Background: I have just come out of a longish affair (18 months) - would have left my partner of 12 years for the "other man" - but "other man" decided after a lot of agonising to stay with his partner and adopt a child. So that's that.
My partner MUST know there is/had been something wrong - I'm distant, irritable, not at all interested in sex with him. Over past year when I was trying to decide whether to leave or not, on several occasions I tried to talk to him about what was wrong in our relationship (for several years - well before my affair). I never found he would discuss it properly - either told me I was wrong; or else he got wildly angry and I had to withdraw; or else after one decent conversation he'd think I had everything out of my system and we could go back as we were. (Oh, we have one child, nearly 3).
I'm seriously thinking about telling him about the affair (not in all detail, but enough for him to know our relationship was seriously threatened) on the basis that it'll either break up our relationship or remake it and either would be better than the sickening limbo I'm in now. But I keep bottling it - oh, not this weekend, my parents are coming, not next weekend, we're going to a wedding, etc. Really it amounts to being scared of the consequences and never feeling strong enough on one particular day to face his anger (should say he would never physically hurt me but I have a big horror of being shouted at).
Am I crazy to think of telling him? Could it make things better?