cannot live with the shame any longer

[ayudamedios]

2 years of complete no contact and investing in my marriage and I feel very much in love with DH  I didnt ever think it would be possible to get back to anything like this but I do not think that I can continue. I had an affair which DH doesnt know about. This was three years ago and the more that I have invested in him and my marriage the more that I come to believe that I cannot continue without telling him the truth. I think it is because I have so much love for him and can see him again after feeling numb to him for so long that I just dont think I can continue to deceive him about what went on. I have been a lapsed catholic for years but have been attending mass for the last year or so and I dont know if it is that which is fuelling my desire to confess or if it is cause and effect. I feel so ashamed of my actions and the pain that I have caused to my family, OMs family. I am terrified to tell DH the truth but I dont feel as though I can go on if I dont. I dont think that he would forgive me. Why would he and Im so frightened of the impact on my 2 DDs but we are living a half life unless he knows the truth and he doesnt even know it. I would do anything to make this right again but I dont think that it can be fixed.

I lie awake thinking of all the hurt and pain Ive caused to everyone  the ripples of it just keep going and going. Is it selfish to confess  so that I can breathe again. What about DDs?

Has anybody been through this? What did they do?

[MistressDeeCee]

Oh please.. just leave your DH alone be glad you have a chance to work at your relationship and spend your lives together. I can't stand all this unburdening to make the other person feel like shit. Its selfish and most who do it are addicted to drama and can't function properly in a relationship without it.

[struggling100]

I think you need to consider carefully why you want to tell him. It sounds as though you feel guilty and that YOU want to feel better - as if confession is going to be therapeutic for you. Remorse and guilt are there for a reason - they are healthy emotions even though they are not pleasant ones - and you can't just magic them away by opening up about this and shattering your DH's world. I think you might honestly be doing a better thing to live with the remorse and through it, ensuring that you never make a similar mistake again.

[ayudamedios]

Thank you to everyone for posting on this thread - lots of food for thought here. I don't know what I was expecting but the mixed response has surprised me. Very churned up. Lots of sleepless nights this week. Nothing more than I deserve.

[something2say]

Op, you sound like a good person to me, who made a wrong move.
Not so sure about your husband. You do deserve to be loved you know.
Perhaps a confession would call him out on his actual love for you?
Take care of yourself.

[Iggi101]

A marriage is a whole collection of events and emotions. If there was any chance at all that you'd do this again - or do it with another person - or if you were still unhappy together then you should tell. But currently the consequences of you telling lead to what good exactly? I wouldn't want to be told this by my dh. I do worry about the "he's not in love with me" thoughts though. But I don't think people's relationship peaks and troughs always coincide.
It's very wrong to cheat but it is not the only way to destroy a relationship.

[badbaldingballerina123]

I'd say the same .

[PortofinoRevisited]

Or to be more accurate, who had cheated.

[PortofinoRevisited]

I am interested to know what posters would think if this was a man cheating on his partner.

[LittleBlueMouse]

If you confess your guilt you will externalise the responsibility to punish. At the moment you are punishing yourself with the guilt you feel and so far god hasn't delivered a plague upon you either. So the next best thing, in gods absence is to get someone else to punish you, so you tell your DH. Who in your words "will not forgive" so he can take over the role of delivering retribution. All this will achieve is to convert your feeling of shame and guilt into self pitty, which of course is easier to deal with, because it doesn't require a spilt in your psyche.

However in the final analysis, wouldn't it be fair to say, that not only would you live with the guilt of the original lie, but also the guilt from the pain you cause by confessing.

Leave it and learn from it.

[badbaldingballerina123]

That sounds quite sad Op. I would be very upset if my partner thought I felt that way about him. Is there any part of you that is quietly thinking it wouldn't be so bad if you told him and he decided to divorce?

[ayudamedios]

He tells me that he does and can be gentle and thoughtful at times. He pulls his weight mostly on practical things and adores the girls. I think in the beginning I was more keen than him. He didnt go out of his way to woo me or anything - I guess I did the running and he fell in with it. I probably pushed for marriage - there was no romantic proposal but we were a pretty good team. On the whole we co parent well. I sometimes think he loves things about me but not me if that makes sense. He likes my family and he's impressed (and jealous) of my career success. He likes hearing about when I've had to run big negotiations or when I get a bonus. He likes it when people say I'm funny or when I'm socialising. That alk sounds weird - I think he likes some of the stuff around me but not sure he loves me in the way he loved his first girlfriend who he moved continents to be with. I could never imagine him taking a leap of faith like that for me. But - the co parenting is good and we have a physical relationship which was absent for a lng time. I think we have made good strides to getting to a good place but I need to tell him and accept the consequences I think. I can't breathe carrying this round with me.

[badbaldingballerina123]

Ha it sounds like my ex in laws, all about appearances. Think hyacinth bouquet . It sounds absurd that he would pretend to still have a job when he didn't . Have you forgiven him for these things do you think , or are you resentful.

Do you really think he doesn't love you Op ?

[ayudamedios]

I don't know. I do find the in laws difficult - his mum is very overbearing, loud and oblivious to others save for the occasional OTT display usually for the benefit of an audience. She likes to brag about DH and I had to go to family events where it became obvious that everybody believed him to be working hard at his career and super dad when he'd lost his job and wad at a low ebb. My career has been successful but I am treated like the little wifey when my salary has kept us afloat for years. Even now I earn double but that is a digression. I limit my exposure to the in laws while maintaing a decent enough relationship for the DDs whol love them. I don't think he was seeing anyone at the time (might be wrong) my take is that it has taken him until now to grow up. We had dc before our peers - perhaps it was all too much. He's been golden boy his whole life so his ego has been battered by the career stuff I think. I think that's why he was disengaged. I also think that his true love was his first girlfriend. But - all of that aside we are in a pretty good place these days. I sometimes he doesnt so much love me as be impressed by my career or the way I make things happen. Strange reflecting on this.

[badbaldingballerina123]

What on earth was mil doing rearranging your cupboards ? Have the issues with her now been resolved , or have they been swept under the carpet ? I have particularly difficult in laws and its all the worse when your husband doesn't deal with them. I don't think it's wrong to tell him , but you should be clear what you want to happen.

Are you considering telling him so you can as you say , stop living a lie , or is it possibly a way to rehash and resolve all the issues you've mentioned ? Is everything resolved to your satisfaction ? The in law problems , him leaving you to do everything ect ? Did you both work equally hard to repair things , or was it mostly you ?

I am particularly concerned about your husbands reaction , or rather lack of it , when you told him you had feelings for someone else. That's a crisis point in any marriage . Coupled with his behaviour , which you say was uncharacteristic , is there any possibility that he was involved with someone else himself ? It sounds like he had checked out of the marriage.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

Joysmum... We have no control - or right to control - another person. They make their own choices. You can't impose your will on others to compel them to full disclosure, each person is autonomous and actually, not answerable unless they choose to be. If that's something that doesn't work for you (general) then don't make relationships and run the risk of somebody falling foul of your 'rights'.

OP doesn't have 'little respect' and it's not for you or anybody else to suggest that she does. Nobody knows what goes on in a marriage, barring the people in it.

How can anybody read a post from an obviously hurting person and have so little understanding or compassion for them?

[NeoFaust]

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

It's really that simple, in the end.

[Joysmum]

What right does anyone have to think they know best about what is right for another and take choice away from a person about what they want in life.

How can anyone have so little respect for anyone as to lie to them. If anyone has been the victim of cheating, they deserve to know because it up to then to then decide what they want to do. Nobody else has the right to impose their will on another by lying or omitting the truth. That's the worst betrayal, worse than cheating

[tobiasfunke]

I think you need to forgive yourself. You personally seem to have taken the initiative to go to Relate and then go for counselling and get your marriage back on track. You didn't give up and get a divorce. IMO all that good is not undone by the fact you slept with another man when your marriage was going tits up.
Guilt is a horrible emotion that I suffer from very badly. I used to think I needed absolution for every tiny thing I did wrong otherwise I would feel such terrible shame. I have learnt as I got older that it is entirely self destructive to go over and over things. You have to learn from your mistakes and move on. If you decide not to tell him you need to reframe the whole issue in your head so that you can forgive yourself. That the affair was the catalyst that helped you work towards a good place and therefore for that reason was a 'positive' thing.

[BuzzardBird]

Well I am glad that you have come out the other side of what seems a horrible time but unless you want to go back there I would seriously keep it shut.

[ayudamedios]

I don't think I respected him very much at the time. There was a lot of resentment on both sides and I felt that he shrugged off responsibility and had left me to be the grown up in the marriage - paying all the bills, sorting childcare, running the house. We didnt touch each other and couldnt talk without a descent into arguing and at times physical intimidation which is massively out of character. I could not see the person I married. We were in a pit of misery. Divorce had come up in anger and he basically said he would go after everything. I was scared. He was at the time doing a fair bit of childcare s he'd lost his job and we had to reduce nursery hours while I worked FT to pay the bills. His mum would come and stay and rearrange my kitchen and cupboards and make space to leave her personal things but they wouldnt tell me so I'd get home rom work an d she'd be there. At the height of my paranoia I thought they would try and take DDs. But - things are si .different now

[MexicanSpringtime]

I'm in the "don't tell camp". And I am normally a person who believes in complete honesty, but all I can see is unnecessary misery for her husband. The affair was short and a mistake, the OP is so riven with guilt she is not going to do something like that again.

[badbaldingballerina123]

Do you respect him Op?

I would find it very hard to respect him after his non reaction to being told of feelings for someone else. Is he generally quite passive ?

[ayudamedios]

Oh gosh - so strange to see something so painful and personal debated like an academic exercise. I am none the wiser but will take time to absorb and reflect on everything that has been said. Lot's of questions to respond to. I don't know why now. I hoped it would fade into the past and I could spend my time making up for the wrongs. I don't know how I thought he would react to my disclosing the feelings - I think I wanted to be stopped - I was frightened by the force of what Ifelt. I wish I had insisted on discussing it further at the time. I. Instead I became infatuated with OM and probably gave myself permission because I tried to disclose. My actions were so ugly. OM was very hurt too.

[PortofinoRevisited]

Why is then, that when the bloke has done it, absolute full disclosure is needed to get past these things. You fecking cheated OP. Own up to it and face the consequences.

[slithytove]

Would like to add I would say the same to a bloke in these particular circumstances, nor if it were me would I want to know.