I’ve done a terrible thing

[Miserablemondsy]

Hi,

i’m 42, married to a great guy with 2 dc’s aged 9 and 13

for the last couple of years I’ve been doing a part time uni course funded and supported by my employer. This has involved several overnight residential sessions. The group of other students are great and we quickly got into the habit of going for drinks etc when we were all staying in the hotel.

on our last residential in June a few of the younger ones decided to go into town. Me, another woman and a guy weren’t up for it so we went back to the hotel and had a couple of drinks in my room.

the woman left after half hour leaving me With the guy. He’s 32 and has become a good friend over the course of our studies. I admit that I found him attractive and I got the impression that he liked me.

We sat in my room watching TV and shared a bottle of wine. We were both tipsy and he was being flirty. I can’t believe this happened but I ended up giving him a BJ and shagging him. (Safe sex)

the next morning we both agreed that ut had been a huge mistake and something that we won’t discuss again, our course had ended now so there’s mo need for any further contact. He’s getting married next year 🤦‍♂️

i’m devastated at what I’ve done. Until that night I had been 100% faithful. I just don’t know what to do

my heart tells me I must confess but my head tells me that it will destroy my family. My older sister is like a second mum ( 12 years older) and I have confided in her. She thinks that I need to move on and hero my mouth shut

I feel absolutely disgusted with myself, WWYD?

Be honest and decent

It’s rigid thinking to apply this to every misdemeanour in a marriage. And I find a lot of the posters (baying for op to “tell all”) rather sanctimonious.
Who are you to decide her punishment? And yes it would punish her dc. Telling the truth isn’t always the “decent” thing, particularly in a long stable marriage with children.

For the posters claiming these high moral standards, it’s ironic that you think the decent thing is pages full of bitter anger and abuse directed at the op-she’s been told numerous times what a “shit person” she is.

It’s almost certain confessing would destroy the marriage.
I wouldn’t judge a man or woman’s decision to keep quiet and live with the guilt of a one off drunken shag.

I don't think your husband needs to know. It was a horrible mistake, a one off and regretted by all. So long as you completely mean it and you will never ever go there again then let sleeping dogs lie.

I say this as a woman who divorced her husband for infidelity. But regretted mistakes are mistakes.

Honestly the cut off for me is if she had to lie. I don't think it would be ok to start gaslighting your partner to cover up cheating. Or if she doesn't regret it as tbh then she's going to do it again and she should end the relationship herself. If you are having an affair you should end the relationship yourself - it is impossible to have an affair and not lie and gaslight your partner.

Everyone here is talking as if it is the honourable thing to tell him but honestly, if my partner had impulsive drunken sex with someone and then deeply regretted it, I honestly hope he keeps that to himself and feels guilt and shame about it his whole life instead of deciding to do some "honourable" thing and destroy my life, likely damage any trust I have in any relationship going forward and turn the kids world upside down just to make him feel better about himself. I would never be able to forgive him and would likely be distressed about it for a very very long time which would sabotage so much of the life i have built.

She's done an awful thing. It has already been done. She feels horrendous about it. Why make everyone else including her kids feel horrendous too? Personally I don't think ruining my life would be the "decent" thing to do at all.

If you are referring to me, I in no way said it was a troll thread.

I just said that there are very very many threads at the moment which flip the sexes of the typical people, OP never returns, and the whole thread is full of 'if this was a man, the replies would be different'. Pages of GOTCHA about 'reverse sexism' and (god help us) 'misandry'.

Well no shit Sherlock. The world isn't equal in any every way. Things are different for women. This is a predominantly female site. 99% of the internet is by and for men, who BTW don't just tell each other to keep quiet, they tell other men to rape and murder us. The world isn't fair and unless men are working very hard to make it so, they shouldn't really come here and tell us to make it equal first. We tried. Women have been keeping quiet and moving over and #bekind and asking nicely. Doesn't work. Go and sort your own house out rather than policing us.

And in case of any doubt, I have never and will never cheat on my DH. He's a bloody awesome man and I'm never remotely tempted.

Well said @MrsTerryPratchett I completely agree.

Third that @MrsTerryPratchett!

I find MN is often oddly rigid and pious about all forms of moral dilemmas.

My stance on infidelity isn’t black and white- it depends completely on circumstance and situation.

If my younger sister or daughter-in a stable LTR with dc- confided in me full of regret and remorse over a ONS, I wouldn’t hesitate in advising her to keep quiet, learn from it and forgive herself.

No, not if she wants to remain married and save him from hurt. It was one night and a silly mistake. She needs to live with how she's feeling (terrible) and carry on. You make it sound like a 'call the police!!!!!' scenario. It's not. She messed up and probably deserves to feel crap but making her husband also feel devastated isn't going to help the situation. This happened to a friend of mine and she was drunk and misbehaved. She was a mess with guilt for months but managed to get past it and said nothing. It never happened again.

To my mind, there is a difference between an affair and a one night stand - and I stress that l’m talking about a one off which is genuinely regretted and learned from, not a string of them. A one night stand suggests impulse and as in the OPs situation, is instantly regretted. It’s just sex - lust combined with stupidity not emotion. The evidence of this in OPs case is the mutual decision to never speak of it again.

An affair is emotional entanglement leading to sex as an expression of that emotion. It’s a conscious decision to involve yourself in a loving relationship with someone else. To me, that is the real betrayal, and is unforgivable in any circumstances. If you have feelings for someone else, you’re intentionally deceiving your partner and trying to have the best of both worlds. But again, I think it’s naive to think that confession comes from the desire to be fair to your partner - it’s more likely to come from the inability to carry the burden of guilt. If you truly respected your partner, you wouldn’t have cheated in the first place so to couch a confession in terms of respecting the partners’ right to an informed decision on the future of the marriage is hypocritical.

@Dolores87 you've summaried this well. No-one is saying it's no big deal or it's okay for someone to cheat but it's done now.
Keeping quiet will cause the least amount of pain and drama and protect the children.
I feel like many posters dislike the idea of the OP going unpunished, even if her DH and children are collatoral in that punishment.

Have you read the thread ans posts? Woman are a discrace!

I think prior to my husbands affair I may have thought the same as the clear majority on here, ‘don’t tell, you’re sorry, move on’.

I don’t now.

I couldn’t care less about the man/woman argument, I care about right to an individual’s personal agency and informed sexual consent. Any one night stand, hook ups or affair etc takes both.

For me when you’ve taken both personal agency and sexual consent and then keep quiet you’re not doing anything more than controlling the narrative. You’re making sure whatever happens works for your benefit. It is entitled and selfish and exactly why you had the fling/affair in the first place. You haven’t grown or learnt, keeping quiet is an extension of who you now are.

At least telling puts the ball in the betrayed person’s court. I do wonder how many people spouting keep quiet would feel the same if they’d had another child, invested their money in a business or joint property or any other life changing decision based on what they believed of the person they thought was safe for them.

Cynically I don’t trust the angst this OP is allegedly in. I think she fancied him, they had condoms, he then told her it was a one night thing and now she’s regretful and sorry. But I suspect it would have continued if the conversation the next day had not happened. So you’re practically telling her to just stay quiet and potentially be a continued risk to her husband and family.

Oh, OK then, if you say so.

The point is that no one says that on threads where it is a man who has cheated. Most are also all for the woman telling the partner of the OW too.

The point is that no one says that on threads where it is a man who has cheated. Most are also all for the woman telling the partner of the OW too.

It's a different scenario when an infidelity has been discovered, so the advice will differ accordingly.

I disagree - if my XH had a one off mistake he'd not told me about because he regretted it so deeply I would have been fine. I was willing to forgive a stupid flirtation. We are human and make mistakes. But a long term love affair - no way. I kicked him out and divorced.

If you've never been in those shoes don't assume what you'd do. You do not know.

Your post would have had more impact if you’d spelt discrace with a “g” 😬

I don’t recall ever seeing a thread on MN started by a man confessing to a one night stand and asking whether he should tell his wife. I’ve seen many where the affair has already been discovered, which is entirely different.

This is all semantics at the end of the day.
OP wont be back and this never happened.

We all know exactly how that thread would go though, and it’s extremely disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Honestly I’m also in the keep your mouth shut camp

sounds like you regret and I hope arnt going to turn into a prolific cheater ?

the marriage is going to be screwed if you tell him , and huge major impact

and If a man did it as a one off I’d say the same to him

you are going to have to live with the guilt

but totally block that guy

Most are also all for the woman telling the partner of the OW too

im not
I think it’s very risky and you have no idea what’s going on in that marriage

Dolores87

agree
I’d rather not know about a a regretted drunken one night stand either

I’ve never done it ! But I can imagine doing it so I can forgive it easier in theory

whereas I can’t imagine having a LT affair

Foe me, I'd have a harder time with the one night stand, because it shows a horrendous level of recklessnesss and complete lack of forthought, that would make for a very unsafe partner.

@SmileyClare It's not a misdemeanour. It's cheating. Stop downplaying it.

It's no more sanctimonious than it is low morals, unethical, spineless and selfish coupled with cowardly to keep quiet, by the way. I know which camp I'd rather be in, as well.

I'd sure as shit much rather be smug, pompous and sanctimonious if it meant being honest, decent and respectful. Then again-I doubt any of the keep quiet and the OP know anything about being honest, decent and respectful of their partners.