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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Relationships

Has anyone confessed to an affair and managed to save their primary relationship?

60 replies

RoverandRuth · 05/09/2011 13:51

I am at my wits end.. me and dh hit rock bottom a few months ago. I made a huge mistake and slept with someone else - twice. Me and dh have now got a reasonably good relationship... but he doesn't know about the betrayal..and I am about to tell him later thsi week.

I love him dearly. I don't want us to split - ever. Through my own stupid fault I feel I am going to blow his and my 2 young dds' worlds apart... and I know I deserve it..even given the appalling state of our marriage at the time it happened...which is no excuse.

I am desperately hoping he will want to stay with me.. to work through it... to stay as a family. I have no idea how to go about telling him..how to process it all..what he needs to be able to do this.

Has anyone else confessed to an affair and come out the other side? Please, if you can help, I would really appreciate it. Please do not flame me. I know I did wrong. I feel sick to my stomach at the furore I am about to cause.

OP posts:

Report

porcamiseria · 05/09/2011 16:21

you want my advice

DONT FUCKING TELL HIM

he will go apeshit and it will never recover, why do you need to tell him??

(a) cos he will find out
or
(b) to get off your chest as you feel guilty?

I really think you should keep shtum, let the guilt fester and never do it again

If you think this is a one off anyway....

you basically risk him wanting a divorce

doigthebountyeater · 05/09/2011 16:33

I agree. Don't tell him. You are wrecking your kids' happiness if you do. Confessing can be as selfish as haing an affair.

keynesian · 05/09/2011 16:36

Why are you telling him?

If you recognise what a mistake the affair was and do not plan to do it again and at the same time you are working on your marriage, what is it you think you will gain by telling him?

MadAboutHotChoc · 05/09/2011 16:41

The problem with not telling him is that the secret will be a barrier to intimacy that won't be easy to break down - secrets have a tendency to poison the relationship. Also in order for a relationship to recover from an affair, weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the relationship as well as the betrayer need to be addressed properly.

porcamiseria · 05/09/2011 16:51

telling him will be a bigger barrier, he will probably want to split up,and I dont forsee much intimacy in the months following

RoverandRuth · 05/09/2011 17:22

I am thinking I will have to tell him. I am worried that I have caught an STD..I have swollen glands, and found a spot on my labia major yesterday which had a head on it and burst while in a hot shower this am. A little bit of white pus and blood came out.(sorry tmi). If it had been anywhere else, I would have thought it was a normal spot but it seems to be in an odd place on the outside of the fleshy part... I have been googling herpes all day, my stomach churning, haven't eaten anything and feel faint with shock. I had slept with OM twice - unprotected sex..stupid..stupid ..stupid. My family's world is about to be blown to pieces and it's all my fault.

OP posts:

HedleyLamarr · 05/09/2011 17:33

OP, I agree you have to tell him. It would be unforgiveable to pass on an STD to your DP.

porcamiseria · 05/09/2011 17:40

OK.... but cant you get STD analysed first? Oh fuck you are in a pickle

RoverandRuth · 05/09/2011 17:40

I have made an appt tomorrow at the local GUM clinic. Does anyone know how quickly the results are processed?

OP posts:

baguettecut · 05/09/2011 17:51

First of all..please stop beating yourself up about this. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Secondly, guilt can make you think all sorts of things that aren't there, that spot could be nothing to worry about at all...the GUM clinic will test you and contact you in a few days if there's anything to report. IF there is, I say, IF...then you can think about telling your DP. Please try not to worry, easy to say, hard to actually do, but please try.

You had your reasons, as I say, mistakes happen.

RoverandRuth · 05/09/2011 18:02

Thankyou baguette...the spot didn't characteristically look like a very small blister of the type I saw in the pictures..more like a swollen spot which had become slightly infected..but I'm naiive about these things. I am so desperately worried. Does pus usually come out of herpes spots does anyone know?? I am so desperately worried about this.. I don't want to blow my children's world apart....

OP posts:

baguettecut · 05/09/2011 18:09

Stop Googling. NOW!

I understand that deperately worried feeling, you're panicking at the moment. Are you looking for problems though? - it just sounds like a slightly swollen spot to me. You must stop putting 2+2 together and getting 5.

You must think clearly...You can absolutely cope with this, draw on your inner strength. Please stop thinking the worst.

RoverandRuth · 05/09/2011 18:14

I know Baguette..I've got to pull myself together..I am sat here shaking and crying... I've been such an idiot. I will stop googling..there is nothing I can now do about it. Dh is working late tonight and I won't see him. I almost rang him to ask him to come home but won't now. I shall go to the clinic tomorrow and then wait.

OP posts:

baguettecut · 05/09/2011 18:34

You're doing everything you can. Stop punishing yourself. The GUM clinic will treat you with respect - you haven't killed anyone, just made a mistake, one you might just be able to put behind you forever very soon.

Please be kind to yourself. You're thinking the worst and torturing yourself.

Aislingorla · 05/09/2011 18:50

The only poster speaking any sense on this thread is Madabout.
OP , I feel for you and ,yes, we all make mistakes but I would advise you to come clean and your tell youevr DH everything, him not knowing is lying by omission. It's taking away his choices.
If you were a male posting you would be severly flamed for having had an affair with unprotected sex! And if you were writing about your DH/P's affair he would be slated!
While I agree that we all make mistakes, etc., the hypocricy on MN is simply unbelievable!

doigthebountyeater · 05/09/2011 18:59

Prob just a spot. I still say confess nothing. You are trying to alleviate your own guilt at the expense of your DH and DCs' feelings.

MadameOvary · 05/09/2011 19:01

I would tell him.
Speaking as someone who recently got back with an old flame - I told him that I had cheated on him when we were first together because i knew that we could be sitting there happily but this black cloud would be hanging over me. I told him that he needed to know the person I was then (immature, untrustworthy, not terribly good morals) to know the person I am now (pretty much the opposite).
Obviously it wasn't pleasant for him but he then could decide for himself. I couldn't have tolerated keeping the secret and I didn't want any barriers to intimacy, as Madabout puts it so well.

If you do tell him, you have to do so on the understanding that it may be the end of your relationship. Do not make excuses. Do not expect forgiveness. If he decides that he wants to continue, you will have to earn his trust on his terms. There will be a lot of work to do.

I have friends who have successfully recovered from affairs. As my friend said "He trusted me to put the work in"
I feel for you. Hope it all works out okay.

maleview70 · 05/09/2011 19:02

My ex wife confessed to an affair. I left her. You have to be prepared that confessing could lead to this. The only thing in your favour is that you sound like you regret it although saying you love your husband dearly is a bit much a couple of months after cheating on him and not even protecting his sexual health.

On the other hand if you keep it to yourself it could fester away only to reappear years later. I know of someone who had an affair and it came out 20 years later following a phone call out of the blue by the om wife after he decided that confessing was the right thing to do ! Affairs can always come back to bite you on the arse...

ImperialBlether · 05/09/2011 19:04

I wouldnt tell him and I've lived with someone who loved his affairs.

You love him, you regret the affair and he hasn't noticed you have had the affair.

Obviously you will have to tell him if you have an STD, but wait and see what's happened there, first.

baguettecut · 05/09/2011 19:10

Imperial speaks sense. You are punishing yourself far more than anyone else could hope to on here. You need support at the moment because I strongly suspect you are very fragile with all this. You don't need to be berated. Get through tomorrow first, then we can think again.

ImperialBlether · 05/09/2011 19:20

I think if your fling was longer lived, if your husband suspected, if you thought you wouldn't be able to stop doing it, etc then yes, tell him.

Otherwise, treat it as a lesson learned. Always remember how you feel now at the thought of devastating your husband and your children and don't do it again whilst you're married.

cecilyparsley · 05/09/2011 20:26

it doesnt sound like herpes...just a spot.
You say you are sick to the stomach and faint with shock...perhaps you are desperate to get rid of the horrible feeling and confessing feels like the obvious solution?
I say give yourself some time to calm down and think things through rationally, rather than acting out of fear and shock.

Telling your husband isnt a now or never thing, if, after weighing it up, you decide that he should be told then you still can.

However, I vote for keep quiet and put it behind you.
I hope you start to feel calmer soon :)

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RoverandRuth · 05/09/2011 20:35

why don't you think it sounds like herpes cecily? I do hope it is just a spot but I supposed I think with swollen throat glands, it's possibly too coincidental... :(

OP posts:

cecilyparsley · 05/09/2011 20:56

RoverandRuth, herpes is the same infection as with cold sores on your face, so the spot would be like that.
Many people who are exposed to herpes dont exhibit symptoms because their immune system can suppress it, in the same way they pretty much everyone has been exposed to the herpes simplex (cold sore) virus but not everyone gets them.

I think this site explains things fairly well.
www.herpes.org.uk/

Also I think that if you have herpes simplex/cold sores you have some immunity to 'below the waist' herpes (it can be on the buttocks and legs)

scottishmummy · 05/09/2011 21:01

tell him he need to know the kind of woman he married
you made a tit out of him shagging about dont compound it by lying further
tell him,so he can decide what to do

in mean time no intimacy,protect him
go gum,they will treat you respectfully.no more on-line guessing - get a clinical opinion

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