like to offer an alternative view (not facts ) of why your H is doing this.

Before I go into that, can you tell us in what context he is mentioning the A to others? Is it because they asked, or he just blurts it out? Context also plays a part here.

Now, on to my theory. Your H could be proud of the progress you have made, and is feeling safer with you already. It could give him a sense of pride, that his wife has put in so much effort into R, that he wants to 'boast' about it.

Now, I am not saying that this is exactly what is going through his mind, but it could be a possibility.

Ultimately, the only way to know, is to ask him why (of course, not in a confrontational way).