Does he need to know.

[Discodoc101]

Okay so I’ve NC for this.

Just over six years ago I had a drunken ONS. I was in a really bad place at the time and someone I knew through work gave me a lot of attention, flirty banter, just made me feel good about myself and we went too far. The problem was that it was at a work do and I became the talk of the place. Soon my DH found out and confronted me. I basically denied everything - shut down conversations about it. I’m not proud of this but I knew it would never happen again and I didn’t want to risk my marriage and my family for a stupid mistake. We had a bad few months but things gradually turned a corner and our life felt like it was back on track.

Anyway, my DH is moving offices and was storing some boxes in our garage. I noticed a few family photos and was having a look when I came across a folder. In the folder were transcripts of online counselling he had undergone with Relate and a journal that he has kept for meetings with another counsellor. This all relates to my ONS and the fact that he thinks I’ve lied about it ever since. It was years ago!!!

The problem is that some of these counselling sessions were still taking place in November and the stuff in the journal is awful - my behaviour has Destroyed him and he never lets on.

I just want this to go away but I wonder, after all this time, should I come clean? Would it make it better for him if he knew the truth? If anyone has any experience of a situation like this I’d love to know.

if only he had been truthful YOU would have fessed up and maybe things would have been different but she knew he was suspicious for at least a few months when it happened and never fessed up. He did ask and she denied it.

Is he meant to keep asking? How is that on him?

He asked. She said no.

It's not all 'on him' but imo if someone has doubts and says nothing for years and if someone has secret counselling sessions to try to assuage that doubt and says nothing for years -- then surely this is where the shades of grey appear?

It isn't all 'on him' but imo neither is it all 'on' the OP

I appreciate this pov won't be MN friendly but hey ho

I believe that we all make choices and those choices create reactions in others

Was the OP wrong? Damn right she was

Is her husband wrong? Damn right he is. And his reactions now prove it to me

• he chose to lie about his feelings for years and she chose to lie about the ONS for years

Grey upon grey upon grey

@Gina2012

Thankyou for posting that message. I agree with you.

I am so shocked at the vitriol that's posted on here. The OP has accepted the mistake and has tried to right it at the moment she realized it remained a problem.

What do you other members get from posting such vicious messages on a board? Does it make you feel powerful and in control? Or superior?

OP - hope things work out positively for all of you in time.

I'll say this @Discodoc101

I made a choice (not a ONS or affair) in a relationship which my partner didn't like.

He used my choice as a stick to beat me for years.

Was I wrong? I could certainly have chosen to handle the situation differently and make a different choice

Was he wrong? Yes - he was imo. And he was cruel. Imo.

The relief when I left him and his self righteous beating stick , was huge.

Unbelievably joyfully wonderfully rainbow coloured freedom.

Believing we deserve to be beaten because of a choice we made, is very life limiting.

I just don’t know what else he was meant to do?

Keep asking?

Say he still felt something had happened so he was getting help to change this? It sounds like as she had denied it he felt the issue was in him so tried to rectify it without rocking the boat with her but actually couldn’t because unbeknownst to him his hunch was 100% right.

I’m not 100% OP didn’t know he was getting counselling but obviously didn’t know the subject matter. Also I’ve had quite a bit of therapy but never had a transcript of it. I’m not sure how that works but maybe it’s somethibg you request and it’s just the notes from the counsellor?

DH have a very honest relationship (possibly due to my MH) so I would tell him if I felt a particular way or suspicious but I can completely see why someone wouldn’t.

I don’t think it’s a 50/50 fault akin to lying about cheating on someone. And at the end of the day if the OP hadn’t then none of this would be happening.

I’m not one digging into op and I rationally see how cheating and affairs happen but I don’t think it’s fair to blame her partner for being hurt by it or for protecting his family from a feeling that might be unfounded. To me that’s very different to an actual deed that has been done if that makes sense.

*I just don’t know what else he was meant to do?

Keep asking?*

Yes I think so, why not?

And tell her how he was struggling with the instinctive 'knowing' about the ONS but the continuing lies. Tell her about the counselling.

This whole debacle is based on both of them lying and hiding things

But generally (ime) the OPs lying will be perceived as 'the worst and least understandable' , hence giving husband the right to treat her like shit from now on, as his lying will generally (ime) be perceived as reasonable

OP I think that no matter how bad you feel, your poor DH will feel a million times worse. There is nothing as destructive as being lied to consistently. You need to stop thinking about yourself and focus on whatever your H needs. If you do split, think about how you can help him recover as a person. Be kind, respectful and generous. You have stolen his trust in reality. That is a huge wrong to inflict on someone.

But if he kept asking and she hadn’t then that would be a very detrimental to their relationship. So I can see why he decided to get help rather than make it a family problem. He might not want her to feel she had to change her innocent behaviour because of him, which she may have felt she had to had she’s been innocent and known how he felt.

I take your point that him saying he feels he doesn’t know her because she lied for so long when he kept something from her. But I also feel it’s different as she never asked him about it so he didn’t deny it to her and outright lie so I think that’s the difference. She denied it.

Plus he was trying to better things, nothing he has done is a betrayal or such.

I think we're all agreed that the OP was wrong

I suppose our point of potential conflict is the level of culpability of husband

My take is that he is considerably culpable and will , going forwards, stay in the marriage but inflict punishment to an unacceptable degree (unacceptable imo)

Only the OP can decide how much of an emotional beating she deserves to take and for how long

If I were the OP I would end the marriage now and walk away

This whole thread just reinforces my belief that you don't confess to and therefore wreck your relationship because of a drunken, one off encounter.

@Crushedvelvetcouch or how about just don't wreck your relationship by cheating? 🤷‍♀️

It depends on how much you love him. Do you love him enough to respect his right to know and make a decision for himself about the future? He might also want to stay with you - but you are holding him back from having a full life as he has to pretend this didn't happen - he has to deny his on instincts because you have gaslighted him into it. Its not a good place to be. The affair was one thing - doing this to him is another. You can't take back the affair but you do now have an opportunity let him know he can trust his instincts because he was right. How would you like to be in a position where you doubted your own instincts because believing them meant you had to believe your own spouse who you have been with since you were teenagers is lying to you.

Well, yes mrs that is obviously preferable;
However, what's done is done and telling the truth for its own sake is simply futile and counter productive.

If my DH had a drunken ONS and felt sufficiently shitty enough to ensure that there would never be a repeat of such behaviour, then I'd thank him not to blow our family apart with his 'truth'.

How on earth OP thought coming clean after six years would be helpful to anybody is beyond my comprehension.
Her DH had been to counselling, he was dealing with his suspicions in private, without impacting the family unit.
Then OP goes and opens Pandora's box.
Now both she and her DH (and possibly the DC) are miserable.

Sometimes pragmatism trumps perceived morality.
In any case I view it as more moral certainly to continue the lie if you've maintained it for six whole years. Let him believe you. It is surely kinder to your family as a whole than the situation OP now finds herself in.

OP I hope everything turns out ok for you, you made a mistake, an error of judgement.
Please don't beat yourself up, hopefully your DH doesn't decide to either. for you.

Whoa - hold on OP - how does your DH know about the flirty texts???
Are you saying that you pursued a relationship with OM - DH was suspicious and asked and you gasslighted, and THEN you had your drunken ONS - and then lied about that too?
If so then that would totally explain why DH doesn’t see this as a drunken bad decision but something very premeditated, deliberate and callous. He wouldn’t want to believe that of you - so will have fought against his doubts, even though the truth was staring him in the face. And now he doesn’t have to fight for the person he thought and hoped you were.
As for ‘he’s lied too’ - well he’s struggled with two horrible options - either his DW is deceitful, gassslighting and untrustworthy (how could he think such a thing?) or he has MH issues and trust issues and needs counselling. To continually ask would be accusing, and it took ‘a couple of months’ for the issue to calm, a couple of months in which the truth should have come out. After which he’s tried to own his doubts, control them, get help to deal with them. It would be hugely damaging to keep accusing for years following a clear denial. To destroy a family because of paranoia.
Except he wasn’t paranoid - which is why the doubt never went away, he was just clinging to denial.

I think OP that couple counselling is your only option - which he may agree to. He has a lot to come to terms with I think.

Couples counselling might help you both talk about what happened and what's happened since. Can you suggest it ?

Oh and @Crushedvelvetcouch ‘sometimes pragmatism trumps perceived morality’ er no - sometimes it’s morally better to tell a ‘white lie’ - like..
sometimes kind, - was the dinner nice? It was lovely.- Did you like you present? Yes thank you.
NOT kind - Are you pursuing an affair and lying to me when I ask about it? No you must trust me.

You see some things are not so important, so why be hurtful? Infidelity is not one of those things!

No one - not anyone - and perhaps especially a no committed parent - deserves to have their life turned into a lie as some pragmatic way of keeping their family together. People are not pawns, and lives cannot be given back.

Dadaist I really think you're being overly dramatic here.

It was a ONS, she wasn't going to repeat it.
There was no harm done to the relationship, no love lost on either of their parts and quite honestly I believe her DH should have been permitted to cling to her denials.

He didn't deserve her honesty, it was misguided and cruel of her to tell him, although I realise with the advice she got from this thread she could hardly have realised this.

The truth isn't the be all and end all, I firmly believe that if you have an isolated ONS in an otherwise loving relationship then you live with your guilt and never mention it. You learn from it and use it to pour more appreciation in to your relationship.

An affair is of course a whole different ball game, the two are hardly comparable and I regard it as folly to conflate the two and treat the perpatrators equally.

@Crushedvelvetcouch ‘ he didn’t deserve her honesty’??? Seriously?
So are you saying that if your DH started a flirty relationship and denied anything was happening- and then slept with said OW and then denied it, when everyone knew, wouldn’t see that as in any way ‘dramatic’?

And OPs DH was not in any kind of blissful ignorance either. He wasn’t ‘clinging to her denials’ - he was clinging to HIS denial - he couldn’t see her for who she is! Someone capable of betrayal, gaslighting and disrespect for their marriage.
You are basically just suggesting that unless it’s an ongoing affair then it’s better to lie. And lots of people (especially men) believe that. And it’s despicable contempt for another person - and a deal breaker for most people, and the cheater doesn’t get to make that decision.

Wow - just wow!

You are basically just suggesting that unless it’s an ongoing affair then it’s better to lie.

Well, yes in very basic terms that's entirely correct.

If its an isolated misdemeanour which you are certain you won't repeat then I consider it good advice to keep your mouth shut.

Honestly I believe relationships to be usually more nuanced and best viewed in shades of grey than black and white dictacts and 'honesty at all costs' platitudes.

Of course serial cheats and those who have no remorse or whose cheating is as a consequence of a lack of love for their partner have no business doing what they are doing or lying about it.

OP doesn't fit that mould, nor does she deserve the bad advice and vilification which she's received here.

Thanks for the replies. I’ve spoken to him again about some of this. I’ve pointed out that he was living a lie as well and he accepts that and did believe that discussing our life with a counsellor without my knowledge was also some form of betrayal

My DH is generally the strong silent type but in the months after the ONS when I asked if he was okay he would tell me that he wasn’t and that he didn’t think he’d got the full truth about that night. He was moody and depressed.

He has reminded me that, at that time I said his moodiness and refusal to let this go was ruining our marriage. I can’t recall saying this but it does sound possible because, at the time, I thought telling him would be too cruel and yes, I just wanted it to go away and I’d live with the guilt myself

He started counselling to see if he could find a way to live with his doubts. Initially he thought it was good to unburden himself but long-term it hasn’t helped him. Counsellors did suggest involving me but he felt that if there was the slightest chance that I had told the truth then inviting me to counselling for something that may not have happened would end the marriage.

It’s all such a mess.

Oh OP, I'm so sorry.

Please remember that right now your DH is hurting and most probably and understandably verbally lashing out in an attempt to hurt you.
He is likely feeling his doubts are now vindicated, which they are, and this feeling of vindication, coupled with his extreme hurt/anger/sense of betrayal will be spurring him to relive his initial suspicions and to want to figuratively flagellate you.

This is simply the initial stages of his grief, more is to come before he accepts what happened, if he can accept it.

I hope for all of your sakes that he either accepts and moves on or decides to end your relationship. At least then you will be able to move on, either together or by yourselves.

Six years of lies is a hell of a thing to get your head around. Be patient and kind, with him, yourself and your relationship.

This too shall pass, best of luck.

So it was with someone you were flirting with; enough for him to find out about flirty texts etc. before you slept with them?

Not quite the spontaneous, totally un premeditated, totally out if character ons you seemed to describe in your op.

I'm not surprised he (apparently) can't get over it, the inappropriate behaviour leading up to it, as well as all the lying to his face (and even manipulating him to let it go cause hewas damaging your marriage by not believing something you knew was a lie).

I really feel for you, OP.
You fucked up. We all do, and the moment we reveal what we’ve done is a painful moment indeed. Thinking of you all and wishing you well.

OP, I'm sorry that you're dealing with the outfall of this now but I think you're doing your husband a disservice by even suggesting to him that his counselling session was a betrayal. It was not. Not at all. There was absolutely no point in discussing this with you because you denied it and continued to do so. He had every right to seek outside help and not consult you... because what would have been the point? You would presumably have continued to lie to him? May have used the counselling against him to carry on propping up the lie?

The fact is, he doesn't trust you now. Own it. Accept that up until the point you confessed, you were untrustworthy. Set him free of the notion that he in any way betrayed you by going to counselling because that's extremely unkind of you, even abusive. I don't think you're like that when you're not desperate but you haven't control of this now so hand over to your husband, be honest and let him realise that.

... and accept that the cards will fall where they may.

When you went ahead and had sex with the guy that you'd been flirting with what actually went through your head?

That you'd lie about it and cover it up and keep your 'beloved' husband? Or was there an elemebt of indifference/cavalier-ness re. him finding out and losing him?
Have you actually come to invest and love him over time since then, and had some lack of investment of doubts back then.

Deep down I don't think people risk things then truly truly care about.