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I wonder if there are any studies about successful reconciliation dependent on if the WS confessed or was caught?

I feel like the A would've continued until the OW talked him into ending it and filing. I would've been so much happier if he had ended it on his own. I kind of guessed he was having an A ( but I really thought they were just flirting) and then he admitted that he was in full on A.

Getting caught means that they didn't really want to end it. Right?

To stop the A on their own and then confess seems more like the actions of a person who wants to make it work with the spouse.

Do you agree?

I think it goes both ways. Some don't want the A to end, others need a trigger or confrontation to make it stop and some might decide they want to stop on their own...depends on their situation I suppose. Mine very much wanted out and was 'relieved' when it was no longer his to control if that makes any sense? I don't believe he would have ended it on his own if I had never questioned him, but I do believe that he took the first opportunity I provided him to come clean because he didn't want to live with it any longer. I never suspected a thing, never questioned him until the night I asked him about a photo I found (had nothing to do with the As, was essentially a porn pic). He could have denied the As, I had no proof or reason to believe he had any, he could have continued to fool me, but he came clean because I gave him the opportunity to by asking him.

All the "literature" says its easier to heal if the betrayer confesses rather than is "found out".

My WH was found out when his AP sent a text to his phone. He said he was relieved the A was discovered - they were 'trying' not to have their affair because they both knew it was wrong

But he also admitted that their 'on-again, off-again' affair may have continued if it had not been discovered.

Life sucks sometimes!

Yeah, I gotta imagine that when there is a confession, the BS can at least believe that the WS wanted it to end and/or felt bad about the affair...when they have to be caught, there is always the thought of, "Well, shit, how long would that have gone on had I not caught them?!?"

For me, DDay 1 was a confession and DDay 2 was getting caught. They were both equally painful. And I got the excuse "how do you tell someone that you've found someone else?" I remember the moment exactly when I caught him. I knew the M was over in that moment.

My WS came home one day and told me he didn't want to be married any longer. After 29 years. I was stunned. Two weeks later, I started thinking. Sure enough, things looked suspicious . I got in touch and found out, he was living with her. 11 weeks later, he emailed me that he still loved me and wanted to come home. Many months of TT and I found out there were several others. I never knew. I never suspected. This pain is the worse. I even got an anonymous letter in the mail a couple of years before that, but we both knew it was a prank. How stupid can a girl get??? I never got the confession but, if I had, I doubt it would have hurt any more or any less.

I think it R would be a lil easier for me if he had confessed instead of me catching him. I want to believe him when he says it had gotten old and wanted out but didn't know how to end it and was afraid to end it.

I don't agree with you, necessarily.

In our case, I am 100 percent confident he wanted to get caught so I would end the affair for him. He is terrible at confrontation in all aspects of his life. His affair was out of town. It only went on when I was out of town so he was free to travel, with no questions asked. He never interacted with her, by phone or in person, when I was around--few cell phones then. lol So the first time he did, he was caught!

After he was caught, practically the first words out of his mouth were his relief that it was over. Like sunvalley, I doubt my husband would have ended it, but she probably would have since he wasn't going anywhere. I had absolutely no idea he was cheating. As I said, it was totally on his time, not ours, so I never had a reason to question him about anything. I would have bet our kids' lives that "my" husband wouldnt do that.

His life with me, his spouse, always worked. He didn't expect it to not. What a moron he was/is.

I think this is a little like the difference of the affair being an EA or PA.

If your spouse had one, you'd think the other would be easier to deal with.

Truth is they all hurt, no matter what.

Maybe it's not about confession. For me, the confession doesn't make the present situation any better. My FWS confessed, but only after OW ended the A. So yah, I got a confession, but I also know that he wanted to continue the A (in fact he was sorting out his belongings in order to get ready to leave).

So for me, it's not confession but the fact that he was absolutely ready to leave me and begged OW to leave her spouse for him.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes we make comparisons that aren't valid. I went through a stage of thinking it would have been better if it were "only" a EA or if it weren't a student..... This bargaining doesn't do anything to help you deal with the reality we face now.

confession makes the trust easier after an affair, IMO. Not sure it makes the betrayal any easier to deal with though.
If your WS comes to you with something they KNOW may end the marriage, they are one step closer to living authentically, thus a safer partner for the BS.

a while back I asked si members about that and got 6 or 7 responses, not enough to tabulate. I haven't seen any good stats for your question.

I think each case is different. consider - for example, if a ws is caught because she wants to be caught, how do you evaluate that?

In my case, my WH got caught by my family. He came home and confessed to me what he'd been up to before they told me. WH told me he was never going to tell me. Walked out that same night and hasn't been back.

Out of the thousands and thousands of stories I've read here over the last 10+ years (I wasn't a member but I read the boards) I can probably count on ONE hand how many times I read a story about the cheater actually going to their spouse and remorsefully admitting to them about their affair and seeking forgiveness.

The other 99.95% f the stories I've read were about the cheaters getting caught.

Not very good odds, I'm afraid.

Neveragain- I can think of several. However, out of the three affairs between my husband and I, I am the only one who confessed, and that was 5 people between us. Our APs could have too I suppose. Not good odds ...

I think there are several women on the WS board who, like me, confessed and took full responsibility for their A. I think in a lot of those cases the BHs are very very emotionally closed and there are several WWs who feel flummoxed by their WHs rug sweeping, the WWs want to talk about what was or is broken in themselves or their marriages and the BHs shut them out.

This is definitely not true in any or even maybe most WW/BH situation but there are enough of them to make a pattern I think.

Shatteredreality's post made me think. Do WW's confess more than WH's? Is the result different depending on which gender cheats? It seems there are more WH's than WW's on SI, so it might be hard to determine that answer.

I would have been more positive towards a R if my ws confessed before getting caught. I always thought, he would have kept going or he only stopped to keep from getting kicked out, not because he wanted his M. I was right on that one considering he went undergrround.

Skye your comment about being terrible at confrontation is so true in my case too. WH despises conflict and MC immediately went to that and said WH didnt have it inhim to end the As lone because it involved conflict and rejection. He needed an excuse to end his out of control behaviors and what better onethen my wife found out. I do think I found out when I did because he was ready to get help, even if he didnt have the guts to start the conversation himself.

Mine confessed. His AP had been pressuring him to tell me for months and he had been trying to end it with her, but she swore he loved her and was just hiding from the truth. She kept doing things like finding me on social media and trying to friend me but not telling me who she was or why she wanted to be friends. I had already suspected something was going on and she was the woman he was messing around with, but he kept denying he knew who she was.

Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and confessed everything. That was DD#1. He begged me to stay and said he ended everything with her. We started MC. Around 6 months in he started acting distant and grumpy again. Eventually she posted something on social media that clued me in that he had seen her again. That was DD#2. I immediately confronted him and after trying to lie for a minute he confessed again. I told him the marriage was over then and there.

We are still married but in name only. Now he seems truly remorseful and seems to have hit bottom. He's in IC doing some serious work and has started anti depression meds (his IC diagnosed him, said he's had it for years). I'm in IC too. He's saying and doing all the right things but honestly I don't know if I can try this again. I can't say which way was better... the confession felt a bit better but then again it wasn't real. This time even worse but now the outcome is different on his end, The whole thing is confusing. Sucks no matter what really.

[This message edited by ShellyShell at 5:58 PM, April 5th (Saturday)]