DH has confessed to a one night stand 6 years ago, before we were married. What do I do?

[windsgonefrommysails]

Well I never thought I'd be posting here.

I've been with DH for 9 years and we're pretty much had a great relationship. We've had some ups and downs of course like most couples, but mostly its been great. We've now been married for coming up to 4 years, and we have 2 DDs.

Anyway, a week ago he confessed to having a one night stand about 6 years ago, so when we had been together for around 3 years. I have been through a whirlwind of emotions from complete rage to absolute hurt. I want this relationship to work because I can't imagine life without him, but I don't know how to. We have had a counselling session (my idea but he arranged it almost immediately as he says he wants us to work it out too). We are going to have more together as a couple but also probably separately.

I believe him that he is sorry, and also that it was a one off. But the thing is he only admitted to having had a one night stand at all because I had pretty concrete proof (he gave me a STI which I have only just found out about and now been treated for). So really I can't be sure that it was a one-off because its difficult to trust him. The trust issue is huge for me because I have always trusted him completely and before this he had never given me a reason not to, so I feel now like there is a question mark over our whole relationship and I'm not sure how well I know him anymore as this goes completely against the kind of person I have always known him to be.

I have wanted to know all the details, and he has answered all my questions. He says he had completley blocked it from his mind as he was so ashamed of himself for what he had done, and that it is difficult for him to think about it as its the biggest mistake he has ever made. He says he can't tell me why though as he says he doesn't know. He said he loved me at the time and had no doubts about our relationship. It sounds as though it practically fell in his lap and I am so hurt that he sucumbed so easily. He also says that he loves me now more than ever and it would never happen again.

I am really sruggling with this. What do I do? How do we rebuild the trust, and am I making too big a thing of it as it was so long ago?

Just caught up with this, so sorry if I'm missing something.

To me, there are two issues. The first is that you need some reassurance from a health professional that it is possible to have become recently infected with chlamydia from a sexual encounter that took place 6 years ago. Even if the answer to that is "yes" it doesn't disprove that there has been more recent sexual activity. That will be a judgement call for you to make.

The second more complex issue is what this means. It sounds as though your H has been carrying a secret for a long time and that will have had an effect. Assuming you talked to him about the tests you were having done (and your reasons/symptoms for commissioning them), it sounds as though he waited for you to have a diagnosis before telling all. It sounds as though he only confessed when he had no choice - and therefore put you through the agony of getting a horribly embarrassing shock before telling the truth. Therefore, I wouldn't put too much store by his "honesty".

I can certainly believe that if he is telling the truth and this was a one-off night stand, he can provide no reasons for having sex with someone else, apart from that the opportunity was there, he wanted to take it and there was minimal risk of being found out. But evidently, that meant risking your health too.

So when he says there were no dissatisfactions with you or your relationship, I think he's telling the truth.

It's what this suggests about him that is more illuminating. On the facts presented, he couldn't pass up an opportunity, practised unsafe sex, kept a massive secret and only owned up to it when he had no choice. He has put his own needs first throughout. He sat back and risked your health, but also his children's health - and put self-interest before all of that.

That's a lot of selfishness to get past and so if you're going to try to forgive this, I don't think regaining trust is the most urgent issue here at all. You won't trust until he works on his selfishness, I'm afraid.

UC You did say "prepare to be flamed"

I think what your counsellor said was a load of nonsense, if s/he was commenting about this "gap" in the generic sense, or implying that it applies to all types of infidelity. There really doesn't have to be a "gap" or anything wrong with a primary relationship, or dissatisfactions with a partner, for infidelity to happen. It's also never wise for a faithful partner to "share the blame" for infidelity, because there are always other behaviour choices.

More than anything, we should trust what the OP's H is actually saying here. There was nothing wrong and he wasn't unhappy - an opportunity arose and he said "why not?" and it's as banal, simple and horrible as that in many cases.

Relationship counselling would serve no purpose here if a counsellor started from the hypothesis that there must have been a "gap" in the relationship for something like this to happen. This entire story suggests instead that at the time (and since given the cruel selfishness of the secret) there was a problem with the individual practising the infidelity and other behaviours.

wwifn why don't you turn professional?!
You've got right to the hub of this, as always!

just read the thread and I agree with posters who think that the infidelity was more recent that 6 years ago. Sorry.

EggyFucker! I thought I liked the cut of your gib! but I hadn't made the connection

wilf speaks a lot of sense. As usual.

wwifn i mean

wilf ?

it could catch on...

WWIFN, it was in the context of counselling me re. the break up of my marriage - so in that respect I agree with you - was commenting on the situation in front of her at the time.

Absolutely there are other behaviour choices - only HE could have said no to the opportunity in front of him to have a ONS. So I see what you're saying.

Still think best thing to do is find a really good relationship counsellor to help OP and her H deal with this.

The sunshine must have got into my head - I want to try & cast a more positive light on this.

Thinking about this from DH's point of view, he did something crappy a long time ago. Having idiotically missed his chance to come clean at the time, he then lumbered himself with having to keep a shameful secret from you throughout your wedding, DCs and all that's happened in between. When he made his mistake you were a couple. During the intervening time, you've become a family. His feelings have no doubt changed, as I'm sure yours have, and your lives have become much more closely intertwined. He has done all this with the secret lurking around in the back of his mind. It must have been difficult at certain moments.

He missed other opportunities to tell you. He should have taken them, but he didn't. Now he has - and you've found out that all the intertwining, the family-building and shared history contains a lie. It hasn't been built on a lie, but it contains one that you didn't know about before. Therefore you've been at an emotional disadvantage; of course you feel cheated and of course you question how much of what you've built up is real.

It's sort of like building a house together, if he knew there was a fault in the foundations and never told you. Your house will probably not fall down, but it's less solid than what you believed you were building. By hiding the fault, he robbed you of your right to decide how & where to build. If you don't feel angry about this, you should!

People who haven't had to live through such a let-down often talk about getting closure, getting over it and moving on. They think you should go (allegorically) "Oh, our house is on shaky foundations and I never knew? Well, never mind, it's still a lovely house, nothing's changed!" Things have changed - your house is still the same but now you know its hidden fault; it might fall down one day. From now on, you'll never feel quite so safe in that house.

But ... all other things being equal, you probably would have chosen the house even with the fault. Everything else about it is still good, so what's changed is your feeling about it. That's because your feeling was based on incomplete knowledge. So the first question is: how much of a deal-breaker is it? Not in anybody else's eyes, but in yours. Some people have a zero-tolerance approach to lies and/or infidelity. If you find you are one of them, then you're probably looking at divorce, either now or later, because you'll be incapable of loving someone who does this.

Very few people are zero-tolerance, though many think they are. If you can love someone who admits to having cheated in a past relationship, or you have lied about how much a pair of shoes cost, then you have it in you to be flexible. The most important thing for you to do is get pure clarity on what your feelings are and how they have changed. Don't expect that to happen instantly; there's a kind of grieving process to be suffered, for the honest marriage you thought you had.

For DH, there's a more complex task ahead. He's spent six years living with his secret. It's probably made him feel a bit crap, but it has also given him a kind of upper hand in your relationship. Can he see that? More importantly, can he give up wanting to control your knowledge about your own husband and your marriage? If he can, and wants to, he's going to have to work pretty hard to convice you he means it. He might have to tell you everything - every last, little thing - about where he goes, what he does and what he thinks, for as long as it takes. Does he believe he's able to give up control for your sake?

If there are any more skeletons in his cupboard (or mouldy sandwiches in his briefcase) he'd better fetch them out now, because a fresh start is what you're aiming for and you won't be able to do it twice. While you're at it, bring out any of your own! Do it properly :)

OK, this all sounds like hard work and it is. The reason I say it's positive is this: Very few marriages are genuinely founded on honesty and understanding. What you've got here is a chance to create the kind of marriage we all want; a marriage between two people who know each other as well as they know themselves, with 100% mutual respect and liking, as well as love. It's something worth going for imo.

I'm really sorry this has turned out so long! If things have changed while I've been typing, feel free to ignore - whatver happens, be gentle with yourself and good luck :)

I think both WWIFN and garlicbutter make a lot of sense.

I found out about my H's ONS 8 years after the event. He only admitted it because someone else found out and could, potentially, have exposed him. Having had a relationship founded on honesty and understanding, the idea that he would have kept such a big secret was devastating.

Once I knew about it, I could actually pinpoint the trip when the ONS happened, so profound the effect it had on our relationship. Once I'd got over the initial shock, the thing I found hardest was the fact that he'd kept such a huge secret for so long and the sense of betrayal I felt about that was far greater than the sexual betrayal.

That said, in my case, he 'justified' the ONS by questionning our relationship and, ultimately, me (obviously not overtly otherwise I might have realised and not wasted some much of my time trying to sort things out!). To use garlicbutter's analogy, having shaken the foundations by having the ONS, he then came home and proceeded to remove those same foundations brick by brick. By the time I found out, the foundations were practically non-existant (even if it took me another 4 years to work this out).

We eventually separated when I finally got that he'd justified his behaviour by blaming me to such a degree that he no longer wanted to be with me.

Your posts bring back all the memories of how I felt in the early days when I found out. I went through a myriad of emotions even questionning whether I should be so upset about something that happened so long ago. I was shocked by how hurt I felt and how difficult it was to even start to get a handle on it. I think you need to recognise that this is not something you will deal with in a matter of months and ensure that you allow yourself plenty of time to process all the emotions that will inevitably come up over the next few weeks, months and even years.

Forgive him. Move on.
And before anyone lynches me, I did not say it will be easy.

Thanks again for your messages.

WWIFN, you always seem to speak a lot of sense on this topic. I understand your point about the selfishness H has shown, especially in the context that as this is the only thing you know about him. However, this is so out of character for him, unless I really don't know him very well after all. He didn't know I was having these tests, as they were routinely done when I went for a smear. But he did lie when I confronted him about my results, despite the amount of evidence I had.

garlicbutter, I think you have summed up how I feel pretty well. I have been questioning our entire relationship and have felt a huge loss for the relationship I thought we had. I have repeatedly asked him if there have been other occasions, and tonight have told him that if he has any respect for me at all, he has to tell me if any thing else has ever happened with anyone else while we have been togethe, as it is very unfair if he controls what I know about our relationship. We have a visitor tonight so it has been difficult to talk any further.

Thanks for sharing your experince secretskillrelationship. I feel very sad for you that you went through that and that it was such a long process for you. Fortunately for me, my DH hasn't tried to blame me in anyway. Last night he was in a very emotional state when he came home from work and repeatedly apologised for what he has done and told me how much he loves me and how much he wants us to work through this. I asked him why he risked it all then and he still says he doesn't know. I replied that yes he does, that is was because the opportunity was there and he didn't think I would ever find out.

I am still very up and down with it all. Sometimes I am pushing him away because he has hurt me so much, while at others I just want to be close to him because I am so scared that we won't work things out and that our relationship as I have always understood it is over. Sometimes it seems like the biggest hurdle we could face, and other at times I think that it was just one mistake in 9 years of an otherwise great relationship. I think you are all right in that I need to take all the time I need to understand my feelings

GarlicButter's post is stop on.

Bleedingstill - sorry but 'forgive him, move on' is just not the best advice, shoving it under the rug will not solve the underlying problems. You have to be prepared to put the relationship apart and rebuild it - you can't just paper over the cracks - well you can, but the cracks will still be there and cause problems down the line :(

stop on??? SPOT on!!

Winds - I'm sorry to say but the 'up & down' will last a good while longer yet - but if you and DH are both prepared to pull the relationship apart and build it up again brick by brick, you can end up with a wonderful new relationship at the end of it x

Well, I always suggest to posters that they "do the maths" and decide whether the behaviour defines the person, or was a one-off period/occasion of madness.

I'm still not clear whether you have had clear advice from a health professional about the possibility of chlamydia remaining dormant for 6 years?

Sometimes when an unfaithful person is struggling to provide a reason for their behaviour, it helps to explain what this wasn't about. I hope you believe him when he says he cannot account for it; beyond instantaneous desire and perceived low risks.

One of the issues I would be doubtful about is that he used a condom. What often happens after a confession of infidelity is that the whole truth doesn't come out straight away; various bits are sanitised because the awfulness seems too much to admit in its entirety. I think this bit of the story is worth exploring, because it doesn't really ring true. Is he saying he had condoms with him, for example? Or that the OW provided them? I'm not sure if you're up to hearing about the encounter in detail just yet, but I generally advise that you hear all about it, because your imagination is often worse at providing intrusive images.

I think in time you might have trouble with the "what if?" questions that haunt recovery. What if you had passed this infection on to the DCs? What if you had parted for other reasons and you had unwittingly infected someone else? It makes a compelling case for sexually active adults to pursue regular testing and to always accept the offer of testing in pregnancy, so you might find yourself a powerful advocate of this and some good can come from this horrible crisis.

There are some positives that I want you to hang onto. Hopefully if he is being truly honest with you now, you've got the chance of a completely clean slate without secrets. I'd really recommend you have a much bigger discussion about fidelity and what it means to you both - make this experience count for something. You might want to start with an honest discussion about how you have both dealt with temptation in the past and how you intend to do so in the future, because there will be situations in the future - for you both. You might also want to ensure that your relationship doesn't have secrets and lies, because once the small ones become permissible, it's less of a leap to the big secrets and the enormous untruths.

If in your judgement this was a horrible aberration and the selfishness of keeping the secret was borne out of the original mistake, then you might conclude that human beings are fallible and capable of making truly dreadful mistakes, for a while, but that this behaviour doesn't generally define the person's character. However, try to make some good come of it and for you both to learn things it.

Unfortunately, it took 4 years to work out that my H was blaming me! WWIFN's last paragraph absolutely sums up where I was when I first found out. He was very repentant, keen to do whatever it took etc etc hence 18 months with Relate and a lot of other work, discussions etc. It was only when things failed to improve and my Relate counsellor described the situation as toxic that I began to consider the possibility that, whatever he SAID, he wasn't actually ACTING like he wanted to be with me.

That said, he was very good - our Relate counsellor stuck with us even when she retired because she was convinced we'd make it too!

It's only with the 20:20 vision of hindsight and a lot of reading about why people have ONS and how they deal with them that I realised he blamed me.

From a link on here I found a very good article on ONS (but can't remember where unfortunately) which talked about how men (predominantly) cope after a ONS. From this I learnt that in failing to take responsiblity for their actions, some men will look for faults in their relationship to justify their behaviour (similar to the distancing that WWIFN has described so eloquently in people who are embarking on affairs).

There will be a story he has told himself to justify/explain his behaviour to himself and deal with how he feels about it. It would be interesting to explore this (but I would suggest doing this with a good relationship counsellor).

So, while I suspect from what you say that your situation is very different, my advice would be to not race to try to 'get past' this and watch his behaviour very carefully. No-one likes getting caught out, and most of us would feel guilty and remorseful as a consequence. It's not how they act in the short term, it's what they do in the longer term that will really count.

WWIFN, my GP has confirmed that is it possible for me to have had chalydia for 6 years without realising, as it can and often does remain silent for several years. We have already discussed how we have dealt with previous temptations, and for me I have really never been tempted by anyone else while we have been together. I have simply removed myself from the situation when I have been hit on by other men. DH says the same and can't explain why it was different this one time, other than he was very drunk and was incapable of thinking properly. He hasn't tried to use this to justify his infidelity though.

secretskillrelationships, DH's coping mechanism was simply to forget about it. I can believe this as this is how he has dealt with other difficult things that have happened in his life. Therefore I don't think he has felt terrible for the last 6 years, as to him it was as if it had never happened. Our councellor wants to explore this

Thanks for your words of encouragment chipping. This will probably sound like a very stupid question, but how do we actually go about pulling our relationship apart and putting it back together? What do we need to do? We have already agreed that we need to spend more time together as a couple, but even this is difficult as DD2 is only 3 months old and we have very little family close by to help us out

As a med tech who actually performs these chlamydia tests Id ask the lab to retest.They are usually done using dna amplification which basically means that any tiny bit of contamination from another source is amplified 1 million times,that is why the test is considered so sensitive,it picks up even the tiniest bits of dna BUT cross contamination under these circumstances is REALLY easy and common. Ive seen it happen myself OFTEN,unless the lab routinely reruns ALL positives it can end up being reported as positive when in fact it actually isnt

My ex-husband REFUSED point blank to admit that he was the one that had given me chlymidia even though he was the only person I had slept with in nearly 7 years. I knew he had cheated on me but he insisted it had gone no further than kissing. I now know better than that but obviously the chlymidia issue was the 1st major indicator that it must have gone further than kissing.

Sorry OP, I do have to agree with other posters that I think there is probably more to this than your husband is telling you.

Winds, my H would have said the same. If fact, he claimed he'd forgotten completely until the next incident 7 years later (where he did just walk away after a kiss!). However, once I knew, I could absolutely pinpoint when the ONS happened because he behaved a bit oddly at the time (which also made some sense at the time, just didn't quite add up IYKWIM). Alcohol was also involved with mine, but he did use it as an excuse as well as the fact that he was away from home and feeling lonely etc etc. Turned out it was a big Alpha Male thing, he was having a great time being the one the gorgeous woman wanted etc etc. Still claims he didn't actually sleep with her but, from my perspective, it doesn't really matter, the intention was there.

I'm not saying that this isn't salvageable, by the way, just that you need to understand what his story is first. If his story is that he did something completely stupid and he will write it off to experience but ensure that he never puts himself in that position again, then you have more chance than if he has simply ignored it.

If he has failed to learn anything, the risk is that, in the same situation, he will act in the same way. Given that you have a small baby, life is likely to be very stressful for the next few years - you need a good solid relationship to weather this period and you have had an enormous shock. Do give yourself time. When I talk about what happened to me, I have the benefit of years of reflection. When I first found out, it did not occur to me that it would mark the beginning of the end of my relationship. I do believe people make mistakes and that you can get beyond these to build a better relationship. Good luck.