to not tell DP that I cheated on him

[TheParisWife]

Namechanged.

Today has been an absolutely awful day. I'm completely racked with guilt, scared shitless and confused to what I'm going to do.

Me and DP have been together a year. No children involved, but he keeps on hinting that he was planning to propose :(

Just to give you a bit of a background- me and DP were utterly besotted from the start, so much so that just after 3 weeks of being together, when he got a promotion which meant he'd need to relocate to London- we stayed together and have since maintained a relationship where we see each other every two/three weeks for a long weekend. It's tough, but with Skype and texting it works. Also, I'm working my way up in a business in my hometown- and I'm one tier away from a promotion that would mean a relocation to London too, so the thought of that keeps me going- or so I thought.

Last night at a work birthday party, I ended up getting out of control drunk (Let me really spell this out: I'm not using being drunk as an excuse- just stating it was one of the factors) and having sex with one of my best friends at work. God typing that makes me feel sick. He was just as drunk too, and I don't really know what happened between going to his room (we live in a complex for workers of our company) to get some paracetamol for the morning, and ending up in bed with him. If there was a burning passion in the workplace and lots of flirting- then it would be wrong, but understandable...but this was honestly a platonic friendship. So confused.

Although I don't want to be graphic, the actual sex was literally eight thrusts before I realised that it was wrong, cheap and nasty; a real 'WTF am I doing?!' situation. I apologised for leading him on, but I didn't want to do this- grabbed my things and went back to my room.

I woke up this morning feeling sick but I went to see my friend right away, he was just as ashamed as me and said that'd never speak a word of it to anyone again. We had a hug, and I had a huge crying session. I returned back to my apartment, didn't go to work today and just curled up on the sofa feeling shit and thinking of what I had done to my poor poor taken-for-granted DP who I honestly love with all my heart.

My male friend who I did this disgusting deed with is off abroad to start up some offices and is staying there permanently- so there is a very good chance that I will never have to see him again if I don't want to. I've also written a resignation letter and have applied to a million random jobs in London that are way below what I'm qualified for. I want to get out of here and never ever do something as vile and reckless as this again. I don't want to tell DP as I know for a fact he'd leave me and rightly so...

I know a lot of you are going to use the argument 'but what if he did this to you? wouldn't you want to know?' - but if I'm perfectly honest, if there was no way of finding out and he felt as remorseful and disgusted with himself as I do now. Then no, I probably wouldn't :(

Flame me, give me words of advice, tell me IABVVVVVVU- but nothing you can say will make me feel worse as I do already.

don't tell him. You already feel like shit. why make him feel the same?
its over. the price you will pay is the guilt and you will have that forever.
If the friend ever tells DP,just deny it.

I'm here to give you the other perspective op.

When me and dh had been together about a year we had a long distance relationship. One day I had a call from him, he pretty much did what you did.
It was bloody hard to hear, he cried, I cried and it put a strain on us for a while, BUT...it brought us closer together. He regretted it totally and I know he wouldnt do it again.

If I am completely honest with you, I wish he had never told me. I think it would have been so much easier, although i spose it helps with the trust between us now.

My advice to you is dont tell him. You regret it and its hard, but move closer to him. It sounds like you feel guilty because its made you realise he's the one
Go with your instincts
good luck

Hi, I don't really know what to advise as I can totally see both sides of the coin, but I do want to echo what a few others have said please please please get an STD test as soon as possible and don't have unprotected sex with your boyfriend until the results are back (and clear).

There are plenty of people who are symptom free but are carrying all sorts of infections so a test is the only way of knowing for sure that you will not pass anything on to him.

If you decide not to tell your boyfriend what happened but need to come up with a reason to start using condoms, you can always tell him you have thrush and don't want to pass it to him, or that you are taking antibiotics (if you are on the pill)

I hope things work out for the best

I wouldn't tell him and normally I'm a huge advocate of coming clean. In your particular circumstances I don't think it would benefit your dp to know - you would cause him unnecessary pain when you know this will never happen again.

I think it happened because you were lonely and the drink made you act on a moment of weakness. Long distance relationships are hard, especially when there is no definite end date to the living apart.

I think this happens a lot more than people admit to. Trust me, you are not alone in what you have done, and I agree with the poster who said there is a huge difference between a thought out affair and a drunken mistake which you immediately regret.

Get your health checked out, take the morning after pill and forgive yourself.

What Morloth said.

To shag someone else is a one-off betrayal of trust. To then maintain the lie is to continue betraying their trust in you. Plus it is deeply disrespectful to the person you're lying to. You are in effect saying they don't deserve to know the truth.

Tell him. Respect him enough to realise he's a grown-up and doesn't need shielding from the truth. And respect yourself enough to admit when you've made a mistake.

I would like to be shielded from the truth if there was absolutely nothing to be gained by knowing it.

Don't do or say anything right now OP.

Get the morning after pill and a check-up as the others have suggested and take some time to think about things.

My first instinct was to say don't tell, not unless you are very clear about why you are telling him. If you honestly feel that you have to tell him please think about why. Because if it's because you want to unburden yourself from some of the pain by giving it to him, that's not a good reason. And if it's because you think you deserve him to be angry at you then that's not a good reason either.

But, if you decide now not to tell him, you can't ever tell him. This isn't the sort of thing you can wait to say for the next five or ten years because you've decided you still feel too guilty to keep it to yourself. You will have to think very hard about if you can do that.

And please try not to feel so bad about yourself. It was a terrible mistake to make but it was a mistake and you are not a terrible person for making it. You sound really lovely actually and I think you need an unmumsnetty hug.

I hope, if you do decide to tell him, you do it for the right reasons and that he can forgive you so you can both move on. And if you decide to keep this to yourself then please try to forgive yourself. Long distance relationships are not easy (I have a long distance marriage at the moment, DH not even in same country for most of the year) and it must be very tough to have had one throughout your whole relationship. I hope whatever you decide to do, this works out for you.

I wouldn't tell him. I'll be flamed for saying it, but I wouldn't.

I agree - who benefits? Mark it down to experience.

I can't believe how many people say that he shouldn't tell and that it was just a bad experience or a mistake. Cheating is not just a little mistake that can easily be forgotten.

Fair enough if you think so but I think as a partner he deserves to know and to make up his own mind. He might want to leave her he might be ok with it. But he is an adult and can make this decision for himself. Telling a lie for the rest of their lives/relationship is a continuous betrayal, every single second she doesn't say anything she is lying to him and is building a relationship not on trust but on top of a lie. Not a very solid foundation.

Oh and I don't know who said it but she is certainly not SINGLE. Just because there is no ring on ones finger does not make one single. I find that idea quite ridiculous, as it basically implies that unless you are married you can totally sleep around and lie to your partner. What about couples who don't intend to get married? They don't have a right to trust their partner to be true to them?

OP - just forget it. Shit happens.

No comment on the moral choices fom me others have said everything but for pity's sake, evn if you used a condom get a sexual health screen in a fortnight and , if condoms aren't your things develop a convenient " touch if thrush " or something. Don't have un protected sex till you know you are clear.

Don't tell him.

Learn from your experience and put it behind you.

Demented is right - you have to live with the guilt; that's your punishment.

Telling him so you can feel absolved/better is just shifting the pain to him.

Keep it to yourself.

There are a lot of people who said they could forgive the infidelity but not the lying so I honestly can say I don't know what I would do in ops situation

I think I would tell just so if he still wanted to propose he would at least be doing it with the knowledge of what happened.

What if he proposed, op said yes, got married, kids etc
Then op broke down and told him/ couldn't keep it up any further (let's face it... She doesn't sound like she is coping very well or is particularly strong)

Well then the issue escalates, he will feel like she deceived him an lied to him for years, he might forgive, he might forget, but equally he might not and might struggle and/ or leave! There could be kids involved by that point.

And it's not fair IMO

I would be honest for those reasons

But I always think 10 years down the line with imaginary families etc so feel free to ignore my musings

I am in a similar situation in that I am living several hundred miles away from my long term girlfriend and would like to offer my commiserations and hope you are okay.

Until I was in this situation, separated from her and in a strange city, I wouldn't have believed how lonely you could get and how you desperately crave emotional intimacy at times, so when you through booze into the mix I can totally see how this situation happened.

I am not saying that this is a universal experience or even counts as a male perspective, but for what it is worth here goes...

If my partner had done a similar thing - total 'one-off' whilst I was away and she was feeling lonely, I wouldn't be fine about it, but it wouldn't be a relationship breaker or even close to it. The act of sex with someone else wouldn't do the damage, but if it involved ongoing lies and deceit, such as an affair, then that would hurt beyond words.

Which makes me worry that if you didn't tell him and it comes out years later in an argument or if you are drunk or just in a moment of high stress, the damage is going to be far worse, he may start thinking 'what/who else has she lied to me about across the years?'

I also worry about the psychological burden of having to carry this round with you, it can't be easy and certainly is not healthy, might the guilt not start to have a negative impact on your relationship? I certainly don't buy the argument that you somehow 'deserve' the punishment of having to carry the burden of this knowledge around.

He has probably gone through the same intense feelings of loneliness and yearning, so may be in a position to understand the reasons behind what happened.

I am not saying 'tell him, tell him' but equally you shouldn't dismiss it as a course of action out of hand.

Take some time and do some thinking. Ask yourself some questions.

Why do you see yourself as a victim of men in your past, rather than a woman who made free decisions and sexual choices?

What difference would it have made if these men had loved you back? Would you have carried on a relationship with someone who was cheating another woman, just because he loved you? Why would that have made it alright?

Why do you call yourself such woman-hating names? You might have done a hurtful thing, but why do you think you're a 'vile filthy slag'?

Do you think your partner loves you enough to forgive you?

Do you love him enough to give him a choice?

If you keep the secret, who are you protecting? You, your partner or both of you?

If you intend to keep the secret, how has guilt affected you in the past? Is it something you've been able to shrug off and carry on as normal? What ways have you found to cope with it?

Your DP health is at risk so don't have sex with him you will have to do an STD check....

Everyone is being all 'ooh, get yourself checked out for STDs' like it's the responsible thing to do; but if the situation was that you'd simply had a once night stand with a work colleague then nobody would be saying that. It's not like he's some junkie off the street, he's a friend FGS! If the op should get herself checked out for STDs then so should everyone who ever sleeps with someone and thinks they'll ever do it with someone else again.

DodieSmith

'ooh, get yourself checked out for STDs' like it's the responsible thing to do

Words fail me... it IS the responsible thing to do.

You don't have to be 'some junkie off the street' to have Chlamydia or a raft of other STIs. The fact he's a friend doesn't come into it, he just has to have had unprotected sex with one other person.

Presumably the OP is going to have sex with her boyfriend at some point soonish, exposing him to the risk of contracting an STI, which would make a bad situation a thousand times worse.

The OP just had unprotected sex with someone.

That person had sex with the OP, he has probably also had sex with someone else, who has also had sex with someone else and so on.

You don't have to be a dirty scumbag to contract an STD, you need to have unprotected sex.

If the OP chooses not to tell her DP, well that isn't something I would do, but TBH people have done worse. If the OP chooses to continue to have unprotected sex with her DP knowing that she has introduced an outside possibility into their relationship then I am afraid that really does make her a bad person. It means her DP has no way of defending himself from any disease that this friend may have been carrying. He has no information and no barrier. That just isn't right.

dodie are you for real?

Can only friendless homeless people get stds then it makes no difference if he is her 'friend' or not. Everyone with an std is someone's 'friend'

How bloody stupid to post that getting checked out is not the responsible thing to do...
Actually made me laugh at your pig ignorance post

Look, you are hungover. That always makes thinks worse. Don't make any decisions or do anything for a couple of days.