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?

As someone who has recently stopped drinking after years of exceeding weekly units by a good margin, it is now really clear to me what a destructive force alcohol is. Society’s most addictive drug : as carcinogenic as smoking, as obesogenic as biscuits, and no comparable substance comes close to it in terms of fuelling arguments, violence, rape, and serious accidents

Look at the position it has put you in.

You’re filled with remorse. You love your husband, and he loves you.

Make a sizeable donation to a suitable charity, make amends to your husband through one or more generous or magnanimous deeds, and move on. Forgive yourself.

And say nowt!

I would say nothing, and if my husband had done this a few years earlier and I didn't know, I'd rather he say nothing as well and consider it a timely reminder never ever ever to do something so stupid again.

I've had a number of relationships in my life with people who drank a lot (used to drink a lot myself - sober now) so realistically I have probably been in your husband's situation quite a few times without knowing it. When people drink a lot it lowers their inhibitions, making sex and infidelity a lot more likely, in my opinion/experience. In fact, there are a few occasions I can recall where certain details/aspects of a partner's behaviour after a night out/trip away without me made me suspect it was possible they had cheated.

My position has always been that I would prefer not to know about this type of thing. Very different if it's a long term, pre-meditated affair, with feelings on both sides - then I would very much want to know, as I would hate to be in a relationship with someone who had romantic feelings for somebody else, even if they also still loved me.

But a stupid drunken night? For me personally, that's not enough on its own to end an otherwise good relationship, so all knowing about it would do is to put the images of it in my head, causing me a degree of upset and discomfort.

So I vote for not telling your partner. But also some very honest introspection on your part. Did you truly do this just because you were "a bit tipsy"? If so, then it seems to indicate deeper problems - are you unfulfilled by the sex with your partner? Or feeling unattractive and seeking validation?
Both things that you can and indeed must address, to prevent this happening again. (For his sake and your own).

Or, did you get out of control drunk? If so, is that a pattern of behaviour for you? Do you need to cut back on your drinking, or even stop altogether? (My view on this is skewed I admit, but I think nobody is actively improved by alcohol, and if drinking was leading me to cheat on a person I loved, I would give strong consideration to quitting altogether).

Why the hell did you tell your sister?

It's no longer a secret.

You need to have a long think now about whether or not your husband will find out from someone else, as in will your sister confide in someone else about what you did, will she slip up with your husband? If there's any chance, you probably need to come clean, even if you know it was a terrible mistake and you will never see him or do something like that again.

I also think you need to look long and hard at your drinking as that appears to be heavily involved in your poor choice here.

well problem is even if you try to make it work, telling is 99.9% chance of ending your relationship. Men don't forgive, they don't give you a pass for adultery. A man on the other hand has a fair chance of keeping his relationship if he makes amend after confessing.

I think statistically there’s a not insignificant chance he’s done something this stupid too.

I agree, but it's not just his stance on cheating, it's his attitude towards lieing that counts too. I've never been in this situation but I think I could handle cheating better than the deception. I'd be furious if I ever found out I'd been lied to like that.

Tell him. If the shoe was on the other foot and it had been fine that slept with someone - would you want to know so you could make a decision about whether you wanted to stay with someone who had betrayed your trust?

Or, you could stay quiet and say nothing.

You'll pay for your mistake either way.

You're going to have to live with the guilt I think. It was a mistake never to be repeated. Make sure you actively don't get yourself in a situation like this again (drinking in a hotel room, even if there are other people there).

I wouldn't tell your DH. DH told me something a few years back that I really, really wish he hadn't. I wish he had just used the situation shock him into changing the habits and mindset that got him there.

If someone prefers monogamy and isn't sort to cheat, I think there are often cracks already formed in the relationship as when your happy and alls good together you seem to become oblivious to attactive people in that way as not interested so less likely to reciprocate any flirting or drawn into situations where boundaries blur into emotional affairs so lower risk of cheating occuring. Limerance type crushes also sometimes happen when your mind wants to escape a little from reality and can be a useful sign that all is not as well as you thought in your relationship and may need work. Sometimes its like self sabotage and aiding a breakup when you were too afraid to take that step.

It will trash your relationship & partners trust but the time factor of being upfront and a willingness to accept responsibility may work in your favour.
Relationship counseling can help even if he's not sure wants to continue as mediator to aid communication between you and start to understand where things may have gone wrong as losing trust can be very damaging for future relationships too. We tend to make a lot of assumptions about what people are thinking and feeling and often totally wrong. Some people appear to move past affairs but have just buried the issue to keep family together and others learn more about their relation in process of trying to fix and become better at communicating with each other and repair the orignal cracks.

Keeping quiet seems lowest risk but if it comes out later it's not just the cheating but also a bigger deception which maybe harder to overcome. You may get lucky and keep it secret but only you know if its something you can live with and if doing so may open up larger cracks.

This is why some people go to Confession. I can see the point of it. You get something off your chest in a a safe space, if you think sharing it will cause more harm and destruction than telling the truth.

him*

It'll be like throwing a hand grenade into your family and watching it blow up. You have no right to dump your guilt on to your husband and children and ruin their lives. You made a very bad mistake but need to move in from it, I don't think you'll ever make the same mistake again.

If you hadn't have told your sister I would have said keep it quiet. But, you've told her and it will eventually get out. Let him find out from you and not someone else.

Everyone who is saying they would rather not know if their DH did something similar… I don’t understand why everyone is so happy to live in denial in a relationship that has a great big stinking lie in the middle of it.

this isn’t exactly true love is it. Some seedy night in a hotel giving a man who is engaged to some other poor woman a BJ and a quick shag.

so depressing.

So one is married, one is engaged but they just so happened to have a condom with them? Either it wasn't safe sex of it was planned.

Don’t tell him. Honestly in that position I wouldn’t want to know. Just don’t do it again!!

Might not have been a quick shag. They could have had sex multiple times

What possessed you to tell your sister is beyond me. Keeping this a secret may very well be out of your hands now.

I hate how, when a woman cheats, she's told to keep quiet - yet when a man does it, he's labelled all the names under the sun and told he deserves whatever he gets.

OP's DH deserves better than to be unknowingly stuck in a marriage with someone who's cheated on him.

If DH did something like this I would definitely not want to know, I'd expect him to protect me from the fallout of his awful mistake.

I actually feel a bit sick thinking about the guilt you must be carrying, that is your punishment.

I would be genuinely interested in why you did this, as in not only feel a little spark of attraction but see it through with this man.

You didn't sound blind drunk plus one of you had condoms with you on a trip when both were in a relationship. You also sound like you initiated at least part of the sex. Was this brewing for a while? What is your relationship like with DH?

I think be very honest about why this happened. You can't change it but you can evaluate whether it is likely to happen again and I think that is more salient that deciding whether to blurt it out or not.

As shitty as it is, if it were me or my friend, I would advise to keep it buttoned and work on your marriage, if you definitely still love your husband of course. Block BJ guy and never have any more contact.