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In Dr. S’s hypothetical, there are children.

In my view, a parent’s primary responsibility is to their children. Not to themselves, not to their spouse, not to their marriage. To their children.

Should she degrade her children’s’ lives so she can feel better about herself?

Should she ruin her husband’s health to heal herself?

How many lives should she ruin to assuage her guilt?

That’s all a bunch of narcissistic selfishness.

The common advice is, "Confess, and then be the best spouse you can be."

Dr. S tells us that she is already trying to be the best wife. I added two assumptions for my "take it to the grave" conclusion: she loves her husband and he’s not going to find out.

How does confessing improve things?

Is she going to regret what she did, confession or not? I hope so.

I’ll take a swing at "love."

Love is caring about someone else more than you care about yourself.

What should our loving wife do? She should suffer in silence. I would hope she finds peace, with herself and her God.

The best years of my life were before I learned of my wife’s cheating. I wish I had more of those years.

What I would give for blissful ignorance.

First I want to say I appreciate your stance as a contrarian. I too would put forth an argument from my perspective despite the seemingly near consensus of other poster.

Your argument hinges on the idea that a parent's primary responsibility is to their children, and from this, you extrapolate that the wife in the scenario should prioritize her children's well-being above all else, including her own and her husband's. While the well-being of children is undeniably crucial, framing it as an absolute and singular priority creates a logical fallacy – a false dilemma. It presents a situation as an either/or choice when other possibilities exist.

The Illogicality of Absolute Prioritization:

-Interconnected Well-being: The well-being of children is often deeply intertwined with the well-being of their parents and the stability of the family unit. A parent who is suffering emotionally, burdened by guilt and secrets, may not be able to provide the most nurturing and stable environment for their children in the long run. This isn't to say confession is always the answer, but dismissing the wife's internal state as irrelevant to her children's lives is a simplification.
-The Burden of Secrecy: You suggest the wife should "suffer in silence." This places an immense and potentially corrosive burden on her. Living with a significant secret can lead to anxiety, depression, and emotional detachment, all of which can negatively impact her interactions with her children and husband, even if they don't know the specific reason. Is a parent struggling with these hidden burdens truly fulfilling their "primary responsibility" to their children?
-Defining "Degrading" and "Ruining": You ask if she should "degrade her children's lives" or "ruin her husband's health." These are loaded terms that assume confession will inevitably lead to these outcomes. While confession can have negative consequences, it doesn't automatically equate to ruin. There's a spectrum of possible reactions and outcomes, and the potential for healing and rebuilding, however difficult, shouldn't be dismissed outright.

Deconstructing the "Narcissistic Selfishness" Claim:

Labeling the desire to alleviate guilt or seek personal well-being as "narcissistic selfishness" is a harsh judgment. It ignores the fundamental human need for emotional integrity and the potential for guilt to erode a person's capacity for genuine connection and care for others. While self-absorption is certainly a negative trait, the desire for inner peace doesn't automatically equate to it. On top this. If she reviewed her stance and felt the husband should know the truth for his own autonomy, I would be more comfortable

Challenging the "Take it to the Grave" Assumption:

Your argument relies on the assumptions that the husband will never find out and that the wife loves him. While these might be true in a hypothetical, they are fragile foundations for a moral stance.

-The Risk of Discovery: Secrets have a way of surfacing. If the husband does eventually discover the infidelity, the betrayal can feel even more profound due to the years of deception. This could arguably be more damaging to the children and the family unit in the long run.
-The Nature of Love and Honesty: You define love as "caring about someone else more than you care about yourself." While selfless care is a component of love, healthy relationships are also built on trust and honesty. Is withholding a significant truth, even with good intentions, truly an act of love in its fullest sense? Can a relationship thrive on a foundation of fundamental dishonesty?

Re-evaluating the Question: "How does confessing improve things?"
While confession doesn't guarantee a positive outcome, it can offer several potential benefits:
-Authenticity and Integrity: For the person who has strayed, confessing can be a step towards living with greater authenticity and integrity. This can alleviate the internal conflict and potentially lead to healthier emotional functioning.
-Opportunity for Repair (though not guaranteed): While painful, confession can open the door for the couple to address the underlying issues that may have contributed to the infidelity. It provides an opportunity, however difficult, to rebuild trust or to navigate separation with more honesty.
-Preventing Further Deception: Continuing the deception requires ongoing effort and can lead to further lies and complications.

The Illusion of "Blissful Ignorance":
Your personal reflection on wishing for "blissful ignorance" is understandable given your experience. However, it highlights the pain caused by the act of infidelity, not necessarily the act of confession. While ignorance might have provided temporary peace, the underlying betrayal still occurred. Focusing solely on the desire for ignorance doesn't address the ethical implications of the initial actions.

In conclusion, while the desire to protect children is commendable, framing it as an absolute priority that necessitates lifelong secrecy and suffering overlooks the complex interconnectedness of family well-being and the potential harms of living with profound deception. The argument presented relies on logical fallacies and emotionally charged language that doesn't fully consider the multifaceted nature of the situation and the potential consequences of silence.

** Member to Member **

Guess I'm after insight on why people outside of this realm would be pro-removing a BS's agency generally.

Well, in that case, logic says you're asking the wrong people. My reco is to ask yourself questions like 'What am I looking for?' and 'What makes me look for answers from people I believe can't answer?'

Probably saying this for the last time: something emotional is bothering you, and logic is not going to tell you what that is or how to heal.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:35 PM, Saturday, April 26th]

Guilt and shame have a huge effect on people, try to hide it as much as you want but it will show up in your behaviour weather you realise it or not.

My H confessed on NYE 2024 to 3 times PIV with sex workers in 2004, 2006 & 2008 and then a ‘thing’ with a coworker that involved kissing and touching on 8 occasions ending in 2022.

Until my H confessed to his infidelities I always believed he was emotionally inept because of his upbringing, I now know that he has always been emotionally unavailable because the closer he would get, the more the guilt and shame would surface, he never felt he was an equal or deserving so he would pull away from me in order to soothe himself.

My H tells me that he thought by confessing the guilt would ease but he said it is in fact a lot worse, now not only does he have to deal with the guilt and shame for what he did, he also has to deal with seeing BS (me) emotionally destroyed, also now feeling guilty for having confessed.

I’m a few months away from DDay so I can change my mind several times a day on weather confessing is a positive. I know that ultimately the man I have now i wouldn’t swap for a gold pig so I guess that means that I’m pro confession….. but wow that’s a hard pill to swallow.

This has been interesting and I have thoughts on both sides. In one way I do think that she has taken her husband’s agency from him by not confessing. However as a betrayed spouse with D Day 3 years ago what I wouldn’t give for a spouse that messed up once, kept it to themselves and self corrected. And then was a loving faithful partner thereafter. Which it sounds like she is. I’m more in the camp of take it to the grave. We are trying to reconcile but the pain this has caused and how much this has affected every aspect of my life I would choose not to know if my spouse would have just fixed himself. Alas he did not. He had multiple one night stands and I found him out after ten years of his betrayals. I also think finding out after many years really messes with your sense of reality. All of these happy memories I had are now tainted to me. I hate that so much. Even though he’s a much better spouse now I miss my world before the betrayal.

In the abstract I think this is complicated, not so much by common sense caveats like don’t tell a violent wife beater that you cheated on him, but by honest voices of people who have experienced infidelity and would rather their spouse have privately experienced remorse and change and taken their secret to the grave.

On a personal level, I have a visceral horror of someone lying to me forever about something so fundamental, depriving me of all real agency in the most critical relationship of my life, and taking such a toxic secret to the grave.

Responsibility to children is also incredibly important to me, and I can understand weighing their well-being heavily when considering what to do. I could even see delaying telling a spouse because of concerns about the children. But that’s different than taking it to the grave.

People have a fundamental right to truth and the agency it brings. That belief is so engrained in my psyche that it’s hard for me to wrap my head around "take it to the grave" lines of thinking when you’re talking about a case like the one outlined in the original post.

After 42 yrs of marriage, I was content with where we were at. Not exactly everything I had ever dreamed it would be, but ok. H was a lot of emotional maintenance. Anxious, angry, worried, negative, brooding. I tend to be a bit codependent. Spent a lot of time thinking I had to manage his moods. Not good. His inner turmoil affected how he related to our children as we started a family. Distant. Demanding. Absent.

Confession year 43

It's like a door was unlocked and this new guy walked through. Humble, remorseful, loving, wanting to be so emotionally connected it was scary. He needed to confess. He had asked forgiveness from God, asked advice from a good friend yrs ago but none of that was enough. He needed to be held accountable for the harm he had done to me/us. The secret was killing him and suffocating our marriage.

Yes, it has been a shitty ride since DD. yes it pisses me off that we've wasted so many years with him avoiding his demons and keeping me emotionally at arm's length, but his confession has also helped me in many ways. We are open and transparent now. I feel respected. Heard. I've found my voice. He listens. He's slow to anger and quick to apologize. He never would have made these changes if he had stayed silent. He's gone so far as to apologize to the kids for not being the dad he should have been. I'm proud of him for stepping up and at the same time so angry. It's not easy, but we'll get through it.

Lies and deceit will rot you from the inside. The BS deserves to know who they are married to. I am 100% in the confession camp.

In this scenario, she cheated as a newlywed. No children, and the 'inabilty' to confess due to fear of destroying the relationship. So she poured her efforts into being her version of being the best wife that she could be.

We virtually never get to deal in absolutes. I am sure there are cases that could reason that keeping someone's agency from them is justifiable, but to what percentage? It was only after the other factors have been put into place here---children, her 'corrected' behavior/mindset, and time together, that it is now a muddier situation. Would anybody's opinion on whether to confess or not confess be different if we were talking about right after she cheated instead of the present? Is it now more 'compassionate' not to tell the BH, when for days, weeks, months after the cheating it would have been?

There was a story on here years ago....a tragic one....where the wife cheated, never confessed, apparently sorted herself out through therapy, and came to the conclusion, maybe even with the therapist's advice, to have all the information prepared and ready if the BH was ever to find out. Which he did. His wife was fully honest, gave him every piece of information available, and tried her best to let go of any outcome. Over a short period of time, the BH decided he couldn't continue the marriage, and filed for divorce. The soon-to-be ex wife at first tried to unsuccessfully take her own life, only to succeed shortly after. What a horrible ending for all involved. I'm sure there are a whole bunch of 'what ifs' that could be imagined from this, but the one I'm going with is the truth, and everyone having their agency as soon as possible, hopefully could have prevented such dramatic results. We'll never know, but this would be one situation where the hypothetical that started this topic shows where the intention of 'taking it to the grave' played out horribly.

I don't think many here believe that authenticity is a bad thing. Can you truly be authentic while holding such a vital piece of your partner's reality? I am really curious about this.

Would anybody's opinion on whether to confess or not confess be different if we were talking about right after she cheated instead of the present? Is it now more 'compassionate' not to tell the BH, when for days, weeks, months after the cheating it would have been?

Nope.

Our outcome would have been very different, but at least it would have been my choice.

compassionate (adjective)
feeling or showing sympathy and concern for others:

I don't see how lying and deceiving can be called compassionate. The only thing being protected is the liar.

Lies and deceit will rot you from the inside. The BS deserves to know who they are married to. I am 100% in the confession camp.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I am also a member of the "found out many years later" group. I "knew" things were "off" in real-time. I suspected cheating, confronted her and was lied to. I did catch her in what I know now is an Emotional Affair but at the time, since they hadn’t had sex, I didn’t really count it as cheating.

But "what I didn’t know" was indeed "hurting me". I met my wife at 18 and married at 21. She was more into the "idea" of marriage than the "reality" of marriage. I was her first an only. She decided less than a year into the marriage she "didn’t get to sow her oats" so started partying, flirting and sleeping with a coworker. She actively sabotaged the marriage to justify her cheating. Treated me coldly, cut off sex, told me she didn’t think she loved me and questioned if we should even be married. I fought to stay together. Because at this point, she was also pregnant (yes, my child). But she would not admit to cheating. I was pretty sure she had.

She had told me early in our relationship that cheating was a deal breaker and if I cheated on her, that would be the end. Apparently, she is a hypocrite. About 18 months after the first infidelity, she had another inappropriate relationship with a coworker. This is the emotional affair I caught her in. We fought and she left and went to her mother’s. I thought we were done this time. She called and begged to come home. I told her she had to go NC. She agreed. But she didn’t. It went on several more months and turned physical. The affair crossed over into the conception of our daughter (yes, mine too) and she ultimately ended it because she was pregnant. This was 1986/1987. She would go on to have several more affairs through 2005. She continued to treat me poorly. The "I don’t think I love you" would pop up occasionally and our sex life was bad. I stuck it out "for the kids". But had I known she was cheating, I would have divorced her anyway.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I had decided I would ride out the marriage until my daughter was 18 then I was out. Her 18th birthday would be 9/10/2005. Whenever my wife got pissy with me (which later correlated to the time of her affairs) I would just say "9/10/05" and walk away. I think it finally clicked for her what that meant. She started treating me well, the sex increased and she quit trying to change me. I thought we had finally "made it". We hit our 20 year anniversary, we were good in our careers and our kids were grown. I decided to stay and grow old together. Ironically, on 9/10/05, she was active in what would turn out to be her final affair…..

D-Day 1 was in June 2022. After much lying, trickle truth, minimization, etc. I found out the scope of my wife’s infidelities. Every time I suspected cheating, she was. "I don’t think I love you" was a "tell". The way she treated me was her sabotaging the marriage to justify her cheating. I didn’t know, but it was certainly hurting me.

My wife’s first affair was a little over 40 years ago. The last one started about this time 20 years ago. I was cheated on for 20 years. I was lied to actively and by omission for 17 more years. I was lied to while "coming clean". She planned to "take it to her grave". Do I wish she had? No. I finally got to lay the "truth of my life" against what I experienced at the time. I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t do anything wrong to get treated the way I did. I was a lifelong victim of a selfish, lying, insecure broken person. I wish I had the truth 40 years ago. I probably would have forgiven the first infidelity as she was newly pregnant. When she was questioning if we should be married, I asked about the baby. She mentioned aborting it which I was adamantly opposed to. But I never would have forgiven the second one. Had I known she had no intention of cutting it off, I would have never let her come home. That would have been the end. August of 1986. That’s when she she should have told me. That when she stole my life. I never would have been around to get cheated on for the next 19 years, to have found out in 36 years and to realize I wasted my life with someone who is a horrible life partner. Her selfishness not only robbed me of my agency, it robbed me of my life….