Is it ever 'better' to not disclose an affair?

[JustKiddingMyself]

NC of course.

The subject title is provocative but largely sums it up. Is there ever a situation where not disclosing an affair can be justified, at all?

It's an open question but for example (and this doesn't necessarily completely describe a place I am in (though close)):

A married person and a single person have an emotional (but not physical) affair over several months. It's weak, it's wrong, and although they didn't stop before their feelings got too far, they both eventually realised it is wrong to continue on a basis of dishonesty. Both agree to stop contacting each other. The single person moves on, and the married person resolves to commit to their marriage and invest the energy and commitment that they realise (all too late) they should have thrown into their marriage in the first place.

The affair has introduced something dangerous and unstable into the marriage (which the innocent party does not know), but it has happened. If there is something that can be salvaged from the marriage, is it always 'better' for the guilty party to tell their spouse? Why would they do it - for honesty, to try and regain a bedrock for the relationship, or (sometimes) to simply avoid living with the hidden guilt? Perhaps that is the price to pay for the guilty party - to carry that burden and to not offload it?

Or, simply, if the innocent party loves their partner and is entirely happy in the marriage (though now based partly on a lie), would they actually (in every circumstance) wish to know?

The deceit is like a rot. The problem is that it spreads. The lies arent just told to spouses but to other people.

If you have children then your deceit spreads to them.

Staying together for the sake of your children confers a huge burden onto them. It isnt their responsibility to make a relationship last.

Someone I knew had an affair then eventually left his wife for the affair partner. Before the affair came out he and I had been chatting about holidays. He said that he was going away with family. He wasnt, he was going to leave his wife and already knew this. A small and cowardly lie.

He lied to his wife, he lied to everyone around him. I have nothing but contempt for him.

shoot I know just what you mean. The guilt also extends to knowing your DP isn't doing anything 'wrong' (or at least you can't think what they'd need to do to put things right. Yes there's things that could change but even those don't feel complete somehow). You're the bad one, you're the unhappy one. You're the one that's pulling th family apart. If only you could be happy, everything else would fall into place... But you can't.

Having an affair has the potential to explode the number of people in your relationship: the affair partner, the affair partner's partner, possibly more people.

Your partner believes there are only two people in the relationship. The reality is that there are potentially far more.

You are putting your partner at so much risk physically and emotionally. You might want to keep the secret but will all these other people? You are being deceitful but so is also the affair partner.

Is this for yourself or your partner?

A non forced disclosure makes the erring party out to be the hero ( I am coming clean, i have told you) and the pressure is on the innocent party to accept whilst feeling stupid ( why didnt I know?).

Don't tell. get it right from hereonin.

Ha Lucy if my dh disclosed an affair to me, believe me, he would not be my hero. And if I found out without him telling me, the same would apply.

Cheater, liar, deceiver, trust breaker, home wrecker, yes, all of those.

Hero? Not so much.

There is nothing heroic in any of the options here. Nothing. It's a rock and a hard place.