OP - i fully agree with @Toomanypuppies.
I’m afraid you’ve had some terrible advice on here - mostly from posters who think lying and cheating, marriage and divorce are just details in other people’s lives.
Of course when you end up lying/cheating, or you are betrayed, or when you go through the break up - these are really profound, often life changing experiences.
It’s not like you’ve just bought the wrong car or you’ve not returned a library book.
So cheating on someone for two years is a a horrible thing to do. Context is everything of course, but you’ve not suggested that your DH or your marriage is better or worse than anyone else’s. So unless the affair was needed to give you the strength to leave an abusive partner you loved, then it’s just an incredibly selfish hurtful and destructive path to have chosen.
People saying that it’s just one of those things, no judgement, are also assuming the next step is obviously divorce, no big thing, so don’t complicate by being truthful. Maybe, but maybe not.
My advice is firstly- what is it you actually want? Is it to rescue your marriage, or to have OM leave his family for you, are you just a cake eater wanting to carry on. Or do you need peace of mind and self esteem, some sense of redemption going forward?
I think you can protect your OM from the consequences of his betrayal - but shouldn’t protect yourself.
You aren’t really going to be able to have a deep and trusting relationship with someone you’re deceiving every day. Your current marriage is over. If you want to stay married then you’ll have to start a new relationship with your husband-and be truthful about what has happened.
He has the choice to not wish to have a new relationship with you - and, as in marriage, it’s vital that he has that full and free choice to consent. So deceiving someone into marriage is a deal breaker and wrong on so many levels-and so is continuing with deceit in marriage.
If it’s divorce-then the truth would help your DH to make sense if the last two years - and I think you owe him that. I think his healing is more important than whether or not you wish to avoid feeling shame. But selfish acts like affairs usually involve selfish actors who prioritise their own (even trivial) needs over the (very meaningful) needs of others.
I think you’re suffering heart break at the loss of your lover. You haven’t revealed whether your DH suspects, but in my experience, an affair has the most damaging impact on a relationship, even when it’s unknown to the betrayed partner. The more the truth will hurt him, the more damage your affair will have already done to your marriage over the past two years.
So I think you should take what’s coming because you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. It’s a life lesson, a very hard one, but one you can recover from in whatever way you need.