SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I recently discovered my wife has been having a long term affair. She wants to reconcile, I think. I am completely devastated and my sense of reality is completely blown apart.

Over the years I have also had some serious affairs. She doesn’t know about them.

I sort of feel like a real reconciliation should involve us being honest with each other and that confessing would allow us to come together on a level field.

Everyone I talk to however says thats a terrible terrible idea. That she would process it emotionally and it would destroy any chances of coming together and would just result in more pain all around.

I’d appreciate any thoughts.

Oh, so now that you've discovered she's had an A after you've had several throughout your M, now is the time for total honesty from both of you?

Good luck with that.

There are no "level fields" when it comes to infidelity.

The only advice I have is for both of you to get IC.

I hate double standards, so your case is triggering. I'll be blunt.

Yes, you owe it to your W to confess without any trickle truth. You owe your W complete honesty, even if she isn't completely honest with you.

You both can recover. You both can heal and thrive. R is a possibility. It all begins with honesty - no more lies.

Like lalagirl, I expect you'll both need to invest yourselves in therapy with a good therapist, whether you D or R.

I suggest making something like 'getting authentic' or 'changing from cheater to good partner' your goal. Let D or R flow from your authenticity. I say that because at this point, you don't really know what's best for your M.

If your goal is to come together on a level field, than you will fail before you start. There are no level fields with infidelity.

If your goal is to get out of infidelity, then you absolutely must come clean. You both need to fix what is broken within yourselves, you can't do that unless you are honest with each other, and with yourselves.

Of course she will process it emotionally. Of course it will cause pain. You chose to bring that pain upon her, and her emotional response will be a direct consequence of the choices you made. The least you can do is own it. Let her know honestly who she is trying to reconcile with.

Her affair was abusive to you, your affairs were all abusive to her, and it's time to stop that cycle of abuse. Choosing to keep her in the dark is actively continuing to abuse her. Allowing her to be alone in remorse for her cheating when you did it too, letting her bear the brunt of shame for a crime you also committed, and withholding your true self...that's sadistic level punishment. It's cowardly and pathetic on a whole different level.

Do better.

Yes, tell her everything. It's just sheer dumb luck that her affair was discovered and yours were not. Both of you need to lay it all out and decide if there's anything left to work with. And get yourselves into IC to see why you thought cheating was an acceptable solution to whatever problems you've faced.

I am completely devastated and my sense of reality is completely blown apart.

This is kind of laughable. So it's all good when you're having affairs, but hers has devastated you? Double standard much?

I sort of feel like

You only sort of feel this way?

Everyone I talk to however says thats a terrible terrible idea.

Who is everyone? Other cheaters on Reddit? You may need better friends.

Bottomline is, if you want to be a good person, if you really love her, if you want true R, this wouldn't even be a question. It sounds more like you want permission to hold her affair over her, without admitting that you're just as bad.

Conchi - I don't think you'll find much if any sympathy here for the 'don't confess, it'll just hurt her, blah blah blah'. Just think of how much more shit you throw in the pot if she finds out anyway.

Neither of you is in a position to make any kind of decisions about your M. You are both also not ready for MC. You both need to work on making yourselves safe partners (IC), then see where that leads.

I seriously hope that you will take the advice here very seriously. The MH (mad-hatter, ie each of you is both a BS and a WS) situation is particularly difficult to deal with.

I am completely devastated and my sense of reality is completely blown apart.

This is kind of laughable. So it's all good when you're having affairs, but hers has devastated you? Double standard much?

Not to threadjack, but yep, it might not make sense but finding out your partner did that is devastating no matter the situation.

In fact, I would venture to guess if I was a WS who had affairs, hid them, I might still be under the influence of my own ego. As if I were more special in some way.

I am probably a little sensitive to this because there would be a few people here that would tell you point blank I had it coming.

End T/J

Which leads me to the original poster. Yes, you need to confess. I will venture to say this is probably going to seem like a relief to her (which is not a good thing). It will likely alleviate her guilt about what she has done because she has not had any time to work on herself.

But, two wrongs don't make a right. She still needs to work on herself and be accountable for her actions. As do you.

I will ask you something someone asked me in finding out about my husband's affair (his was after mine) - Do you really want this marriage? It seems like you have two broken people who lack integrity. Lack skills to communicate with each other. Lack boundaries. And, lack the insight that we really are responsible to make ourselves happy. You both seek others to get your good feelings about yourself. There is a tremendous amount of personal work you both need to do in order to be better people much less marital partners.

If the answer is Yes, that was my answer as well. Just know it gets messy and it's hard. My advice is both of you get in IC for the next 6-12 months, and then consider if you will need marital counseling after that. The reason I say that is once I had just worked on myself (my affair ended almost 4 years ago, his ended about 7 months ago) we really needed little in the way of marital counseling. If you fix the faulty individuals restructuring and reimaging the marriage you both want is going to be a much simpler process. There will be less tripping over each other's issues.

Don't run to marriage counseling right now unless you just need a few sessions to get some base rules and direction on communication. What you will find if you rush straight into that is you will just be wasting your money for the most part. The MC will probably dismiss this as the case, but of course they want the clientele.

That's my two cents. But, yes. I confessed on my own for this very reason. I didn't know if the marriage could be saved or if I even wanted the marriage. What I did know is that I could not return to my full integrity without telling, and without that we would never have an authentic marriage. Plus, he really did deserve to know.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:35 PM, April 28th (Wednesday)]

I think admitting it is the only way to go. But you should be real about it. You have to tell her because it is the right thing to do, not because you want her to react any certain way. Let be say it again a little differently. You can't control her reaction, but you can tell her because it is the right thing to do.

Whatever conversation you set up about admitting your faults needs to be entirely about admitting your faults. Don't mention her infidelity. Don't expect her to mention it. Just tell her because you now understand with first hand knowledge, it is the right thing to do

... model the behavior you hope she will exhibit when it's her turn to talk about her stuff... Don't hold anything back. Don't blameshift. Don't be unsympathetic in any way.

And know that just because you modeled it, doesn't mean that she will do the same.

I am probably a little sensitive to this because there would be a few people here that would tell you point blank I had it coming.

As you know I am against revenge affairs so I would never say this to you or anybody. However, I stand by what I said. I am sure it is devastating, I have zero doubt of that, but it is also very much a double standard to claim his reality is blown apart when he has been doing the same thing all along, was seemingly fine with it, and it's only an issue now that she is doing the same. She doesn't even know what her reality is, and his reality was just keeping her in the dark, and thinking she would never do the same (I'm assuming, it's quite possible she actually does know and that's why she felt it ok to do it).

ETA - How does it help anybody if he's not willing to look at himself and see the double standard here?

[This message edited by landclark at 2:15 PM, April 28th (Wednesday)]

I wasn't chastising or correcting you, Landclark. Nor did you offend me. I only meant to explain why I felt it's not weird that he feels devastated. That's all.

End T/J

It's not at all surprising that people who know about and have enabled your affairs think you should continue to lie about it.

This is of course an influence that has allowed you to continue your wayward thinking.

Denying her agency is not protecting her, and it is living a lie in your marriage. Remind me how you felt when you found out YOU were living a lie!

BS or WS, you need to give up the idea that the relationship outcome is something you can or even SHOULD control with your actions. Simply wanting R is fine, but the actions you need to take to make R possible necessitate a level of openess and honesty that might lead both you and your wife to decide that R is NOT the right path for the both of you to move forward out of infidelity. See how that works?

If you want to live a life of integrity and commitment, you will never achieve that through continued deception. If you want to "remain married at all costs" you can continue to emotionally abuse your wife.

I'm not in a "mad hatter" (both people cheating) situation like you, but I suspect there is a level of empathy and understanding that YOU will be able to provide to her that she will key in on. Most BSs are outraged, and need to know why and how, and didn't you think of the marriage! But well, you've answered these questions internally for years (probably not well) but you are probably figuring she feels the same.

Hi OP.

I think you should confess too.

If she finds out from you, it's going to hurt her.

If she finds out say a year to two from now after telling you and apologizing and doing penance, I think she's going to be blindingly mad, and really hurt.

You sucked keeping your affairs from her all this time. Here's your chance - be a stand up guy and come clean.

No guarantees your marriage will survive. But I don't like your chances if she finds out a year or two from now.

After you found out, you didn't tell us you were rushing to divorce. Why should you assume she will?

Good luck man.

[This message edited by SnowToArmPits at 3:49 PM, April 28th (Wednesday)]

Your situation is totally different, HikingOut. You confessed, did the work, turned yourself inside out to find your flaws and change your thinking.. and THEN your WH cheated. We won't get into a massive t/j, but you already know what my opinion of him is for that.

In this case, apparently the cheating wife is completely in the dark, so no... I don't agree that the OP has a right to hurt feelings. Not unless he confesses EVERYTHING and rebuilds from the ground up.

That's a fair point, CT. I just know that human emotions are not logical and I am not surprised he is upset.

He is upset for different reasons than myself - like I said he has gone for years under the illusion he had the situation "handled" and felt special by two women. To find out one cheated is an ego blow. WS have terrible insecurity/lack of self love as we all know. So, again, not defending or any of that. Just saying I am not suprised he is upset.

I think you should confess too, but I have some reservations.

As Hikingout pointed out, if this will make her relieve and stop her from working on her own cheating, then the timing of your confession will matter. I recommend this to ask IC. You may be advised to confess after her situation is resolved. In this case, the classic advices we give to BSs here will not apply to you of course. In this process, you should be very understanding and non-accusatory towards her. When it comes time to confess to her later, she should at least not feel deceived in the process. She should understand that your behavior was due to expert advice and was good for the sake of both of you.

I think the only way to reconsciliation is honesty. If you hide your affairs you are basically saying to your wife that the period you were cheating was your "A" game. That may not be good enough for her. But if you are honest there may be hope that your marriage can be better because you weren't fully committed during that period.

Duplicate

[This message edited by Babette2008 at 6:07 PM, April 28th (Wednesday)]

To find out one cheated is an ego blow. WS have terrible insecurity/lack of self love as we all know. So, again, not defending or any of that. Just saying I am not suprised he is upset.

I'm not surprised either. But he absolutely should NOT indulge himself on this. Instead, he should go to his WW and tell her the TRUTH, and not in the nebulous future after some therapy, but right now, TODAY. Every minute he allows her to wear the hair shirt while he knows he's as guilty as she is (if not more) is going to add to the difficulty of recovery. Because she's going to remember every time she apologized, or God forbid debased herself in guilt, and she's going to experience that as NEW betrayal.

Just rip off the band-aid, OP, and get it done. Confession is good for the soul, yeah?

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 6:11 PM, April 28th (Wednesday)]