OP - Glad you came back, especially since this thread seems to have degenerated somewhat and has moved far away from your original plight.
I think it's really healthy that you are now seeing that this was a message to you. I also think you're wise and very self-aware to recognise that now that taboo has gone, you are more vulnerable.
I understand so much of what you're saying about how work, family and just keeping the show on the road each day gradually erodes your sense of self. And keeping the spark alive in long marriages can be difficult - but it's worth it if you love each other and see a life together after the children have left home.
What you should perhaps reveal is how you think your husband would react if you did 'fess up?
It seems to me you have a few likely scenarios ahead of you:
- You tell your husband, apologise profusely, but he is too hurt to continue the marriage and ends it. Personally, I don't think that's likely, if he loves you and values the family and everything you've worked for. But there will be terrible hurt pride going on too and he'll probably need some time to lick his wounds and might say it's over without really meaning it.
I'd echo what Happy Woman and Counting have said. Infidelity is one of those things that we all would have said we couldn't countenance - until it happened to us. I respect others' views on this and would have said the same, but believe me, you just don't know until faced with it. If you really love someone, have had many years of happiness and fidelity with them and they are truly and genuinely sorry for what they have done, it's very hard (and some might say foolish and selfish) to walk away.
- You tell your husband, apologise profusely and explain why you think this has happened. Tell him that you respect him too much to hide a secret, but that you don't want the marriage to end, you love him and want you both to work on reviving your relationship. Again, expect anger and hurt, but try if you can to get him to see that you felt that the greater wrong was in having a secret from him.
- You keep this a secret, never do anything else with another man and fail to address what's behind this. This will, I think, lead to an embittered, stagnant middle age.
- You keep it a secret, but subconsciously see it as a "gateway" infidelity and start to look for openings outside of the marriage.
A lot depends on what you want out of life, OP. I think you might actually have the chance of a truly intimate marriage, but it depends whether that's something you want.
If you think that actually, you do want to explore options outside of the marriage, then that's a shame, but perhaps your marriage wasn't built for the long haul.
But trying to step into your DH's shoes, not telling him is I think, denying his choices in life. For all he knows, he is unwittingly signing up now for repeated infidelity - and denying people choices doesn't sit easily with me at all.
The friend I was telling you about in my earlier post incidentally regards the "secret" years as wasted years. They did have a host of other problems as well as her one-off (very similar to yours) act of infidelity and a lot of them she failed to confront because of her guilt. I'm glad to report that through counselling, they managed to establish that they had both behaved very badly to one another indeed over the years and that her infidelity was just one of a number of marriage-reducing behaviours. They are now closer than ever - something she feels they could have achieved years earlier if she had come clean and confronted what was happening to her relationship as a result.