Had a secret 11 month affair and need real advice. It ended 5 months ago.

[Sunrise133]

im a woman in my 40s, been married a long time, we have two teenage children. honestly things hadn't been great between me and my husband for the past 2 years, we just became like roommates and i felt completely invisible.

plus i met someone else and just really fancied him, i can't even lie. i ended up having a secret affair for 11 months. it ended completely about 5 months ago.

recently me and my husband have actually got so much closer and things are going great between us now, which makes me feel even worse.

there is absolutely no way he could ever find out unless i tell him myself. the tracks are totally covered. but the guilt is literally eating me alive every single day when i look at him and my kids.

do i shatter my family's world by being honest, carry this secret forever, or just walk away? let me know what you think"

The only reason you’d tell your family is to make yourself feel better. That’s because you’re a selfish person. I feel sorry for your husband. He deserves better.

We don’t have enough information about your affair to advise you.

What I would say, though, is if you do tell him, tell him everything straight away up front. Often what destroys marriages is not the affair itself but the subsequent staggered disclosure (“trickle truth”).

These things are so interesting, just to see where you sit morality-wise compared to the rest of the community. I'm in only 10% (tell him), which I'm fascinated by. I thought it'd be more like 50%.

How about just being honest from now on.

Honesty is the bedrock of any meaningful connection, serving as the bridge between two people’s realities.
It is far more than just the absence of a lie; it is the courage to be authentic, even when the truth is uncomfortable or inconvenient. When we choose to be honest, we respect the dignity of others by giving them the full picture, and we honor our own integrity by refusing to hide behind performative masks.

Ultimately, while honesty requires vulnerability and can sometimes invite conflict, it is the only way to build a foundation that is capable of lasting.

So just tell him. Stop sophistrising.
Dishonesty is a common theme in relationships and on some threads ....

It depends what you want to achieve. If you genuinely want to stay in the marriage I would advise not to tell. It will achieve nothing, cause a huge amount of pain and your DH will never forgive you. If you don’t want to stay then I would just leave quietly. Telling him will serve no one.
If you do stay I would definitely get some therapy not only to help you manage the guilt but to also prevent an affair happening again in the future.

How dare you comment on my life? You know nothing about me, my life, my age, my kids.
'You do you' love, but looking back yes I wish he hadn't have destroyed our marriage.
HTH

Honesty isnt always the best policy. Doing rhe right thing is. I think you would actually be being selfish and self indulgent to tell him because it would throw a bomb into everybody's life. It's just because you want o unburden yourself of the guilt that you would risk ruining it for everyone. Draw a line under it and move on and be happy with your family.

He will find out one day and then he will despise you for making him live a lie. You ended your marriage when you slept with someone else. It’s not worth rebuilding unless it’s on honesty. Take responsibility for what you have done and tell him the truth. Anything else is just selfishly covering your own back. A marriage with a lie this big in the middle of it is worth nothing.

If you tell him, you will hurt him and possibly destroy your marriage. You will then need to live with the guilt of the affair and the repercussions of a broken family. Prioritise you husband and your children. Your selfish behaviour could have had dramatic consequences, count yourself lucky you got away with it. Guilt for what you did is a small price to pay and is your burden to carry alone. I hope you have learnt your lesson.

This is what I would do. If I wanted to stay in the marriage, I’d work at that and say nothing about the affair.

I might accept it as a mistake, yes, because in the context of a decades-long marriage, sometimes there are things that are more important than a fairly fleeting infidelity. People can and do recover from all sorts of issues in their marriage.

OP should ruin other people's lives to free herself of guilt? That would be incredibly selfish, and it won't work, anyway. She will just feel even more guilty.

Don't shatter your husband's peace to try to absolve your guilt. The best thing to do to protect from this happening again and to learn to forgive yourself is to seek therapy. As others have said, the reason for the end of the affair is important. Did you end it because you knew it was wrong and wanted to work on your marriage? Or did it fall apart for other reasons? Talking through the affair honestly will help protect your marriage.

You did the crime you have to do the time- you have to live with it.

Don’t confess, you’re doing it to make yourself feel better, not to help him. If you are sure you want your marriage to work, arrange some counselling for yourself to try and understand why you cheated in the first place.

I've been cheated on and have a dim view of it, but I'm going to say keep quiet. The utilitarian view is that if you tell him everyone will end up unhappy, if you keep quiet only you, the one who feels like they should be unhappy, will be. Get yourself tested for STDs though. If you have one, you'll need to tell him.

It's not about guilt. It's about being honest. She has already proven herself to be selfish. Whatever is going to happen, she's going to have to be vulnerable and face up to her actions.

I thought tell him straight away but on reflection, honestly if this was me in this position and my husband had cheated then realised he'd fucked up and would never do it again and made an effort in the relationship, I think I'd rather not know.

Do you seriously think that assuaging your guilt by wrecking your marriage and three other people's lives is a good idea? That would be incredibly selfish.

Shut up and suffer the consequences. Don't ruin their lives as well as your own.

I can’t believe the advice on here. I have been cheated on and didn’t find out until a while afterwards, I felt like our whole life up to the truth was a lie and I felt like a fool. I decided to continue with our relationship and while it’s been difficult at times, I got to make the choice based on honesty. What if he finds out 30 years down the line and feels like the whole relationship was based on a lie. He deserves the right to choose. The damage was already done with the affair.

You had the affair because the feelings you got from it were more important to you than your family.

There's no guarantee you won't do it again if you meet someone else you really fancy because you haven't done the work of change.

I think you abused your husband. You exposed him to another man's flora, you had sex with out his true consent because you were keeping quiet about having sex with another man. You hurt him then, he just isn't aware of it. Your connection with your husband now is false because you're hiding something you know will make him see you differently and could end your marriage.

I think you should tell him and go into individual therapy.

Don't make this your husband's fault. You chose to have an affair rather than working on your marriage or leaving.
Now you need to do what you should have done in the first place: decide whether you really want to be with your husband. Can you respect him and will you put the effort in to make your marriage mean something? Will he do the same?

If everyone who had an affair, whether emotionally connected or physical, came clean to their partners or spouses, the UK house building target would need to exceed its current 300,000 a year by some margin.

If you have the power and resolve to do so, I would not say anything. Work on your marriage now. There is always a chance he may find out. Then you sit down and explain your thought process. If your marriage has grown stronger over the intervening years he may handle it OK. He may understand. At least you have avoided imploding the family today. You may also both have a long and happier life.

If he does not understand, you are back in the position you would be if you told him today. But without the future work, commitment, growing older together.

People will say if you tell him now, at least you have freed him to make his own choice about his future. Fair comment, but it is not the only valid one. Nor does it gurantee a life happy ever after.

I gave my spouse a second chance after I found out, which was after the affair stopped. I blamed myself partly for contributing to the conditions where it could take place. Lots of things can lead to affiars, and mostly but not always it takes two to dance.

Ultimately you have to do what is right by your soul. Not material stuff.

You should have left your husband before shagging another man.

100% agree with this.

Is there really absolutely no chance of him ever finding out? No lurking STIs, no old conversations or emails sat on your phone that he might one day end up reading after you've died? No stray financial transactions that he might one day spot. Absolutely no chance that you affair partner will ever get in touch? Your own guilt isn't going to eat away at you until you accidentally blurt it out?

My opinion is that the betrayal of an affair is the hurt that comes from it. The reason you shouldn't have an affair is that you shouldn't do anything to willingly hurt your partner.

You've had the affair, you shouldn't have done. It was a spectacularly stupid and selfish thing to do. But its done now, you can't change it. So the only way to protect your partner (and your kids) now is to ensure he never ever finds out about it.

If you can't do that (and I personally think it's almost impossible to carry out the perfect crime), then it's better to tell him now, before he wastes any more of his life on you.