Ended my 9-month affair 2 months ago. Wife is none the wiser. Taking it to the grave but I can’t stop thinking about it.

[PolarBearBear]

I am bracing myself for the comments here, but I need an honest outside perspective. I’ve behaved appallingly and I'm trying to figure out how to move forward.

I’ve been married for 12 years with young kids. We are in our late 30s.

For 9 months, I had an affair with a 24-year-old single woman. She knew I was married from the start. To be blunt, the ego stroke completely blinded me and I got caught up in a total bubble.

This August, the guilt finally got too much. I realized how much I love my wife and our life, so I ended it. She was a work colleague, but she has since got a different job elsewhere, so I never see her anymore. When we broke it off, she promised to never tell anyone ever and she is just moving on with her life.

My wife has absolutely no idea and is completely none the wiser about all of this. There is absolutely no way she could ever find out on her own, as nobody else knows it happened.

I am 100% committed to focusing on my marriage, being the best husband I can possibly be, and I will never, ever cheat again.

I genuinely believe it is better if I never tell my wife and take this secret to my grave. Confessing would only alleviate my own guilt, and what she doesn't know can't hurt her. I don't want to destroy her world.

The problem is, I can't stop thinking about the affair. It's constantly in my head. I'm trying to be this perfect, attentive husband, but mentally I'm completely consumed by what happened.

Am I completely delusional to think I can just bury this and move on? How do I stop the thoughts and actually fix my marriage without destroying it with the truth?

I've attached a poll because I am genuinely torn on the ethics here. Is honesty always the best policy, or is silence sometimes the kinder choice? Please vote and let me know your thoughts.

The AP promised never to tell anyone about your affair.

You promised your wife that you would be faithful and honest until death.

You will now spend your life hoping the AP keeps her promises better than you kept yours.

I tend to find at 35/40, when life events have occurred and maybe her spouse treats her badly peoples values change. And guilt may mean she feels SHE wants to confess. At 24 she may believe she was naive. At 40 she will realise you were a ten a penny cheat. She may think you are still shagging about. She may think you took advantage of her. She may be fed up as her husband has just cheated on her. Who knows.

Her values will maybe change if she has kids and a husband. Maybe she feels she would have wanted to know in your wife’s situation.

She’ll likely have the receipts in texts/voicemails/emails and photos.

You have placed a lot of trust in a young woman for the rest of your life.

You will have a life time of looking over your shoulder and the fact you don’t recognise that shows how deluded you are.

Wait for the AP to pull a pregnancy scare on you if you really have ended it with her which I doubt you will. Have fun raising family #2!

I used to think somethings are better off not knowing about. But then people make choices they wouldn’t have had they known about something.

Be a man and tell her. You aren’t a child. You knew what you were doing. She has a right to know, get tested, get counselling, and choose how she wants the rest of her life to look.

What an utter crock of *

The OPs wife deserves to know that her husband is a POS who cheated. She needs to be able to make an informed choice about the future of their marriage - which is ultimately her decision, not his. She also deserves autonomy over her own sexual health - him cheating puts his wife and risk and she absolutely needs to be able to take back her control of that.

I don’t think he does feel guilt. He just wants to keep her for his own needs. He only finished the affair because he realised what he might loose. If he felt guilt. He’d tell her.

The OP isn't a proper man, he is a downright cheat, liar and selfish twat. He's not guilty that the affair has finished, far from it. As soon as the chance arises, he'll be doing it again.

Be a man, tell your wife, exactly the type of person you are. She has a right to know. What about her rights to decide if she wants to remain married to you. You made a commitment to each other, she's kept her's, you haven't. You should have no say in the marriage from now on, you have thrown it all away.

I hope she finds out, and takes you for everything.

Did you get what you need out of this thread yet OP?

You had an affair for a reason. There was an unmet need. You realised eventually that the affair probably wasn’t going to meet that need either. Hence you left it. If you had left your wife and went with this other woman you would probably find yourself back in the same place with affair woman a few years down the line. This is why they say that 2 nd marriages have an even higher percentage of failure than first.

Bored and in need of attention and the rush and excitement of it all in comparison to the safe and slightly dull and monotonous but predictable relationship life you are building / have built.

My advice would be to get some talking therapy first and offload to the therapist. You need to understand yourself and get some insights into your underlying feelings and triggers that make you susceptible to cheating.

People can have relationship / marriage challenges but choose not to cheat. It’s a matter of integrity and emotional maturity. You don’t have those attributes. Your decision to cheat as a solution to the issues in your marriage reflects your lack of character and maturity and those are the areas you first need to work on to be any decent kind of person to even be in a relationship with. Then you can start to take accountability for what you did. From there you can work on your relationship with your wife and you will know at that point whether it’s for the best to tell her or not. That is a decision only you can make. No one else.

There is always the chance she could find out. The other woman may choose not to stay quiet down the line, she tells someone, other people knew ( they always pick up on this in the workplace so you are naive if you think no one knows)! That’s the risk you will take.

I would start talking to your wife at any rate about the relationship and find out how she is feeling. I imagine she has already picked up things are not right and may even be thinking she doesn’t want you anymore. You have to be prepared for that outcome initially.

Learn how to listen actively and stay in the room if she comes out with things that make you feel uncomfortable. You have lost emotional and sexual intimacy with your wife and found it elsewhere. Being able to be fully present for your wife and being humble enough to really see and understand how she feels will start the process. This isn’t about buying her flowers and alleviating all your guilt by being a nice guy for a while.

It’s about really looking into what makes a long term relationship work. And then committing to doing that work. If you are genuinely committed to that process and truly think you have what it takes to go the distance then this could be somewhat life changing. But you need to be prepared that once you open the conversations you might find that your wife has lost her feelings for you as well. And you might not get those back easily.

So I would seek both individual and then relationship therapy and defer the decision for now. Down the line you can change your mind if you feel it’s the right thing to do.

In what way thinking about it ? Do you have feelings for affair partner ?

The thing that strikes me is that it’s not just one big lie. It’s 9 months of lies. No wonder you’re struggling to live with yourself OP. Hideous behavior

You can't love her that much if you had a 9 month affair 😳
She deserves so much better. I think you should tell her and let her decide if she wants to stay with her cheating husband or not.
You need to be truthful or it will eat you up as your already thinking about it now

I wish my husband had never told me about his affair. Unfortunately he had it with a woman who stupidly told her husband and he used a PI to track me down to write and tell me.

I would never tell my now ex husband that I'm now having a thing with an ex as it would devastate him. Or he'd use it to justify his affair. Much as I hate him I don't want him to feel the pain I have had.

If you've done it once theres absolutely no guarantee you'll never do it again people dont change. Your wife deserves the truth and the opportunity to divorce you for it.

What you’ve done is wrong and you know it.

I don’t think you should tear your wife’s life apart with your affair reveal. Especially since you’ve not processed it yourself.

You need to get yourself off to a psychologist to help you process what you did and why you did it. And establish whether it not you actually want to be married. It could be the guilt keeping you there. If you do, figure out how you can control yourself going forward.

Best of luck. Please don’t fool yourself thinking this was a one off. You clearly have a problem that needs to be addressed.

When I was married to my first husband I had an affair. I couldn’t stop thinking about it either and in the end I divorced him but I never told. We grew apart and it just didn’t work out. I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy I had the affair with but it was an unhealthy obsession. I moved halfway across the world and had no contact with either of them. 30 years later out of curiosity I’ve tried to find the guy I had the affair with on social media but probably thankfully can’t find him. I’m happily married to someone else now for 26 years and have remained faithful with no interest in ever having an affair.

Probably already been said but why did you post this on a predominantly female site, seems a strange choice?

You think you won’t do it again as the affair only ended 2 months ago. Chances are high that some time will pass: maybe months, maybe years. You’ll be feeling restless, perhaps a little under appreciated at home and a pretty young thing will turn your head in the office or at a party. You’ll start by making a harmless friendship, which will turn into messages and cosy dinners. Then eventually something will ‘just happen’ and you ‘couldn’t help it’ and there the cycle will begin again. And again.

Urgh. Man with young children goes to much younger woman to get his ego stroked. I can smell the cliché from here.

Tell your wife and get the hell out of her life. You have compromised her health and that to me is unforgivable.

Also, you're not over your affair and the fact you spent 9 months giving your best side to someone else says to me you don't care about your wife or the vows you made to her and probably never have.

You’re a F. Idiot but you are where you are and need to deal with it. Before you decide whether to tell your wife or not go and talk to a professional therapist of some description. If only the two of you knew about it and your wife will never find out and you genuinely regret it , will devote the rest of your life caring , cherishing and loving her , this is a hard one , but why destroy her. If there’s .0000000000000001% she could ever find out , then that’s a decision you have to make but be prepared for your relationship to end at some point. It’s not something many can live with, their cheating partner…. But before you decide talk to a professional that you know will never break your confidentiality .

I’d say I hope you’re telling the truth to yourself but if yes then I’d see a therapist to thrash it out with. You can do this secretly I’m sure if you have managed an affair before. You need to deal with these feelings.

Least bad scenario: she never finds out, you are the perfect husband till death do you part, she's happily oblivious, you may be tormented by guilt, but serve you right and you keep it to yourself. Worse scenario (for both of you, IMHO): you confess, she's devastated, but gets to make an informed choice about whether to stay in the marriage. Worst scenario: she finds out eventually from someone other than you, compounding the original betrayal with the subsequent dishonesty and leaving her having committed to your marriage in the meantime without the possibility of informed consent. My instinct is say nothing, ever (even if she cheats on you one day). The trouble is that scenario 1 leaves the risk of scenario 3 permanently on the table, and the question for you is whether that risk is greater than the cost of scenario 2. (I was on the receiving end of a lower-key scenario 3, right at the start of an enduring relationship of over 30 years, and I wish I hadn't found out.)

I’m never, ever going to cheat again.

Sure, Jan.

It's not something you can just "will" yourself to do. Affair recovery is a long process. You will need to understand your particular reasons and address them individually.

Basically in order to process it properly you need to be open with a therapist, préférable one specialising in infidelity, as a minimum.

Post your situation on survivinginfidelity.com to get more specialised responses

This is not the right forum.

The reality of this is you don’t know what to do because coming clean alleviates your guilt, nothing more. Doing so will change your marriage as you know it. For the better? Possibly, but more chance it’ll be for the worst. When I found out my husband had cheated on me, I so desperately wanted to forgive him, but the version I loved and married dissipated in that moment and I knew getting through it together would end up us resenting each other more so I walked away. I didn’t want to live worrying day in and out what he was up to and if she didn’t see the affair coming, this makes it harder to fathom out how to be prepared if it ever happened again. If you genuinely want to remain in your marriage, do not confess. I’d strongly suggest some counselling/talking therapy to help you work through how you feel about this which may ultimately save your marriage. Good luck. X