SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Did any WS confess with "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"?

Yes, but only because he was going to be in the newspaper the next day. Not many points for that.

On the other hand, the lack of trickle truth was helpful.

When it comes to infidelity recovery, details matter. Emotional motivations matter. Etc. A cheater could confess for a variety of reasons: about to be outed by a BOS or other third party; believes his/her own BS is about to find out; selfishly wants to unburden himself of feeling guilty alone.

That said, the species of unprompted confession that is propelled by the cheater realizing he/she has been lying to his/her BS, who deserves the dignity of knowing the truth about his/her marriage, that is an indicator of empathy and remorse. Empathy and remorse are necessary elements of successful R.

Guess it depends on the confession if it was forced or not. A forced confession may as well be the same as caught IMO. It doesn't show empathy just more of the same wayward mindset and their famous "save my a**" mode. My xWS NEVER confessed, he was always caught or ratted out and would only admit to truth with hard evidence.

Few (if any) people voluntarily confess. If they do, it’s because they are already on the cusp of being outed.

My husband is in the small percentage that confessed for no other reason than believing it was the right thing to do.I would have never known. They was no threat of exposure to him or her. He had ended his NSA sex meet ups with a married coworker 2 years prior to confessing. He ended it because he wanted to. He said he always knew he would tell me he just had to get the nerve to. He was worried I would leave the marriage of course but still believed I had the right to know

There is much more to our story (DD was March 1986) but I can say that his ending it and confessing it purely on his own decision went along way on my decision to reconcile and still effects my view of him to this day.

If someone had caught them and THEN he ended it I would always think ‘well it ended because of outside forces, I know about it because of outside forces’. So again it made a difference. It hasn’t been just smooth sailing but everything a betrayed can put in the ‘plus’ column if you will, helps when your in such unbearable pain.

[This message edited by Definedbygrace at 11:56 PM, Wednesday, May 25th]

The ONE thing he could have done at any time from Aug 2021 to now that would have shown me that he REALLY wanted to be honest and save the marriage would have been to disclose everything on DDay 1. But he didn't.

It's almost as if the affairs were bad but what is ultimately killing the marriage is the sheer amount of lies and trickle truth since the discovery of them.

This question stopped him in his tracks:

"Why do I have to be the one who suffers for every lesson you learn during all of this?"

If he just would have confessed, it could have been so different.

[This message edited by ShockedAndShattered at 3:10 AM, Wednesday, June 8th]

I caught my ex.

So, I confessed shortly after my two month affair ended. I caught my h after 18 months of an affair that was still ongoing.

I don’t think either has more merit personally. It usually takes years for the ws to sort through all of it and take accountability on all the details and all the ways they need to work on themselves.

I confessed because I truly wanted to save the marriage and didn’t think it was possible without doing so (because I read at this site for two months) I did go to IC for those two months as well (and continued for a year after that).

But it was still about me. What I wanted. I was doing what I was reading gave me the greatest chance to keep my world in check. True remorse was months down the road yet.

H confessed because I found something that gave him no other choice. Was he relieved? Hell yes he was. He didn’t really skip anything that I ever found with the discovery process.

I think the only gauge you have is are they progressing? That means no trickle truth, doing the work, showing growth, transparency, etc. the majority of people on this site caught their ws or they were a ws who was caught. I think it’s fairly common and not indicative of future results. All newly discovered ws, unless the affair was years prior are still stuck in the lies they told themselves and justification. I think from that standpoint discovery origin doesn’t tend to be all that telling.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:07 PM, Thursday, June 9th]

From reading SI and infidelity support books, it is clear that confession is the best option for the long term survival of the relationship. I think this is backed up by statistical evidence. Also, BS seem to recover better if the affair is confessed by us WS and we don't prolong the torture with trickle truth, denials, minimising and all the other hurtful, damaging and recovery limiting activities I and others have put BS through. I think too that the majority of WS adopt the caught, deny, TT, minimising etc approach. Despite everything I have read and the advice given on here it has taken me far too long to become even close to understanding this.

Why do some confess? WS about to get caught - Yeah sounds reasonable. AP/OBS making contact with BS, so WS confesses - Yep. Does the WS confess as they realise the AP is an awful person - Maybe. Do I think WS tend to confess prior to being caught rather than feelings of guilt? I don't really know. I tend to think this is the case, especially when WS is involved in multiple or a LTA. Those who had a ONS or a shorter term affair I think are more likely to confess. A WS, like myself, was so far in denial on getting caught and thought of myself as a decent person both during and after my infidelity. I compartmentalised and (thought) I was keeping both my marriage and affairs separate. I see now how wrong I was, but did not then, because I would not have recognised the possibility of me being bad or wrong (even if I knew it). It feels odd writing that, but knowing and acknowledging were very different in my wayward mind. I was always about myself. I think self being the important word. I was only interested in SELF image, SELF importance, SELF preservation, image of mySELF to others, I lacked SELF respect and of course was extremely SELFish. I suspect a lot of other WS were here and some still are (hence this site exists).