Should I tell my husband about an affair that ended last month?

[SeaWave21]

Hi everyone. I am using a name changer for obvious reasons. Please be gentle, I already know I am the lowest of the low right now and I feel sick writing this.

My DH (mid 30s) and I (mid 30s) have been together for a decade and have a beautiful daughter (6). Over the last year, our marriage hit a really dark, lonely place. We stopped connecting entirely.

During this low point, I did the unthinkable. I started flirting with another man, which escalated into a physical affair. I slept with him 3 times. It ended completely one month ago. It was a massive mistake, and it made me realize how much I actually want my marriage to work.

Since it ended, DH and I have been actively working through our issues. Things are genuinely improving, and we are finding our way back to each other. He has no idea about the affair.

I am torn apart by guilt. Part of me thinks he has a right to know the truth, but another part of me knows confessing will destroy him and blow up our daughter's stable life just to clear my own conscience. If I don't tell him, I don't know if I can live with the guilt, or if I should just leave him entirely because he deserves better.

I really need outside perspective. I'm adding a poll because I need to know what the consensus is.

If you were a bloke they’d all be saying ‘leave the bastard’ once a cheater always a cheater but apparently you were just down and hit a tough spot so you just thought you’d sleep with someone else and didn’t even think about your daughter. Didn’t make you feel better? Tell you husband, he deserves to know who you really are.

I do not think telling the husband is morally superior, it is a fact.

Of course it's not a fact. This is just argument by assertion. I myself would not want to be told, so how can you tell me it's "fact" that it would be better for me? It's my life and my preference!

you are twisting the question of the poll. The question is not "is it morally right to.." it is "should I tell".

What's the difference? The thing you "should" do is the morally better thing, otherwise it's not the thing you "should" do.

And I know you deny that it's all about punishment, but that's precisely what that post about the cheat "benefiting" was saying; that the OP must not "benefit" in any way. The rest of it, forgive me, is recycling about dishonesty. So...

Obviously, honesty is important, but do we really need 100% disclosure on absolutely everything even when it can only do harm? When it's in the past? When it's led to a change that, admittedly, should have always been the primary situation but sadly, humans don't always work like that, especially regarding love and sex?

This is not a perfect comparison, but it's the best I can do after not sleeping all week. Suppose a woman gains weight and asks her husband if he finds her less attractive. The honest truth is that he does, but he still loves her, doesn't want to leave her, hurt her, anything like that, and he is sure that saying yes will break her heart. In that case, when he lies and says no, you could say he's not being honest, not being his true self to her etc, but there is just no benefit to total disclosure. It will only hurt her. He loves her and does not want to hurt her.

Again, I know for many reasons this is not a perfect comparison but I'm just making the point that "honesty" as a general trait really does not have to mean "absolutely everything even when there's no positive to be gained from it (except punishing someone and I dispute that that should be the priority)". It's also true that OP is sorry and wants to work on her marriage and loves her husband, and that matters too.

The fact that you would be inconvenienced by the truth or feel like you are not strong enough to handle it has nothing to do with the truth being told by someone who has done the damage. What you are talking about is receiving information, not giving. Totally different sides. But there is an even more interesting side to this @ThatCyanCat - The whole thought process of "well I wouldn't want to hear, so I would keep it a secret", is a confused mix of - again - thinking of nothing else but yourself. Would your husband share this sentiment, I wonder? I hope you see what I mean here.

I will not bash your example, I can see that you understand how far removed it is to the topic. You'd need something to compare it with that is ingrained by the "contract" a couple shares. Because once two people in love get married, their "contract" is that they would be faithful to each other (unless they have a different lifestyle, which OP and her husband clearly do not). Saying something like a piece of clothing not looking so good on you is not really part of the basis of their entire relationship. See what I mean? Questions like "did you have a slice of cake on your way home without me?" or "You would seriously consider buying that ugly looking plastic dog to decorate our living room?" are not really muddling what the mutual understanding of intimacy is.

Tell him in a year. But then it will be more distant and you will have proved your loyalty

That would be a very feeble attempt at manipulation. You'd prove nothing of the sort. So it would mean that you've been loyal for a whole year. As my wife would say - "Would you want a medal for that accomplishment?". The loyalty is already gone, regardless of when she'd come clean.

I think if you genuinely want the marriage to work then I would say do not tell him. But you must not tell him ever. If he were to find out in 20 years time, it would be devastating and he would feel everything had been a lie.

However, if you are not sure you want to stay with him, then I would say its much fairer to end the marriage.

I think this would make things worse as he would feel he was living a lie for a year...

Of course you should tell him

You are both trying to fix a marriage but he doesn't know how it's been broken.

You have also put him at risk of stds and he needs to know

He deserve autonomy over his decisions in life based on full facts and you not telling him makes you morally bankrupt. You not telling him proves you are still in the selfish mindset of a cheater. You will always be living a lie.

100% true words. All of it. Some of you should really take notes...

The fact that you would be inconvenienced by the truth or feel like you are not strong enough to handle it has nothing to do with the truth being told by someone who has done the damage.

Of course it has. You can no longer claim to be working in my interests, or what is for the best, if I am sitting here telling you that it is not in my interests and not for the best. You are working solely on what you wish I would do to meet your standards, but I'm not under any obligation to live my personal life according to what you think I should want. It may make me an inferior human but that's totally irrelevant. When it only does me harm, it's not for you to say it should happen anyway.

And I am not advocating not telling purely because I wouldn't want it. That door swings both ways, to you as well. It's to demonstrate that, much as people like you dislike it, people like me do exist and it means that there is nothing "factual" at all about it being best to tell, when many people who would actually be harmed by that tell you otherwise.

The person who did the damage "telling" has consequences, as you know; it doesn't exist in some moral vacuum or limbo where it must be right as an individual action even when the consequences aren't worth it.

Given that OP is sorry, wishes she hadn't done it and won't do it again, and it has led her to want to work on things, there quite literally isn't anything to gain from telling except pain to people who do not deserve it. You can't divorce that (haha) from the supposed inherent "rightness" of telling. They don't exist in separate planes.

I'm afraid I can't think of a better comparison than that one, but the point I'm making is: honesty does not have to mean full disclosure of everything even when there's no benefit and nothing but pain. I don't like to use the term "white lie" for something like an affair, because it doesn't seem to do justice to the seriousness of an affair, but in essence that's the principle. If OP can do better going forward and now be the wife she should be, then our option means she is now the woman she should be for her family even if she wasn't before, it saves them a world of pain, and only she bears the burden. This, to us, is the best possible outcome in the aftermath of something that simply can't be undone.

Don't think that means she remains unpunished. She doesn't.

Are you mad at the bank for sending you unfavourable statements? Is it a personal attack on your best interests when a storm breaks a tree branch and scratches your car? We don't pick and choose what truth is coming our way.

Ok. Tell me this, @ThatCyanCat - Let's say - hypothetically - that I am your husband, and I broke into a bank and stole stole their money. Stealing is wrong, immoral, right?. I presume it is not something you'd want to hear from me, it would definitely muddle our otherwise happy and calm life.. and conveniently, I would not want to upset you either. See how much I value your feelings? Here's the twist: I am sorry I have done what I have done. I truly am, inside, you know. Not under a lie detector test, not being caught, inside, in my heart of hearts I am truly sorry. I just don't know what came over me, I needed the rush, to feel better because our marriage hit a slump and I was stressed at work. Don't think the guilt is not eating me up inside, it does.

So, what do I do? Do I tell you? But it would make you upset, and hurt. And I don't want that. And be honest. What do I do?

You said:
"Don't think that means she remains unpunished. She doesn't." Again. The point is not punishment (Also conveniently getting punished on her own time, inside of her own thoughts, while knowingly keeping up the lie - that's what I call atonement)

"Given that OP is sorry.."
Somehow it's always after the deed has been done. Funny that. They are always so sorry. You know what would be a tinge more plausible? If she was sorry after the third time. Full-blown affair past round 3? Please. Don't even go there.

"at door swings both ways, to you as well. It's to demonstrate that, much as people like you dislike it, people like me do exist..."
Nobody is debating that. But the fact that your solution exists doesn't mean it's the right one. There are people who are violent towards others. They exist. But their existence doesn't mean violence is right. Keeping the affair a secret and lying going forward is not moral, due to many many reasons. Just isn't. I recommend reading @Odiebay 's post above ours, an apt description why that is.

This is a really difficult one but I would err on the side of keeping quiet. It is over and done with, you have realised it was a mistake and not the way to any sort of happiness so the situation will not be repeated. If you tell him it may well end your marriage and you are both actively trying to avoid that scenario.
Get yourself checked for STI's because if you have one you will have to come clean anyway.
In some ways you would be telling him to make yourself feel better but really why should you get to dump all that pain on him if it was a fleeting thing that will never be repeated.
Yes you will have to carry that guilt around for the rest of your life but that's the punishment for doing what you did.

Oh, I have a question for all of you, who don't seem to understand or care about the moral aspects and just say "don't tell, just have yourself STI checked". Let's assume there is some kind of STI. What then? Tell, or still no, because it's more convenient?

Can't edit typos - but it should read:
"You know what would be a tinge more plausible? If she was sorry before the third time. Full-blown affair past round 3?"

Maybe that's because most of the posts about this topic on MN are by women who have found out about their partner's affair (or at least have strong suspicions), so the advice is going to be different.

The OP is going to suffer horrible pangs of guilt about this for ever. That is a cross for her to bear. Better that she suffers that fate alone than to attempt to absolve her own guilt by confessing, and at the same time wreck other people's lives in the process.

I think the two arguing above are both right but for different reasons.

I think telling the DH would be the morally right thing to do.

Keeping it a secret forever would be the right thing to do pragmatically (assuming of course the OP does genuinely never do it again, there is no chance DH could ever find out and he doesn't have any suspicions whatsoever).

What happened to do unto others as you would have done to you?

Promising to yourself never to do it again does not mean you haven't done it, respectfully. If I commit a crime, but promise to never do it again, is that it? Are we done?

Saying that OP is so sorry and that she will be sorry all her life is all good... But do you know what would be a good sign of actually being sorry? Owning up to it. Doing the difficult thing, but doing it regardless because you respect and love your spouse enough to do so.

@thicklysettled ”Forgive yourself. In the grand scheme of things, this is pretty small potatoes”

I’m glad i’m not your husband, cheating is small potatoes, i’ve heard it all now.

How can the two angles be on equal footing? Keeping it a lie is inherently bad, it's lying, it's in the name. It's not right, pragmatically or otherwise. And with all due respect, you yourself spell out an already sneaky aspect of it - "There is no chance DH could ever find out and he doesn't have any suspicions whatsoever" - it already entails being sneaky and hoping we would net caught. How is this in any shape or form "right"? Sorry, but no. Again, it's not a debate of "I like cats vs I like dogs". The husband needs autonomy over his own relationship, because he is part of something he never gave consent to. And that is not a grey area. It's factually immoral.

Well pragmatically speaking it's the best thing to do because the innocent party doesn't get hurt.

Morally it's wrong.

In terms of the footings that's a bit more nuanced depending whether what's more important to whoever is considering it (morals, or pragmatism)

If I was DH I would want to know.

Valid points, however, I would argue that the truth is absolute, especially in this case. How we deal with it, or how we react to it (husband in this case) is what can have nuances to it.

The morally right thing to have done in the first place would have been to not have had the affair in the first place.
The right thing would have been to resist your urge rather than feeling guilty afterwards.
If the OP really and truly wants to save her marriage then she needs to give her 100% to the marriage. That doesn't mean the next time she gets bored then to go and have another affair.

@ThatCyanCat
Good points.