SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

There is really no point to this post, I am just curious about other people's experiences.

Do you tell outsiders that you are a WS?

If so, how do they react? More often than not I have been told "everyone makes mistakes" or " we all have skeletons in our closets".

I have never experienced anyone yelling at me or being rude to me when I share this....not to my face anyways.

What about you?

We don't tell people. It's our business that has been worked out between the two of us.

I admit, I've had a few female ex-friends confess to me that they cheated or chased married men. Regardless of how long I've known them I ended or severely cooled the relationship and warned other wives/girlfriends/fiances I know to be cautious around them.

I didn't cheat on "outsiders". I cheated on QS. It's our business, not anyone else's. QS made the choice early on not to tell anyone. He wanted to R, and wanted absolutely no outside yakkers giving their "advice" and "If I were you"s.

We did eventually tell three people we're close to but only well into our healing. The reaction was minimal. More or less an, "Oh, ok." As well as the "We are all humans and we all make poor choices at different points in our lives."

I think it's up to you 100% if you want to share that information. For me, I've only revealed it to a select few. And they have all been supportive. But when my BS learned of my wayward ways he took it upon himself to share this information with my parents, his whole family, our children, and his entire place of business. Every single person. Even after we discussed that it wasn't quite necessary to tell EVERYONE, and he agreed, he continued to tell even more people. It makes it that much harder when you are attempting R. But the way I look at it, is in 10-20-30 years it will still be just him and I. And the people who turn up their noses or shun me altogether won't be in our lives anyway. Just like the things I did 15 years ago, I've moved past, and those people are gone.

I don't think it's necessary to introduce yourself ( Hi I'm Beth, the WS. That's not right. Warning people about potentially "dangerous" people is one thing, but wearing a scarlet letter is quite another.

We told our families and from what I've learned most of his family still cares for me, as does my whole family. My best friends called me an idiot on many levels and have been super supportive. I lost one friend, the one I thought I was closest to and that was more that I needed support for the first time and it wasn't all about her.

I've told others since we separated if bluntly asked and I'm honest about it. I'm not proud of what I did and its not who I am. If someone chooses to not like me for it then so be it.

Knowing what I know now, if I met somebody and found out that they had cheated in a relationship, I would definitely not become involved with them. I would treat them like a recovering addict or somebody who has had an STD, or convicted felon. Meaning that I realize that this was past behavior, but would never completely trust them, until I was certain that they had earned that trust. I don't see how any WS can expect otherwise.

[This message edited by Bdell at 9:12 AM, January 6th (Monday)]

Perhaps my post should be in a different forum. I'm new at this and don't always understand the protocol. If the Moderators think it should be elsewhere , please put it where it belongs. Thank you.

Knowing what I know now, if I met somebody and found out that they had cheated in a relationship, I would definitely not become involved with them. I would treat them like a recovering addict or somebody who has had an STD, or convicted felon. Meaning that I realize that this was past behavior, but would never completely trust them, until I was certain that they had earned that trust. I don't see how any WS can expect otherwise.

You are entitled to your opinion and I respect that. Everyone is different Bdell. I had a buttload of work to prove to my husband that he should stay married to me. And even with time and proof, he still has the choice to walk. I took that risk by cheating in the first place.

If we had D and I entered a new relationship, I don't doubt at all my past would be an issue. I've seen arguments from both sides. Some people say, "Once a cheater, always a cheater." Others say that if they would have a relationship with a FWS that has done the work to become healthy. Because they would be a safe person.

To each their own.

There is only one person that knows and that is what we want right now. Less drama to deal with and honestly it is between us not everyone else. Don't get me wrong some days I want to shout it out loud and let everyone know.

Aubrie, this is my one hope of reconciliation. That she will fix her issues , so that this kind of thing can never happen again. I won't even consider reconciliation, if she does not prove that she is doing so.

Bdell, that really is the only hope for anyone trying to R. The WS digging in and doing the work. Rugsweeping usually only works for a short while and bites all parties in the butt later down the road. I was a repeat offender. Didn't get my head screwed on straight till my "come to Jesus" in November 2011.

Hope your wife can do what it takes. Good luck to you both.

Sorry for the t/j Alyssa.

Hopefully it's okay for me to answer...

I ended up telling a few carefully selected friends. I needed someone to talk to--it was stressing me out too much to keep it all inside and not have an outlet. Those friends all knew WH and are all supportive of our decision to R. Also, two of their husbands apparently already knew a bit. I'm sure those friends look at him/us a little differently now, but they don't sit there and judge him. I think they realize that he's not bad--just his behavior.

I did not tell friends who I thought would urge me to D, not my family.

We've made it a point that who I tell, my friends my family is my business and who he tells, his friends his family is his business. I don't get to tell his family and he doesn't get to tell mine. He never told his family and I told mine. We both told specific friends. I needed the support. I told him that he's missing out on the support that his family would give. The one criteria was definitely that we told people that are friends of the marriage; people that will be there for us no matter the decision.

The people we told were very supportive. Helped us see the logical side of things or at least a different perspective.

[This message edited by Simple at 6:42 PM, January 8th (Wednesday)]

This is obviously a deeply personal question and there is no right answer for everyone, BS and WS alike. Having said that, there's reason to be concerned when the WS doesn't want anyone to know as part of an inability to deal with consequences/avoid accountability/fail to take responsiblility -- in short, as a way of pretending that nothing really happened. In my case, my WH was deeply ashamed of his behavior and initially didn't want to tell anyone. I outed him to a very small group of close friends, because I wanted to snap him out of the fog. He cares what people think about him, and this was all part of him facing the music -- he's no longer Mr. Affable Nice Guy. Another part of it was that I felt I had the right to seek support where I needed to, so I didn't really care if he wasn't comfortable with it. (This is just a description of my attitude at the time, not a recommendation.)

All of the people we told have been really supportive, of both of us. One person in particular has kind of become our -- for want of a better word -- marital godmother, checking up on us and including us in things, letting WH know that he's still considered a dear friend. Her love and support, however, is conditional on him fixing things.

Given all of that, I was pretty amazed when WH told me a while back that he'd shared this with another friend of his, because he felt like they were close enough and it didn't seem right to not tell him. That seemed to me a really important step -- the idea that friendship and transparency went hand in hand.

I think all of this has made me think a lot about community. I'm not the least bit religious, but I do think about how marriage, in many religions, is about the community witnessing a vow. Marriage isn't just a vow, it's a vow made publicly. A Jewish ceremony -- the one I'm most familiar with -- has four men holding up the chuppah -- that's the awning that people get married under. While it's supposed to symbolize the home, it's also held up by loved ones from outside of the home. And there's other stuff in the ceremony that references the need of the community to support families.

Of course, communities don't alway behave in this idealized fashion. People can be horrible and petty. I was pretty disappointed in one of WH's oldest friends, who basically couldn't deal with WH not living up to who he thought WH was. I must have spent over an hour on the phone with him one night consoling HIM -- "how could he do this? He's such a sweet, good person!" Ugh.

Bit of a ramble. Bottom line, I've been heartened by the level of support I've received, and I think WH has been too. Good night, all!

In the week following D-Day, my BH had me tell my parents and sister that I had an Affair. Despite what our MC thinks, he did this to help snap me out of the fog and face the music. I also made confessions and apologies to two mutual friends who were impacted by my actions, and I told my Husband's good friend because I knew that he would need support. Since then, we individually have told a small number of other people, usually in the context of "you aren't the only one who's having a rough time" or "please be careful that you don't let this happen to you." The thing that shocks me still is the fact that no one shunned me. No one threw rocks at me. No one said we couldn't be friends any more. The flip side of that is that my Husband, in the moment when he most needs friends and family to rally around him and hold him up, only saw those people supporting me. WTF? Right?