Adultery Is Bad. Telling Your Spouse Is Worse.
Dear Belladonna Rogers,
I love my wife but I’ve committed adultery. I know it’s wrong, morally, religiously, spiritually and in every way. Reading your column last week on apologizing, I’m writing to ask if I should apologize for my infidelity even though my wife is unaware of it. What should I do if my wife suspects and confronts me? Should I confirm her suspicions, make a clean breast of it and apologize? I know I’d feel better.
Sinner in Salt Lake City
Dear Sinner,
Adultery is the one thing to which you should never admit unless your wife discovers you in the act. The line, “Honey, this isn’t what it looks like” will be of no avail. It is exactly what it looks like. Assuming she hasn’t found you in flagrante delicto, here’s my advice:
CONFESSING ADULTERY TO AN UNAWARE SPOUSE IS CRUEL AND UNWISE
An adulterer’s need to confess and “make a clean breast of it” is both supremely selfish and monumentally unwise. If the urge to “confess” is overwhelming, then make your confession to a professional — religious or secular. With a minister, therapist, or counselor you can give free vent to your impulse to disclose your adultery and discuss your feelings about it in complete confidentiality without being brutally cruel to the person you love.
Having made one crummy decision, your two options of what to do next are similarly crummy. Bad actions beget bad options. The lesser of the two evils that I favor involves treating your wife with kindness by omitting to tell her what you did. The one I oppose involves confessing your infidelity to her, thus inflicting needless pain while not undoing your error. Nothing will ever undo your error, including confessing it to your wife and apologizing for it.
A confession will irreparably destroy trust, the indispensable foundation of all relationships.
Under no circumstances — no matter how drunk, how angry, how deliriously high on any substance you may be, and regardless of how sorely tempted you may feel in a moment of guilt or intimacy to reveal “everything” about yourself and “get it off your chest,” and “make a clean breast of it” — does it make sense to reveal adultery to your spouse. Even on your deathbed, the urge to “bare all” before drawing your final breath should be suppressed: this is an unconscionably cruel way to say goodbye.
HOW CONFESSING ADULTERY ONLY MAKES A BAD SITUATION WORSE
(1) By disclosing your adultery, you’ll be hurting the one person you love more than anyone else in the world. Your urge to confess and beg forgiveness does not outweigh your responsibility to be kind, considerate, and to avoid inflicting pain and suffering. Confessing is cruel.
(2) It will inevitably lead to your spouse telling your children, if you have any. If they are young, this will have long-term negative effects on their behavior when they’re married. Children learn by the example set by their parents far more than by what their parents tell them is right or what their religious training teaches them is right or wrong.
(3) Revealing your adultery, especially soon after it has occurred, will increase the chances that your wife will do the same to you, motivated by a number of impulses, including:
(A) Reassurance: There’s nothing quite like adultery to make a person feel abandoned, unloved, unlovable, and unattractive. One way many spouses of adulterers cope with feelings of rejection is by seeking comfort — as well as confirmation that they’re still emotionally and physically appealing — with a partner outside the marriage.
(B) Retaliation: to let the errant spouse know exactly how it feels to be cheated on. To show him or her that “two can play this game.”
(C) Punishment: a powerful desire to inflict emotional pain on the spouse who cheated first, a desire that never would have existed if the originally errant spouse hadn’t blurted out, in a foolishly self-destructive moment of candor or weakness, that he or she committed adultery.
ADMITTING ADULTERY LEADS TO A SPIRAL OF MISERY
The original disclosure of adultery is thus likely to set in motion a spiral of misery that can lead to divorce even when the couple is no longer in the bloom of youth. While examples abound, here’s a recent one to contemplate as you ponder whether to confess, courtesy of The Telegraph in December 2011 (emphasis added):
99-Year-old Divorces Wife After He Discovered 1940s Affair
An Italian couple are to become the world’s oldest divorcees, after the 99-year-old husband found that his 96-year-old wife had an affair in the 1940s
The Italian man, identified by lawyers in the case only as Antonio C, was rifling through an old chest of drawers when he made the discovery a few days before Christmas. Notwithstanding the time that had elapsed since the betrayal, he was so upset that he immediately confronted his wife of 77 years, named as Rosa C, and demanded a divorce. Guilt-stricken, she reportedly confessed everything but was unable to persuade her husband to reconsider his decision. She wrote the letters to her lover during a secret affair in the 1940s, according to court papers released in Rome this week. The couple are now preparing to split, despite the ties they forged over nearly eight decades – they have five children, a dozen grandchildren and one great-grand child.
WHY THINKING YOU’LL “FEEL BETTER” AFTER CONFESSING ADULTERY TO AN UNSUSPECTING SPOUSE IS A PATHETIC, DELUSIONAL FANTASY
Like the guilt-stricken “Rosa C.,” many a cheating or formerly cheating spouse will experience guilt followed by an overwhelming impulse to “tell the truth.”
This overwhelming impulse must itself be overcome by a far more constructive resolve to understand the devastation confession will wreak, even if accompanied by tearful, abject, heartfelt apologies and a promise never to stray again. The choice of confession is nothing but a pure, unmitigated self-centered mistake.
It’s likely that the confessing spouse will, in fact, “feel better” after baring his or her soul. But that feeling will be more fleeting than the light of a firefly. A husband surely won’t feel better when, a week later, he receives a text from his wife saying that the dentist kept her waiting…until midnight… to fill that cavity. What cavity? That cavity.
DEALING WITH A SUSPICIOUS SPOUSE
What if a spouse suspects and confronts the delinquent spouse?
Suspicion is part of life and therefore of marriage. Suspicion is a subdivision of thinking. If we have minds, we think. If we think, we wonder. Only spouses afflicted with deeply flawed thinking seize the opportunity afforded by a spouse’s inquiry to reply, “Well, you’ve pretty much guessed, anyway, so I may as well tell you that that person I work with — the one who calls here all the time? –well, he’s (or she’s) got the hots for me. One night we were the last people in the office, and the next thing we knew we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I don’t know what got into us.”
Bad idea! If the worried spouse expresses a hunch or a suspicion, the other spouse reassures. He or she does not leap at the chance to blurt out the truth. A loving husband or wife reassures rather than blurts.
Never ever, ever, ever, ever give in to the temptation to tell the truth if adultery (even once) is the truth. With adultery, once is the same as 100 times. It’s the infidelity, the unfaithfulness, not the precise number of times or partners. ”Only” doesn’t modify “once” when it comes to adultery. Confessing to having had even a single one-night stand will cast a long, dark, irreversible shadow over all the days of your marriage.
“SHUT UP,” SHE EXPLAINED
If your infidelity is a result of an inherent problem in your marriage, or a personal problem of yours, you might find it helpful to address that problem in counseling or therapy with either a religious or secular professional. Flinging an act of infidelity at your wife is no way to deal with an intrinsic difficulty in your marriage or in yourself.
Making your spouse miserable is not an appropriate cure for your feelings of guilt. The cure is to end the affair and to keep your error locked in your heart forever.
My advice is at odds with the mantra of the Oprah-and-Dr.-Phil-besotted, revelation-obsessed swampland in which we dwell. Although admitting one’s intimate transgressions on national TV makes for high Nielsen ratings, such a confession does nothing to strengthen a marriage.
To paraphrase the writer Ring Lardner in his 1920 book The Young Immigrants, ”‘Shut up,’ she explained.”
Discretion — not confession — is the better part of valor.
–Belladonna Rogers
Send your questions about personal, political or cultural matters, or anything else that’s on your mind to Belladonna Rogers at advice@pjmedia.com All correspondence with her is confidential.
Cheating, infidelity, unfaithfulness… I could never attach those labels to my attraction to other women. I never felt guilty about my affairs even when one ended with a child.
Growing up I was told that there is one true love in your life and very soon I found myself in love with two girls and could not decide which one is a true love. It did not take long to understand that not our actions but perception of them matters. So I dated both girls and happily so.
I never confessed about my affairs to my wife (I never stopped to love her), I did not want to hurt her. Only when my son started to look too much of myself, she approached me with the question. I confessed to him being my son, but said it was through IVF. I also told her that if she ever felt I did not love her to leave me (attack is the best defence).
Our relation came to the end naturally, as my girlfriend understood that I love my wife and shall never leave her. As my youngest son looks like me, he also looks very much like my other children and my wife loves him a lot. She actually wants me to take the boy and bring him to live with us. I think I will do just that.
I have no regrets and no guilt feelings.
“Cheating, infidelity, unfaithfulness… I could never attach those labels to my attraction to other women….I have no regrets and no guilt feelings.”
That is because, despite the legal ceremony, you didn’t get married, you started a harem with one permanent concubine and temps as the situation required.
I wonder how the “other woman” – whose life you have also damaged and whose child you feel you should now take – feels about it.
The truth of the matter is no one will ever marry the person with whom they’re having an affair.
In the end, they really do love their spouse and children and there are seldom good reasons for ending their marriage.
That is why the person who has an affair with a married spouse knows they’re never going to have a permanent relationship – not with someone who just broke their vows. And it’s the guilt and secrecy that make adultery so exciting.
Without it, there’s no reason the adulterous couple will continue to remain involved.
Unless you’re upgrading, like someone named Newt.
Funny, I thought perhaps you were talking about John Kerry!
Cheaters do not stay with their spouses out of love. Dependency, convenience, social pressure, yes, but love has nothing to do with it. Any person who can live his life as “Gary” describes is incapable of loving anyone. I believe serial cheaters are a form of sociopaths.
His poor conjugation is strangely accurate:
“I never confessed about my affairs to my wife (I never stopped to love her)”
I find the “advice” in this column deplorable. Relationships are built on trust, trust is based on honesty. Honesty in all, even (especially?) in failure.
Honesty and forgiveness in love and marriage, through these we become better people.
Belladonna advises spouses treat each other as fools. Delusions help none but the insane.
Gary, you are in mortal spiritual danger with a dead conscience and a heart that you yourself hardened. Here’s the prototypical Biblical example, from Psalm 95, which describes the generation of the people of Israel who rejected God. Don’t be like them.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
“Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
Your claims of “loving” your wife and “not wanting to hurt” her are empty and meaningless in the light of how you live your life and how you treat women. You are probably a sociopath who is unable to love. You either actually have no clue that what you’re doing is wrong, because you don’t understand wrong and right, or you don’t care. Either one is indicative of a sociopath.
Gary, you don’t love your wife; SHE loves YOU. She is apparently so self-sacrificing that she’s willing to take on your child with another woman as her own. YOU, on the other hand, are extremely selfish. You don’t love anyone – your wife, your children, your former lover – as much as you love yourself. Trying to chain her to you shows just how nasty you are. “Attack is the best defense”? You’re protecting your own cushy setup, not her feelings. I’ve no doubt that, should your wife start realizing the garbage you’re feeding her and she does leave you, you will move on with as much callousness towards her as you’ve done towards your ex-lover.
I don’t understand your mindset, Gary. What part of ‘forsake all others’ do you not understand or feel does not apply to you?
Your comment is a good example of what God calls “a hardened heart.” Your soul is in danger.
” ( I never stopped to love her)”
no kidding.
This is the one sin that should not be exposed to open daylight. Its like an acid that destroys everything it touches – including the person who bears the guilt.
Some things are between you and God and if you feel the need to be punished, let God decide on it. Don’t ever make a loved one feel miserable so you can feel good about letting go of your guilt.
Its understood every marriage has secrets. A spouse is obligated to act to preserve them out of consideration for the marriage, one’s own reputation and yes – by how you are seen by your children.
A spouse is neither your priest nor your therapist. But always your best friend and partner. Remember that and treat them as the person whom you got married to in the first place.
I wonder if Bill Clinton read this article? Maybe we should e-mail it to him. Maybe the secret to Bill’s successful marriage is to marry a gay woman? Not that I’m saying Hillary is gay. Naaaa.
What a disgusting comment. I don’t give a diddley damn if you love/hate Bill or Hillary Clinton; to call her a lesbian simply because you don’t like her just shows how what a truly low person you are. An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy and means absolutely nothing. How do you know what makes their marriage work? Are you one of the people inside this dynamic relationship? No? Then SHUT UP.
Ya know, I find I’m not done. Until now I usually read your comments with interest, and have gone to your site several times. I will NEVER do so again, as you’re no better than those you denigrate. Don’t you realize all it takes is ONE ill-timed, ill-considered public remark, and all the good you’ve done/might do is gone like the wind? I will no longer think of you as a serious person with a balanced mind or viewpoint — you’re just another troll.
Hillary Clinton isn’t the kind of woman who knows anything about marital fidelity. But then she married the man knowing his character because he would give her access to something she craved more than love – power. It was a devil’s bargain that for the most part, served both of them well.
now come on..no one dislikes Hildabeast more than I but how in the world could she possibly know her 23 yr old cokehead boyfriend was presidential
“CONFESSING ADULTERY TO AN UNAWARE SPOUSE IS CRUEL AND UNWISE”
Well, that lets Gingrich out. According to wife #2, not only did he tell her he was cheating, but he asked her to go along with it.
A corollary to “Never confess an affair” is “No open marriages.”
Newt’s wife #2 was the other woman to wife #1, so she doesn’t get much sympathy or credibility here.
There is one exception however. If your spouse possesses a towering world class outsized monumental political ambition to shove you off the stage asap and to supplant your wandering libido as the first female head of the free world, go for it. Her prize isn’t you. It’s your job.
It all comes down to the simple fact that ignorance is bliss. If you were to truly peel back the layers of society and see everyone for what they’ve done, you’d be horrified at how many “good people” have dark sides you can’t even imagine.
I understand all the reasoning behind not telling the spouse, but ultimately I don’t accept them. It reminds me of all the reasons one could and thinks she should have an abortion- it’s about convenience and not disturbing one’s life, rather than being honest and facing the consequences. If my spouse had an affair, I would want to know because otherwise I’d resent that someone else is taking away my ability to choose my life. Rogers makes a good case regarding how painful the knowledge of adultery is- yet the cruelty is in THE ACT and NOT merely the confession. That moment of coitus is the pinnacle of the betrayal, and keeping it all to yourself just to “protect” the main victim is a cop out. I fail to see how the supposedly preserved trust is truly trust- more like nurtured blindness. If one had any self respect and truly loved their spouse, they should think really long and hard over the cruelty and consequences of NOT being honest.
“It reminds me of all the reasons one could and thinks she should have an abortion- it’s about convenience and not disturbing one’s life, rather than being honest and facing the consequences.”
Very insightful. Thanks.
“…keeping it all to yourself just to “protect” the main victim is a cop out.”
In no way is it a “cop out” to create yet another victim (the unsuspecting or even the suspecting spouse). If one is at all interested in preserving one’s marriage, an affair is something one takes to the grave. It really is more of a selfish act to impose the burden upon the spouse that an affair has taken place in an effort to purge oneself of the guilt associated with having the affair (there is the real cop out) than to keep the whole thing a secret & set about doing the hard work of fixing what is wrong with the marriage. After all, in most cases where adulterous affairs take place, it is the result of something awry in the spousal relationship. Of course, there are those who want their proverbial cake & eat it too & have numerous affairs all the while they love their spouse to death & would never dream of leaving them in a million years. Those folks are also well advised to keep their mouths shut, carrying their secrets to the grave. There really are those instances where people are truly better off being kept in the dark. This (what this article is about) is one of them. JMO.
I couldn’t disagree more. I have been married for over 20 years, so I do think I know something about the state of marriage. I guess I’m strange in that I like feeling empowered in my life and in my marriage. I like having accurate information on which to base decisions. I feel that, not only is adultery very cruel and painful, it would be the height of arrogance if my husband took away from me MY CHOICES by intentionally keeping me in the dark about a situation that completely, fully, and intimately affects me. That’s like doctors refusing to tell a patient the truth about his/her condition all so as not to alarm him/her. Adultery certainly can be symptomatic of problems within the marriage, but it can also be symptomatic of problems within the individual. Regardless of the root problems, committing a life to deceit all to avoid the obvious and inevitable consequences of a cruel decision of adultery is wrong. Even if the intent is too “be kind” or avoid cruelty, I say, dude- NOW you’re going for avoiding cruelty? How about avoiding the cruelty by avoiding the illicit coitus?
Personally, I would never dream of cheating on my husband. I have had close to 25 years of a very happy, well-adjusted marriage. I still stand by the assertions I make above because I agree with the notion put forth by this article’s author that the act of admitting to an adulterous affair only compounds the problem. Far better it be for the confession be made in a setting where support can be given, particularly in the case of someone who is feeling contrite & wants to make things right. It’s indeed a way of letting go of a bad situation in lieu of dragging one’s spouse into it. One can become worthy of the spouse’s trust once again while sparing the spouse of all the pain & misery they don’t necessarily have to go through. As someone somewhere on this forum said, better it be that the adulterer suck it up & heal on their own & again, sparing the spouse needles & unnecessary pain & agony.
…
needlesneedless….I am the way, the truth* and the light.
*not valid is all circumstances
unlike abortion no innocents are dying. The author is not talking about serial adulterers but a one time very bad mistake in the past
or at least that’s the way I am taking it
What does the Bible say about this? Like James’ instruction, “confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed?” You know, the Bible that forbids adultery in the first place?
I can understand the differences in each situation, and I’m not applying a blanket “must” rule based on this one verse.
The conscience is a gift from God. It needs calibration and renewal (such as in Gary’s comment above) from God and Scripture, but it should not be ignored either.
God knows all about us, forgives and and loves us anyway. Hard hearts that refuse even to consider the idea of forgiveness, well, that is not in God’s design.
If my wife found out about my indiscretions, the only use she’d have for Scripture is something heavy to throw at me…
Use a very small New Testament with very tiny print!
Totally agree! I don’t want to limit God’s ability to heal and renew those who are truly repentant. It is infinitely more cruel to a spouse to underestimate their ability to forgive. In essence if the one who committed adultery doesn’t confess, he or she is saying to his or her spouse, you are too stupid and too insensitive to work through this transgression with me. It is adding insult to injury. It is remarkably selfish to deny ones marital partner the opportunity to face truth and then work through it triumphantly, giving thanks to God for his mercy.
So speaks one who’s obviously never gone thru this particular hell. As said elsewhere in these comments, I’m assuming it’s a one-time mistake rather than serial adultery. Do not ruin your life, your spouse’s life (& children if you have them) to “confess”. If it’s true that to err is human, to forgive devine … only G*d has the power to really forgive. It will linger in the mind of the spouse until one of you dies. It may get pushed way back in the nasty memory closet, but never expunged.
You’re wrong.
I disagree with this advice. My husband and I have lived through this. I knew – in my heart – that he had cheated on me. We were in marriage counseling for a substance abuse problem he had, and with the therapist there, he confessed. It was very painful but it was the beginning of the end of the bad times. I don’t think he could’ve been wholly mine again if we had gone through all of that and he had held the infidelity back.
I do think it helped that it had been three years and we were given great advice for him to share no ‘pictures’ that I’d replay in my head – no matter how many times I asked. Just the facts were told.
I have a son and two daughters and I promise you they will never know and I did not respond in kind. We’ve been married 18 years and I am proud of the relationship we share – bumps and all.
You’re right.
The worst part of this argument is the implicit idea that the adulterous act itself didn’t harm the spouse – that somehow the harm only happens when the spouse finds out. The harm’s already done. Behaving as if nothing has changed is unhealthy.
Not telling is a lie of omission.
Answering an inquiry from a suspicious spouse untruthfully is a lie (tautological, right?). Insisting that the spouse’s suspicions are fanciful only makes the spouse doubt himself. That’s an act of cruelty, certainly not an act of love.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the decades of LYING contributed to the divorce of the aged couple in your example. It didn’t matter that the affair happened in the 40s, the betrayal was fresh and ONGOING for him. If he’d found out in the 40s he could have dealt with it then, secure knowing that when she failed she would tell him. All the memories and love, their relationship afterward wouldn’t be tainted by the lie(s). Perhaps the husband felt like a fool, that he’d believed her lies for decades and that he couldn’t trust her any longer because she’d been lying to him all along (how could he, she had). If she’d confessed and given him a chance to forgive long ago, maybe they’d still be married today.
Great advice, Bella.
Putting the ‘shoe on the other foot’, I can honestly say that if my wife had an affair I would not want to know.
If you want your marriage to remain intact, do not destroy your spouse’s trust in you no matter how undeserved.
If my husband had an affair, I’m not sure I’d want to know either, particularly if it was a long time ago. The only thing that stops me from certainty on this thought is rampant venereal disease. I’d hate to get cancer or damage my own ability to have children because of his indiscretions.
Contracting an STD or getting the “other woman” pregnant adds complexity to the situation that would call for a different approach than what is laid out in this article. In the case of the STD though, chances are the spouse would become infected before discovery on the part of the adulterer unless, of course, there was a case of no sexual relations going down between the spouses.
A loving relationship can possibly get beyond an infidelity but it can’t survive lies. Lies destroy the foundation of a relationship.
For further evidence check President Barack Hussein Obama’s administration and how their lies are destroying the relationship between the citizens and the government.
When a spouse cheats on a spouse, the end of the marriage already exists, atleast in the mind of the cheater. If the cheater doesn’t fess up, it most likely is related to his/her desire to have his/her cake and eat it, too. Why should the innocent base his/her life on a fallacy? All of us deserve to make choices based on fact. I suggest that investigators play an important role in any marriage because we only have one life to live. Why waste it on a liar?
I haven’t read all of the responses, nor will I. Yours was the first to hit it right. What is done is done, and God help any of us that finds himself in that situation. What Ms. Rogers fails to address, but you do, is that subsequent to the affair (and probably during), an unfaithful spouse is taking his wife, and she is taking him, under false pretense. They are living their lives virtually, not really.
The only course other than laying it out, which 99 times out of 100 ends in divorce, is to make a personal transformation, the success of which can only be known to the unfaithful party and to God.
Does anyone buy into the fullness of life anymore? Does anyone understand that sometimes we succeed and at other times we fail, that we have the right to make decisions about our own lives but not the lives of others? If the cover up works, it isn’t as if the marriage will go on as before because reality is what it is and our perceptions of it go unabated. Either the wife will figure it out or she will come to doubt her own inner voice. A lifetime of keeping someone in the dark will take its toll on both parties.
The children, too, will come to doubt their own perceptions, not as proofs of things, but as connections to the world. They will teach themselves that judgement itself is a chimera that should neither be applied nor trusted.
No, it’s much better to lie.
Lie to your friends, lie to your spouse and definitely lie to your children. But – and this is critical – lie to yourself.
If anyone finds out about the lie, it’s THEIR fault for finding out the truth. Truth is the enemy of happiness. Happy families don’t know the truth.
If you believe the lie enough, truth doesn’t even have to exist.
Hear Hear DianeCee.
The wronged spouse deserves the the truth, painful though it is. They can then evaluate their marriage honestly and decide whether to stay or go.
I completely disagree with this advice.
I more or less agree with poster #1 Gary. I started openly saying to all my social circle that I am as polygamous as I can. Well, I did it because when I was very young I also felt in love with two girls and I was torn between the social conventions and my love for them.
It ended, but that experience and the wish not to feel guilty without any real sin committed made proclaim my allegiance to a polygamous life. The funny thing is I never again had that experience of being in love with two or more girls. I’ve been unfaithful however, which is different, you love one and just have a crush with other one. But this time everyone in my circle knew that I kinda approve of that.
I think this is not for everyone. I think the basic principle is -as someone told long ago: Don’t do to others what would anger you if done to you by others. If you are not ready to accept the symmetry of the game, then better don’t do it.
Later, I got a new rule to apply with my girls: IF you want an affaire but stay with me, just don’t tell me, no need to confess, and I am not inquisitive about it. IF you have decided I am not for you and you prefer other one, then by all means tell me, be kind but tell me; no need to fight.
However, all this happened while being single. I started valorizing fidelity already. For a marriage, you should already figured out what’s the best for yourself pretty much.
Not everyone is Christian or believe in G’d here. But I like how the ancient patriarchs had many wives.
I repeat: I myself have done many other bad things in my life. But having girlfriends without promising fidelity to any of them is not one of them.
oops, this was intended as answer for Dean from Ohio in number 16
Not all the patriarchs has multiple wives.
Adam didn’t. Noah didn’t. Isaac didn’t. Joseph didn’t. Daniel didn’t. etc.
Also, marriage with one man and one woman was the standard set by God at creation and He has not changed it.
and adam new his wife eve later on cain slew able so theres adam eve and cain and cain new his wife ho was cains wife.
A poorly written, anonymous comment does not merit a response, but I’ll give one anyway. While the Bible only names three of Adam and Eve’s sons, it explicitly states they had other sons and daughters. Cain married one of his sisters, or perhaps one of his nieces if he wandered a long time first.
You are living your life as a true atheist would!
X, both you & Gary #1 are not native English speakers; I’d go further and assume you are from cultures/religions that approve & even encourage more than 1 wife.
Filthy & disgusting, period. Just a way for men to have what THEY want with absolutely no consideration for the womAN (not womEN) in their lives.
X, both you & Gary #1 are not native English speakers; I’d go further and assume you are from cultures/religions that approve & even encourage more than 1 wife.
Filthy & disgusting, period. Just a way for men to have what THEY want with absolutely no consideration for the womAN (not womEN) in their lives.
D.D.
Your first assumption is correct – I am not a native English speaker. English is my 5th language (I speak 6 altogether).
Your second assumption is wrong. I was brought up in Europe, not in religious environment, but with rules, which considered “infidelity” a serious aberration. That is why when as a teenager I understood that I am in love with two girls, I had to think and search for answers.
Your post reveals a lot for me about you and your feelings. So much so, that I have to ask again: Is envy still a sin?
D.D.
Your first assumption is correct – I am not a native English speaker. English is my 5th language (I speak 6 altogether).
Your second assumption is wrong. I was brought up in Europe, not in religious environment, but with rules, which considered “infidelity” a serious aberration. That is why when as a teenager I understood that I am in love with two girls, I had to think and search for answers.
Your post reveals a lot for me about you and your feelings. So much so, that I have to ask again: Is envy still a sin?
“the wish not to feel guilty without any real sin committed made [me] proclaim…”
This is indeed the exact exit that you took from the path God intended for you, especially the part “without any real sin committed.” At that point, you became the judge of God and his word, instead of vice versa. That never ends well.
This also seems to peg you as a living example of the pattern that J. Budziszewski describes in his remarkable essay, “The Revenge of Conscience.” Your violated conscience is propelling you to do things that you don’t even realize, perhaps even getting married.
This essay isn’t available for free download anymore that I can find, but if you are truly intent on “valorizing fidelity,” as you say, buying it could be the best investment you’ve ever made. Other than a readable Bible translation and a humble openness to believe and obey what you find written in it, that is.
Not everyone is Christian or believe in G’d here. But I like how the ancient patriarchs had many wives.
I repeat: I myself have done many other bad things in my life. But having girlfriends without promising fidelity to any of them is not one of them.
Here is the essay:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/12/001-the-revenge-of-conscience-38
what a barn-burner of a philosopher! Thank you! It was exhilarating reading this guy chopping things into their logical bits, and arranging them just so. It was like watching one of my friends work on his PhD thesis- exciting, truly exciting.
honestly, it read like the better parts of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
To Steve, and Dean from Ohio,
Thank you for introducing me to this priceless article—and to the magazine, the web site, and Budziszewski’s book. I feel as though someone has just tossed a life-preserver to my soul.
You’re welcome. Pass it on, with God’s blessings.
I’ll be doing that!
And thank you for blessing me. I believe in the power of blessings, and that we have the ability to bestow them on one another. When we were kids, we used to get them from our dad before he left town on business trips…..I’m quite sure they slowed down the ensuing bedlam by at least an hour or two ; ) .
The advice is correct – for some. If an affair is a one time fling or committed in the heat of the moment and happens even if the marriage is a good one, confessing to an infidelity can do no good. When the scriptures are invoked and we follow them to confess our sins, confessing to a spiritual or secular counselor is still following the teachings of the Bible. The Bible also admonishes us to not purposefully inflict emotional harm on another.
The lie that should be avoided is the lie we tell ourselves when we try to atone for our mistakes and cleanse our conscience by revealing the most hurtful and harmful thing that can happen in a marriage. While it is true that sins have consequences, if the consequences are that we confess to ourself that we did the wrong thing, seek outside counseling and work on bettering the person we are, then the consequences can result in good rather than harm.
However, if the person committing adultery continues to do so, then there is a problem that confessing won’t cure. There is a structural problem at the emotional and relationship level that cannot be cured through confession or any other soul cleansing attempts. If your spouse does not return the emotional or physical love you crave and you seek it from outside the marriage, then the answer is not necessarily in confession but maybe it is in a divorce, especially if the missing ingredient will never be added to the marriage by the other person. Either learn to live with the status quo of not having the desired responses from your spouse or if you must have them, at least have the courage to leave. Living in a loveless marriage is not the answer.
I know several couples who thought they could survive an open marriage. Today, they are divorced and married to someone else. I know a few who had affairs and confessed. Today, for the ones who confessed, their lives are lived under a microscope and both are totally miserable, staying in a marriage that was destroyed once the transgressor confessed to his or her indiscretion. The bond of trust is fragile enough and when one is gullible enough to place complete and unquestioning trust in another person, that trust will at some point be abused or broken. Once broken, it can never be fully regained.
God is the only divine being who is capable of complete and total forgiveness and never holding confession of a sin against the sinner. Humans do not have that capability, no matter how much one may insist on saying, I forgive and forget.
The human brain NEVER forgets a memory of pain and hurt. For the uninformed, memory is manifested in a real physical form inside the brain and the pain associated with the confession never goes away. This is a scientific fact. Once the memory becomes a permanent resident of the brain, when something happens that is remotely similar in nature to the transgression, the memory is retrieved by the subconscious and it is brought to the surface level of consciousness. Even the most forgiving person can never forget the pain associated with the betrayal of adultery by their spouse because it is a permanent part of the brain. It will be with them forever and at the most inopportune time, come to the surface.
If you must confess, be prepared for the long term consequences if you stay in the marriage. Sometimes as Belladonna advises, it is best to keep some secrets. Overall, I agree, infidelity is one secret best not shared.
Bart -
I have to say, this sounds right to me. Belladonna has tackled a tough subject with insight and wisdom. You have done likewise.
This question has always troubled me. I’ve learned over the years that “the truth shall set you free” is a “what’s so” of the universe. Truth liberates like nothing else … in this world … or in what happens when we face divine assessment. And no, I’m not necessarily pointing at “final judgment,” but at the assessment that comes when we are open to True Wisdom from its highest source.
So I don’t pretend to have the answer … only that I can feel the truth in what you both say.
It does leave me with the question about truth … is this a place where withholding the truth keeps a person free to enjoy his/her marriage? I wonder. Would the one-time-adulterer truly “enjoy” that relationship in the same way ever again? Where would the adulterer turn with his or her truth? Would “confession” be satisfying?
I’m supposing that the adulterer would have to take a long and very hard look at his/her choices. I suspect that the usual excuses – “I’m not getting what I need in the marriage.” – would fall away pretty quickly to anyone committed to truth. What part did the person play in sustaining that unsatisfying environment, for example?
It’s not a comfortable exploration for the “honest adulterer.”
“I’ve learned over the years that ‘the truth shall set you free’ is a ‘what’s so’ of the universe.”
It is “so” as a general principle to an extent, but it is only really effective in its original context:
“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” –Gospel of John, chapter 8, verses 31-32.
People who approached Jesus with their own agenda ended up against him sooner or later. That is the subtext here; truth is alive and can’t be tamed or put on a shelf to do our bidding.
In this case, just a minute after saying this, Jesus was telling this group that at least some of them wanted to kill him. Why not read the Gospel of John (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1&version=NLT) and find out what made people so mad that they would kill rather than accept the truth?
** The human brain NEVER forgets a memory of pain and hurt. For the uninformed, memory is manifested in a real physical form inside the brain and the pain associated with the confession never goes away. This is a scientific fact. **
#Bart,
You are completely correct, in this entire parag. (not all quoted here). I’m a returning college student in Cognitive Neuroscience, and have seen this kind of thing — revealed cheating — actually result in PTSD. The memory of being betrayed, hurt and feeling literally stabbed to death NEVER goes away.
Unless one is ready to part ways with a spouse, don’t tell them. Better yet:
“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
Every day you lie to your spouse you corrode your relationship away. It affects everything between you. She may not know you had an affair, but believe me, she can tell whether you’re being honest with her about how you feel.
To put it another way, you can hide an emotional truth, but you can’t substitute something real for it. All you can do is paper it over with something palpably fake.
Here’s a novel thought..
Maybe marriage is a partnership between two unique individuals, and whether or not to tell your spouse is largely based on your best guess as to what his/her reaction might be…if you think forgiveness is likely, then tell her. If you think she’ll burn the house down with you in it, maybe you should keep it to yourself…
We all keep secrets, even from those we love the most, because all of us have some aspects we’d prefer not brought to light. Kinda like the “Men In Black” philosophy…the average person can only live their life by NOT knowing all the incredibly terrifying truths about the larger world…
Spouses have a duty to keep certain secrets. Its incredibly selfish to inflict a loved one with your own remorse, which probably has more to do with your needs than the spouse’s. Nothing good can come out of confessing an affair. It won’t make the offender whole and it won’t save the marriage. That said, I believe honesty and trust are necessary to a healthy relationship But there are exceptions in life and this is one of them. If you need to purge your demons, seek a priest or therapist to resolve them. But never drag into your psychic mess your loved one. No one wants to see the dark side of human nature. Its not what one’s partner finds attractive.
I think maybe Belladonna is assuming that the cheater really did have a change of heart, felt true remorse, experienced true repentance and wants to continue in the marriage covenant. Under those circumstances, keeping mum might well be the recommended course of action. OTOH, if there is no true repentance, ending the marriage, either with or without a confession of infidelity to the spouse might be best.
All these men blithely claiming that what their wives, whom they claim to love while they betray them in the most hurtful way a mate can betray his mate, would feel completely different were they the ones being cheated on. Cheaters of both genders always scream their outrage and pain, whether they’re actually able to feel such emotions or not, when they perceive themselves as the victims.
The few times a significant other has cheated on me, I could ALWAYS find faults in my own behavior that contributed to it. The only time I really blew my stack over it was when a girl cheated on me with one of my closest blood relatives.
And yes, in hindsight, the cheating partner generally tried several times, in their own ways, to address the shortcomings in our relationship. I know I haven’t always been the best boyfriend in terms of attentiveness or considering the needs of my partner, and I work on that EVERY DAY to be a better person…
Tossing off generalizations to support your own opinion is not helpful…
I’ve been the wife “cheated” upon. There is a wedge, a crack, a breech, that exists in the walls that was/is our marriage. After a time, we have “rebuilt” and even “fortified” but that “break” is there, will always be there and is a weaken spot.
Will our marriage fail from some other force? I don’t know for sure, I pray not.
When told, I felt both vindication, and total humiliation. Vindicated because “yes there was something, I was not being crazy.” Humiliation, that the one I trusted and loved most could not trust me, would not trust me.
Ours was not sexual, it was an emotional affair, more deadly really. You chose someone “outside” the marriage to talk to, to plan with, to hash out and invest emotionally and have “nothing” left for those at home.
Then there is the “guilt” because you know in your heart and soul that what you are doing is wrong, so you blame the “one at home” and the spiral continues.
“Cheating” isn’t always based on power or sex, it can be emotional too.
Truth will out.
Lying and deception only delay the consequences of your actions.
Sinner in Salt Lake City is a weakling. I’d actually use a stronger word, but this is a family blog. Having reached almost 70, all those years of foolishness in our 20s and 30s are in the rear view mirror now. Some of my friends committed adultery not with just one woman but with multiple women.
One guy went home and told his wife to “clear his conscience”. He hurt her and they got divorced. Another guy was (I hope) drunk and in bed at home with his girlfriend one afternoon when the wife walked in home early from work. And yes, it was exactly what it looked like.
But the adage that “If you’re going to play, you are going to pay” is true.
Shut up and lie like a trooper if your wife gets suspicious. You were the low dog that cheated and now you want a pass because your conscience bothers you?
Grow up you little wimp.
Goodness. nothing quite like shameless in the light of day…..
Gary, I sincerely hope that you worship the ground your wife walks on. B/c she loves you and all of your kids, apparently without limits. Do you have any idea what a prize, remarkable woman you are married to?
My husband had best not cheat, since he likes his liver inside his body. I don’t cheat, since his notion is that I can leave, abandoning the kids. We’ve got each others most valuable parts in hock. I don’t password protect my email, neither does he. I don’t want even suspicions attached to my character.
Having said that, he gets crushes on various cute girls at work, or starlets on television. Fine, whatever. He’s pretty sure they all have cooties, one, and two, he wouldn’t, since he likes being married with three sheltered, happy children who think he hung the moon. It can’t be too big of a crush if he’s talking about it in front of the kids. He sounds about like a friends’ parents. The dad will be macking on some girl on TV, and the wife is like “oh yeah, and then what would you do if you caught her?” and laughs. And then brings him his drink and kisses him. I thought this was really strange when I heard it. I’d never heard a secure, happy wife before.
Sinner in Salt Lake City wants to have been forgiven- not to go through the pain, discord and misery of the process of forgiveness, which may or may not come. The writer is also, apparently, a skilled liar.
Sinner might want to act as if he has already been forgiven, and then work on falling back in love with his spouse. Adrenaline, unfamiliarity and carbohydrates is a good mix. some wine wouldn’t hurt. Do something together- go walk around the town’s big park, and then eat a spaghetti dinner. Ask questions. Then, as she talks, ask follow-up questions- reflecting her last phrase. There are books about this. I can’t think of any off the top of my head-( any suggestions?) And, if you are that self- centered- what she talks about at first will be boring, hesitant, retreaded. She hasn’t been treated kindly by you in the past. She doesn’t feel sparkling, so she’s not going to bring her charming game. Stick with it. More than one dinner, more than one lunch.
Second, Sinner is a skilled liar. The spouse hasn’t a clue. He probably has other elisions, work-arounds, excuses, white lies, social graces. He might want to consider something where he would tell the truth more often. Or, learn to listen for the truth? Even little stuff- where would he like to go to lunch? How does the guy function at work? Truthfully?
Third off, to carry off an affair, Sinner had to feel entitled to this misbehavior. To what does he feel entitled? Not all entitlements are bad. He might feel entitled to be swept away by a grand passion. He might feel entitled to lots of worshipful attention. He might feel entitled to more sex. He might feel entitled to stress relief. Who knows? It’s worth asking, framed that way- to what does this man feel entitled, enough to violate the terms of one of the very few vows he’s made in his life. Seriously- we watch vows from Crusaders, and comic book avengers, and nuns and scarlett o’hara’s calorie count…..but we only make one or two in our life. What sort of entitlement makes it easy to disregard that vow?
Sinner is also in thrall to some particular bad ideas in circulation. Love conquers all, love excuses all, I couldn’t help myself, affairs are sexy, while married love is boring……who knows? it’s all on sale in hollywood, so there’s a chance the guy is just a sucker for pop-culture. He might want to consider what influences he succumbed to. Did he go looking? “Dear penthouse letters….I never thought it could happen to me……” I think it’s kind of funny, b/c what I get out of it is nearly an animist belief that the whole world is one pulsing orgasmic reality slightly covered with clothes and manners. If he keeps the attitudes, without examining them- he might think he’s enslaved to the boring woman and has heroically given up wildly satisfying sex, sacrificed any possibility of his own happiness…….it’s worth checking, to see what he thought about all of this…….
Open marriages are one thing. The partners negotiate ahead of time to treat others’ bodies like amusement park rides, like biological sex toys. It’s a form of idolatry- treating a person like a thing. It’s the sort of thing that serial killers do- treating people like things. It’s possible to do this for a while, successfully. The weakness is- what happens when the thing becomes a person? That’s the only thing that’s broken open marriages, that I’ve seen.
It’s clear that the spouse did not agree to an open marriage. The pain is realizing that she’s in love with a different man- the good man you might have been. You are experiencing, possibly, a form of jealousy: she loves another. She thinks it is you. That’s a poetic form of justice, don’t you think?
Why not fit his face onto yours, and pretend to be him? A good, honorable, decent, loyal, faithful man. at some point, the mask might become true, and your smaller, meaner, more selfish self will have crawled into a corner, to not be appreciated, or see the light of day in all his meagre dragony glory. To be unknown, as you sought to reveal yourself, you must admit, is a sort of punishment. to not be accepted just as you are,an incontinent, weak, helpless….it’s every infant’s nightmare. you’ve just dressed it up in grownup clothes.
Your wife loves another man. You could have been him, but you aren’t. That’s the burden you are trying to cast off- you’re jealous of him, the one she knows and loves…..
don’t confess, and kill the other, honorable man. Behave as if he were you. You are his doppelganger. Do him proud, Joseph Conrad tough-man proud. You’ll have the chance to grow to be honorable.
Ari, with regard to your comment about how there might be useful books out there, I don’t normally read self-help books, and others might be able to make better suggestions, but I did find a couple of the “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” books helpful. They seemed to be more based on reality than other relationship-guide books that are out there.
And I was especially impressed by a couple of your comments: number one, you are right that love does NOT conquer all. This, among many other current-day myths, is a very harmful idea, and a lot of people today don’t want to face its falseness. One bad assumption that results from it is that, if two people love each other, then everything will be fine and great and honeymoon-like throughout life. Instead, successful couples usually have to work hard at the relationship, earn trust, and actively love their mate–not just in thoughts and feelings but in actions, and not just when it feels convenient.
Number two, I like your idea, Ari, that Sinner in Salt Lake City should work hard at being the faithful person whom his wife thought she was with–that other man whom his wife actually loves. It seems like a simple idea, but seems key to me.
Ari, I loved this, and am off to my own site to try to get my friends there to talk about it.
all in all I agree that telling your spouse is unproductive. I do a lot of traveling and often think of hypotheticals as a way of passing the time.
If my wife, my partner in life for several decades, ever had an affair I would rather not know it.
Could I deal with It? Don’t know. maybe not, certainly not without raising some hell.
All in all good advice. btw I loved the earlier comment from Bigby
Wolff and agree wholeheartedly
This is an absurd notion. The idea that adultery should be kept secret is ridiculous. Here’s why:
If you are cheating on your wife (or husband) you clearly do not respect, love, nor adore them above everyone else in your life. Therein lies the intrinsic problem.
Ergo, the problem MUST be addressed. NOT to do so is cruel and unusual punishment: “I want to have my cake and eat it too, and not cause my wife ‘unnecessary emotional and mental damage’” is a poor excuse for having an affair and still having a normal marriage in which your spouse trusts you – undeservingly so.
If you commit adultery, man or woman, your spouse has a right to know because it is a clear indicator that you do not value, trust, nor want to have the type of life with your spouse that you swore to (“’til death do us part, in sickness and in health”). Note, the vows of marriage do not state “in sickness and in health, in truth and an lie”.
If my husband came clean about an affair, I would be a hell of a lot more willing to re-develop our relationship than if I found him in the act, or found out from someone else that he was cheating and lying to me.
My advice is if you are cheating on your spouse, figure out why you are not fulfilled in the relationship. Address that problem, then disclose your adultery and re-develop the bonds of trust, instead of living in sin and lie and preserving unmitigated and undeserving bonds of trust when you willingly and knowingly broke those bonds and your wedding vows.”
The psychologist and radio talk show personality, Dr. Willard F. Harley regularly talks and writes about how affairs are, indeed, incredibly destructive to marriages. He says that affairs are as addictive as drugs. An affair does not have the day-to-day reality of paying bills, doing household chores, rearing children, and seeing the mundane aspects of your spouse. Instead, the affair is secret, isolated to the highly charged and artificial atmosphere of dating, courting, and dreaming unrealistic dreams of a future together,—-and, of course, the sex is fantastic. As a result, affairs are easy to begin and hard to end, and the marriage suffers. One of his many books, His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage is excellent.
The adulterers I’ve known have arranged to be caught because they enjoyed the Sturm und drang (about them) more than the sex.
Yes, you can become…you. Reborn, almost.
Very well said, Ari…
At my age, 72, and after 32+ years of marriage, I’ve found that the safest and best plan is to never do anything you wouldn’t want your spouse to catch you doing. This has worked exceptionally well for me. Nothing I might have wanted to do was worth the hell I’d have gone through, had I gotten caught doing it. Even as a single man and having once been the ‘other’ man, I can still say that. Cheaters are not worth the trouble. If they cheat for you, they will cheat ON you.
I’ve thought about this topic for a long time. Neither telling nor not telling is a good answer. Telling for the purposes of transferring the pain of your guilt to a spouse is deeply unfair, and doubles the crime. I have also seen from both perspectives that once you confess, you are relieved and the pain goes away. But the spouse’s pain continues, perhaps indefinitely.
Not telling is also unacceptable. It creates a relationship based on a lie, and if the betrayed spouse finds out, he/she will be doubly hurt — and the lies may hurt worse than the infidelity.
Truth is, after infidelity, the marriage and general situation as it existed is over, and it’s over forever. Both partners are changed forever, too. One is a liar and the other is through no fault of his/her own a dupe. Not telling means trying to pretend the situation is what it isn’t. It’s just a lie eating away at everything.
The truth is, you need to face up to the truth, and be prepared for the consequences. The consequences mean nothing is ever the same again. I know that if both spouses engage in deep spiritual forgiving, so much that they are transformed by God, the old marriage fades away just as the “old man” fades away. There is an entirely new life, a new marriage. But it means the old selves, both of them, must die, and they are reborn.
For women who cheat, there is another, completely opposed, worldly alternative. But it works. Get two of the most beautiful women you can find and bring them to your cheated husband. Watch humbly and lovingly. Repeat as many times as you cheated. A woman who does this will find her husband in a very forgiving mood very quickly.
if this becomes standard operating procedure we would create a class of husbands encouraging their wives to have affairs. Probably not a good idea
My two cents: I agree with the column, assuming the cheater is sincere about trying to make the marriage work afterwards. My wife told me that, five years earlier, she kissed a (married) man we knew through church. She told me only because the man had left his wife for another woman (surprise) and she thought her kiss might come out. Although it was far short of a sexual affair, knowing about the kiss has made me miserable. I think about it every day, over a year after finding out. My wife has put it all behind her and has no idea it haunts me. Because I have chosen not to hurt her by letting her know how much it still hurts me. We would both have been better off if she had never told me.
A number of the commenters here blithely assume that many spouses actually would rather know than preserve their peace of mind. People like DianeCee and Beth might prefer to know, but many men and women would probably prefer their spouse repent in silence if the nature of the adultery is such that it won’t have any material impact (health, wealth, kids out of wedlock, etc.) on their household. It seems that a number of commenters here cannot grasp that there are many different psychologies out there, and many would prefer that you fulfill your need for catharsis with a priest rather than disturb their peace.
It’s easy to say that you MUST tell your spouse, but what if your spouse has the sort of personality that you can reasonably foreknow that such a confession would cause crippling emotional trauma or trigger a fit of depression that would be life-threatening? These are the nuances you are lacking because you don’t see that justice while simple in definition, is profoundly complicated in practice; it’s simply this: “giving each man his due.” Whatever is due to him in his circumstance, you owe that to him or her. It’s figuring out what they are due, which involves figuring out many complicated factors is the problem.
This is good advice, Mike T. It helps to know what the likely reaction would be. Perhaps, as you said, they’d rather you dealt with that on your own. Or perhaps if they knew, they wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with you. I think a cheater should know the answer.
This advice only works if your spouse never finds out about it.
If your spouse does ever find out about it, it’s far better to be a confession from you than from someone else. Especially if there’s a chance that someone else might use that knowledge maliciously.
When I confessed to my husband that I had bought an electronic device to relieve my frustration and that I had had the first orgasm in my life, he accused me of cheating on him with said electronic device and pouted for months about it.
Yes. Some things are probably best kept secret.
Great column and great advice, Belladonna! For obvious reasons, this topic is a hot potato, but you slammed it right out of the park.*
By the way, the rule I’ve followed in my own marriage to keep me on the straight and narrow, which is “tell the wife everything,” at first seems to contradict your advice, but I think complements it. The theory behind my rule is that telling my wife everything will keep my from ever doing anything I wouldn’t tell her about. And since I definitely wouldn’t tell her about an adultery, my rule keeps me from committing it. (Whether or not this is logical, it’s worked for 28 years.)
Anyway, I completely agree with your advice, and think your argument supporting it is very wise and convincing.
To Matt Knowles, @#35: “This is terrible advice….”
Maybe, but it’s only “terrible” in the sense in which Churchill said democracy was the worst form of government. I.e., Belladonna’s advice is the most “terrible” advice on how to handle an adultery, except for all the others. The reason is simple…there’s no unterrible way to handle adultery, other than not committing it in the first place.
____________________
* Yes, I AM mangling my metaphors here, but it’s intentional, in the weak hope that someday James Taranto will quote me in the “Metaphor Alert” section of his “Best of the Web Today”…
“…there’s no unterrible way to handle adultery, other than not committing it in the first place.”
Well said, JPL17. And that’s great that telling your wife everything works for you, although I wouldn’t advise it for everyone. For instance, a wife who tells her husband about every guy who flirts with her is not necessarily doing the husband a favor.
Dirtbag is a creep. He cheated, and could have passed an STD to his wife, and the advice he gets from a woman is to LIE???? The marriage is over. One person is honest, the other is not. One person has given their all, and the other has given it to someone else.
Probably not a good idea adding insult to injury.
I grew up in the age of Clinton and bang any chick that wishes to engage in the act.
I’ve never told my wife although I’m sure she suspects I’ve done it.
So cheating is not OK, but not to be mentioned, while LYING about cheating is OK if you get asked about it? What’s worse- the cheating, or the coverup?
Make no mistake – not telling your spouse that you cheated on them is an act of selfishness, not kindness. You just don’t want to deal with the consequences of your actions. Yes your actions can be devastating to others as well – that’s exactly what makes infidelity so destructive. But avoiding that confrontation through deceit will only fester the very emotional disconnect that led to infidelity to begin with.
Honesty is an important part of the healing process for both of you and is critical to a healthy marriage.
This is not advice that any Christian should follow. Secrets eat away at the heart and soul of a person. Always. It is not personally healthy to keep dark things and personal sins locked away in shame and fear. All good things in life are tainted by such secrets.
Instead, trust God, and trust your spouse.
Forgiveness is one of the great blessings of Holy Spirit, and those blessings flow to the forgiver as well as the forgiven. When we fail to confess our sins to those we love, we rob those we love of the opportunity to receive the blessing that comes from forgiving the undeserving, and we rob ourselves of the opportunity to receive undeserved grace from someone we love.
Forgiveness is the reason Christ lived, died, and rose again. We are supposed to strive for Christlikeness, and edify one another in that endeavor, as difficult as it may be. Infidelity provides a prime opportunity to learn first hand how painful and difficult it is to suffer and still forgive; to sin, and be forgiven.
that’s sort of the point of some of the advice: his little reptilian sinful self is being gnawed on by guilt, and he’s not going to feel relief for that. He can confess to a priest. He’ll still have an ache in his soul- a bruise- a brokenness. He’s got a “thorn in his flesh” that isn’t going to come out. He needs to function like a better man, and keep on, and become that better man, with that thorn in place. By grace, and his further loving actions, the thorn might wither. But it’s his thorn- not hers.
His wife is not Jesus Christ. There is not one reason in the world to crucify her, and expect her to rise again. Not One.
To expect that she will behave in a forgiving fashion is to have chosen to nail her to a cross, and to expect her to follow into the grave of her heart. It’s choosing for her, it’s making her into a thing without a will. For all Letter-Writer knows, she wants to be the Roman Soldier, bringing law and order into a chaotic scene. It’s asking her to be Mary, all- suffering. It is not asking her to be a Christian. It is choosing her role for her, and foreclosing any choice she would make. St Loyola (?) the founder of the Jesuits, asked the Jesuits to read each story of the Bible, and then imagine themselves in that scene. He didn’t limit them to being Jesus. He asked that they be the crowd, the soldiers, Pontius Pilate, Pilate’s wife, the apostles, the followers- each one, in turn. Insisting that his wife be only one or two of the drama’s participants is dangerous, and not- freeing.
It denies the Will of God, as well. The story of the gospel is of weak, fearful people. It is of sensible people- they ask sensible questions at the night kangaroo court, from what I’ve read. They give worldly answers, based on their own two eyes view. Then God forges them into fearless, strong, other-wordly folks who have no fear of death, torture, misery. That’s a miracle. You cannot force a miracle. God does miracles. not us.
“Should I confirm her suspicions, make a clean breast of it and apologize?”
By itself, that sentence is damn hilarious. In context it’s a bit of poetic genius.
so the women are for confessing the men lying
I’m with Belladonna. Don’t tell.
Many of the responders to this posting are apparently spouses who have not experienced this first hand. Imagining in theory how it feels to have your husband tell you that he had been unfaithful is very different from having experienced it first hand.
In my case, he brought it up 5 years after the initial event. The affair was with a friend of mine. He not only told me what happened–he (proudly) told me the sexual details. It was clear to me that he only told me about it to hurt me–not just to get it off his chest. Moreover, he has never expressed any remorse or said he was sorry.
I’ve never been so hurt in my life, and we’ve been married over 40 years.
I would never do that to him.
I wish I could go back to not knowing about it.
My prayers are with you, Anonymous2. Although I was betrayed in my marriage, which caused me great pain, I can hardly begin to know the pain that you must suffer. It might seem like hollow words now, but remember that you are loved by God, and that there are others out there who will appreciate you for who you are.
I wish I could poop gold bars !
There’s nothing the least bit compassionate about trying to hide an affair. The relationship is over the moment the affair happens anyway. By keeping it secret, you’re just selfishly trying to trick someone into staying with you. The example of the 99 year old man is an argument FOR confessing. It would have been far better if he had known what she was 70+ years ago. He would have then had plenty of time to find someone better. Instead, she made him waste his whole life on her. That’s pretty sick. It’s heartless to recommend that even more lives are destroyed in a similar fashion.
It seems like the author here has never experienced infidelity.
More often than not, the truth with out itself. Better the spouse learn from the cheater than ANYONE else. Assuming you can get away with it, only makes it more likely that you’ll do it again.
“Adultery Is Bad. Telling Your Spouse Is Worse.”
Telling the truth is WORSE than cheating on your spouse?
I think not.
But, at least you got the first part right.
My wife had affairs with three men over the course of our marriage. I didn’t find out about it until the third when it was so obvious that she couldn’t hide it.
As part of working through our issues after that, she said that she never told me about the past affairs because she “cut those off on her own and didn’t want to hurt me.” Well of course it hurt like hell and I was miserable. But in retrospect, I absolutely wanted and needed to know because:
1) not confessing to the affairs (and dealing openly and honestly with all of the issues that led to them) allowed her to compartmentalize and justify them and only led to more affairs
2) the other men were mutual friends. How do you like the idea of going to dinner with friends and your wife having secrets with the guy across the table that you don’t know about? How does that affect how other people respect you – the blissfully ignorant guy?
3) cheaters have a tendency to “gaslight” their spouse and deflect suspicion by making them think they’re the ones with the problem. That’s straight-up emotional abuse.
In the end, I was miserable and was faced with a difficult decision to stay or leave. But at least it was MY decision and not the one of the cheater who felt like they could select what information I can and cannot deal with.
Your spouse has the right to know who they married. And you should not confuse “blissful ignorance” with a “happy marriage.”. Dishonesty in marriage always leads to unhappiness at some point.
True, JohnD, for the reasons you stated. I think women would prefer not to know and men would prefer to know. I too need access to correct information to make proper decisions. Well said.
“[N]ot confessing to the affairs (and dealing openly and honestly with all of the issues that led to them) allowed her to compartmentalize and justify them and only led to more affairs.”
Belladonna, what about this key point?
“…you’ll be hurting the one person you love more than anyone else in the world.” The person the adulterer loves more than anyone else is him/herself, ergo the adultery. I’ve been in temptation’s shadow before, and succeeded completely in avoiding any problem. I also told my wife about this. We’re fine, she’s fine and trusts me more than ever. I trust myself far more, too.
2.) Children react in one of two ways: they repeat the actions, or the bad behavior repels them from ever making the same error. So this isn’t necessarily a point either way.
The only folks who should take this advice are those who wish to live lies. And then they should only tell their spouses not to tell them if they have affairs (and good luck with that). However, you should honor your spouse’s request–if they say to tell them, you insult them by thinking you know what’s best for them otherwise. If you knew what was best for them, really, you’d avoid ever having an affair. Once you’ve done it, put away the farce of protecting them. There are countless good men and women who could treat your spouse better than an adulterer–give them the opportunity to go find one, if you really love them more than anyone else. Or, if you’re lucky, you’ll be taken back and can work to improve yourself.
Yes it will be painful, but the Italian couple’s story only highlights the depth of pain and betrayal when one is found out later; it is not a reason to not tell. Had the woman fessed up way back when, maybe they could’ve healed their marriage then. Or, he could’ve had his heart broken and moved on and maybe found another woman who would treat him right. In any case, at the end of his life, he would not be in the situation of viewing his entire life as a lie. *That* is the cruel mine laid by secrecy.
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. Sin will always catch up to you, and cover-ups always compound the original offense.
I know two men and one woman who’ve confessed. BR is right, lives of absolute misery including those of the children promptly followed. The thing I thought at the time when I witnessed each confession and the results was that it seemed like a combination of stupidity and weakness. Mainly weakness. Each shtupper felt terrible and couldn’t get rid of the feeling. Desperation to stop feeling bad combined with righteousness made them think that confession would work. I thought it was dumb (of course it wouldn’t work), selfish (it was their feelings they were worried about more than anyone else’s), destructive (misery abounded) and lazy (what’s wrong with being responsible for your own feelings?). It was terrible. One particular guy was a saint, well almost a saint who’d help anyone in need. After the confession didn’t work he handed over all his money and of course died penniless and lost.
Reading Belladonna Rogers article was like fresh air and a big reminder for me that what I concluded at the time was that there are mysteries and uncertainties about what to do in life where you’ve got to use your brain. And I think, in the words of Larry Williams, God wants it that way.
My experience as a psychiatrist supports the column’s position overall. Best of course not to commit adultery in the first place. Exceptions to not confessing should include having a child as a result of the affair or getting an STD. You wouldn’t want new onset herpes to be your spouse’s first clue that something was wrong in the marriage.
Adultery sucks in every single way possible. It’s a cancer that eats away at the heart of a marriage and destroys everything and everyone it touches – regardless of whether one admits it or not. So whether you’re lying to your spouse or not, you’re still destroying your marriage, your life, and your future.
Part of being a grown-up is taking responsibility for your actions, even when they hurt you and those you love.
A lie of omission is still a lie, and I could never agree with perpetuating a lie. How can a person say they love their spouse and then hide something of that magnitude? You would have to be some type of control freak to do that, as well as a person with a lack of character, integrity, honesty, and conscience. Would it hurt your spouse to know? Absolutely, but they should be allowed to know the facts so they can make decisions of their own. You state that it would hurt the trust in the marriage, but the cheater has already done that, and to perpetuate the lie is to breach the trust every single day. It is thoughts like you have entered that are the cause of much of society’s problems today – inappropriate actions without consequences! Parents, schools, and our Judicial system regularly do not hold violators accountable for their actions. Look at the OWS and Eric Holder for prime examples. There are never reasons to cheat; there are only inexcusable “excuses” for doing so. If you cheat, face up to it. You might win, or you might lose, but at least you are both on a level playing field, which is the way partnerships are supposed to be anyway. Keeping quiet is little more than an act of cowardice. And, as for hurting your spouse, that should have been at the forefront of your thinking BEFORE you climbed into bed with someone else! Had it been, this article would have been unnecessary.
I left my first husband early in our marriage, when I discovered he was having an affair. It was a devastating breach of trust and shattering to me personally. I’m now married to a wonderful and hard-working man whom I love dearly, and who in every way demonstrates commitment to me. It is a very good marriage that gives me happiness and stability in life.
If he were ever to stumble and have an affair, I would not want to know as I simply don’t think I could go through such a betrayal again, and live with the instability and carnage it brings. I would rather he repent and deal with it privately with his confessor, and as penance keep on loving me the way he does. Does this make we weak? Or is it a strength to acknowledge my own fragility? I trust my husband, and I want what we have to endure. And I believe that with the grace of God, it can.
I think confessing to an affair is the passive agressive way of ending a relationship without having the guts to actually do it yourself. in short, it smacks of cowardice.
If you are truly sorry, and want and need to maintain a relationship, than go tell your priest, not your spouse. And if you have non adult children, you might want to consider their interests first, before you tell your spouse something that has the potential to destroy their security and happiness. Marriage has a lot of collateral beneficiaries and potential victims. Confessing to an affair in order to make yourself feel better CAN be a sign of extreme narcissism.
For all of you Christians who think that confession is the only right thing to do, I suggest that you take up self flaggelation, rather than beating up on your spouse and children, literally or figuratively.
Isab,
Generalizing is of course fraught with peril, but I find myself very much in agreement with you on this. It seems from my observations and experience that very often a spouse will use infidelity as leverage to get the other person to do the heavy lifting of initiating a divorce. If this is *truly* not the case, and the affair has somehow managed to be an epiphany experience, clarifying once and for all whom one really does love, and therefore wants to build a solid life together with, then I strongly believe the best course of action is silence.
Creating the real deal, a love that never fails, is an act of will. The guy in the letter now has a chance to step up to the plate and embody that love to this person he claims to love. Who knows, it might even make a man out of him.
“Confessing to an affair in order to make yourself feel better CAN be a sign of extreme narcissism.”
I see your point, and that of many other commenters, and Ms. Rogers. But your understanding of marriage, truth, law, and civilization is so out of whack, I think I’m beginning to fully understand the problems of our age.
For a marriage and family to be healthy (and a society and civilization), truth must live. Not every variety of thought, or mood or passion need come out and be spoken. But actions, and actions of critical import, need to daylight. This doesn’t apply just to adultery, but to all issues in a marriage.
You confess adultery to maintain the truth, honor, and dignity of the marriage. It is not the jilted spouse’s perception of honor and dignity that preserves the goodness of the marriage – but the actual honor and dignity of it. That honor and dignity was spoiled in the act of adultery. It must be dealt with.
If kids are important, then the jilted spouse needs to deal as deals the husband. If that means no sex for awhile, or ‘time off at mother’s’ or what-have-you, then so be it. If it leads to divorce, then so be it. The mistake was the act of adultery.
This argument fits perfectly in favor of abortion-on-demand. As Obama said, “Why should my daughter be punished with a baby?”
Ms. Roger’s key argument is that one bad thing shouldn’t be compounded into two bad things (the act, and then the confessing of it) to make a bad situation worse.
But the threat of that worse situation, the respect for why adultery is bad in the first place, that’s what makes marriage a viable emotional and legal institution at all.
I suspect some of the commenters here are guilty of adultery, else why feel the need to justify their silence?
Statistically, 22% of men and 14% of women, married, have committed adultery. 50% of men are estimated to be unfaithful in a relationship at some point. Half of kids today are born out of wedlock (not necessarily of infidelity).
I know very few people under the age of 25 – in the military, in the south, in the north, at university, working, that do not view dating as primarily a means to have sex. Some of the women want to be in a sustained sexual relationship – but their primary interest is sex, as intellectual or emotional or recreational pursuits fail to enchant them after no more than one or two dates.
If this is the case, what is marriage anyway? As Mr. Instapundit likes to point out, oftentimes it seems like marriage is just a way for hypergamous women to screw over polygamous men. So do we get rid of it in favor of a more equal and balanced institution? What would that be, a generic and mostly passive child support law?
Either these things matter or they don’t.
At some point America started making all these moral compromises for the sake of pragmatism. In some instances, it was helpful: adjusting to new lifestyles in the Industrial age. In other instances, it was morally beneficial: accepting new cultures and races.
Overall, however, it has been our downfall. Rather than adjust and adopt more deeply considered mores, we’ve accepted the rule of pragmatism.
It’s destroying our marriages, and our country.
It’s not idealism that will save us, but a commitment to law and truth. You can change the law in light of truth, but without law, there is no truth or honor.
Like all our other institutions, marriage is a crumbling edifice that we pay homage to only in a vain effort to prolong the demise of the status quo. We’re not ‘in the game’ so-to-speak. So we just maintain appearances.
As with marriage, as with the financial system, as with foreign policy, as with the political system, as with the popular culture. Maintaining appearances, abandoning truth, hoping the waves of radical change and reckoning land in someone else’s backyard, and that when the storm is over nobody will mind if we indulge every last one of our inhibitions.
You committed adultery, your marriage is over. Maybe, it can be saved. It depends on who you are and who your spouse is and what your marriage is like.
It is narcissistic to live a lie with your kids as moral hostages, doing it for ‘their sake’. ‘They’ need parents who abide in truth and honor, despite mistakes. ‘They’ may be hurt be a divorce, but if they learn that the divorce happened for a reason, because there were rules, and these were broken, then they might have a chance.
Truth is the most precious valuable we have. Don’t give it up so easily.
Thank you for your well presented position on the value inherent in being honest.
Being honest means telling others how you feel. Others then get to have their own reaction to your point of view. Trying to decide how others should feel, or deciding that it is best to keep something from them, because one adjudges/projects that the other will not be able to handle the truth appropriately, is arrogant and patronizing to the extreme. When the relationship is supposed to be based on mutual trust, failing to tell the truth in order to protect one’s owns interests is the most devastating betrayalof all.
“I cannot bear the guilt of disappointing others” is how I heard it expressed by someone who told others different versions of the “truth” according to what she thought would please/validate the particular other.
Protecting one’s self with lies is selfish.
The thought of ever being touched again by a man who had given his body to someone else while being married to me makes my skin crawl, and I see no truth, honor, or dignity in that. Nor do I see any truth, honor, or dignity in subjecting under-age children, who need of the kind of nurturing that only a two-parent home can provide, to the near-inevitable divorce that would ensue in this scenario. For many people, not all matters of the heart are equally susceptible to time and/or counseling.
The discussion shows there’s no good way of handling it. Psychologists usually say don’t tell, but make the internal change you need to make. Figure out your decision-making that led up to it. Where did you go wrong? For how long did you make those bad decisions prior? Why? What does that say about your character? What’s gonna change now? How are you going to change?
Unless you’re willing to be painfully honest about all those questions, there’s no point.
My experience is that it’s rarely one bad decision. Understanding the thought process that led up to it, and taking a good hard look at yourself, is the minimum. Otherwise, you’re just kidding yourself.
see- that’s part of what I’m assuming. The guy is married to a terrific person. He’s still with her, and conscious of his choice to remain with her. He’s working to become a better man.
I’m advising that he listen to her. If the man is toxicly self-centered- this is really, really hard to do. Hard enough that he needs coaching. I’ve sat there with people like that where they are having a conversation, and literally every sentence they look to me, to guess what to say or ask. A good conversation is a skill. You’ve seen bad interviews on TV. The ones on TV- they had to learn to even get to that level
And she’s been injured by his contempt. You have to admit, people in hospital are not sparkling conversationalists. Same difference. Contempt is murderously toxic to the soul. It’ll be possibly unpleasant work of unknown duration.
This man believes some very nonsensical thoughts. He knows he can’t trust his own sense of judgment right now. And judgment is a mark of a man, not a child. He can’t be enjoying shaving himself in the morning- he’s contemplating a kid playing dress-up.
And- he broke a vow. Knights, kings, crusaders, nobles, priests, monks- estimable men of the world- make vows. Guess who doesn’t? Peasants. Peasants do not make vows. Another word for Peasant is Villain. Because peasants aren’t bound by honor, they are despised as near beasts of the field. They have no honor to aspire to, in the first place. How would you like to feel like you are a no-account peasant. You have to admit- they look heinous in Monty Python sketches. How would you like to know that you freely chose to quit your honorable estate and become a nothing?
The sorts of people who do this tend to have self-control issues in all sorts of ways- over-eating, over-drinking, can’t drive right, bad taste in business associates. I’m giving this advice on the theory that he needs to self-sacrificially preserve his wife’s market value. A woman who has been cheated on- the next guy along thinks he can mistreat her, too. A woman who is cosseted, the center of her husband’s attention, well- respected, cherished physically- that woman is marriageable again to a terrific guy. I’m not thinking divorce- I’m thinking heart attack, car crash, stroke…. it seems like all the adulterers I’ve known had humiliating ends, even if their wives forgave them later.
so, it’s a lot less about him, and a lot more about her. not telling, and changing anyway, is hard advice. he’s got to grow a spine to go through with the advice in the first place.
also- people who have been cheated on tend to have suspicious habits that irritate honorable other people. My spouse had three trashy girlfriends prior to me. I got interrogated, slimed, treated rudely, distrusted, b/c he thought “all girls’ were like this. Nuuuu….I broke up with him, and he had to find me, persuade all my friends that he was sincerely interested in being a good guy- three separate harsh interviews, before he could even explain himself to me. It’s why I don’t have an email lock, or get the mail before he’s home. He needs reassurance, and I have nothing to hide. If he wasn’t the man I wanted to have kids with, I’d've ditched him cold. Not his fault: three bad women nearly stopped my kids from existing.
As someone who has been cheated on, I can vouch for the fact that victims do, in fact, struggle with suspicion. However, that originates NOT with an affair coming to full light, but with the behavior of the spouse in the midst of a affair who constantly covers their own tracks with lies and subterfuge.
Lies create suspiction. Truth creates pain, but for me that was actually a relief in a way because it proved my suspicions were totally valid and I wasn’t just being “jealous” or “controlling” like my gaslighting spouse would have me believe.
Telling a suspicious spouse “no, it’s just you” in order to “save” them from the truth is doing them no favor. Struggling with the unknown was, for me, 10x more difficult than hearing the full truth and being in the position to tackle the problem head-on with no more games.
This is a very difficult issue. Typically, my personal values (honesty, integrity, accountability) would push me to the side of confession. But your column is insightful. As I reflect on my own experience, my final vote is with you: don’t say anything.
I have been married twice (still married to my second husband of 22 years). During each marriage we had rocky times – times during which I made life miserable for my husband and created great distance between us – including physical separation in one instance. It’s quite probable that each husband could have sought comfort with another woman.
In each case I am very grateful that I don’t know. I never asked and I never will. One marriage ended in divorce (although we are warm friends now); the second marriage is doing well – we both learned how to love each other and how to be loved so the temptation to seek love elsewhere has disappeared.
I can’t imagine how i would benefit in any way from knowing whether there was physical consummation or not – it’s better to take the lesson from allowing a relationship to deteriorate to that possibility than to actually know.
I think you are very wise.
You shouldn’t WANNA marry your adultery partner; not if you expect a monogamous union. Those who will cheat WITH you will cheat ON you. Newt is the perfect serial multiple example of this rule.
And as far as confessing your infidelity to your spouse causing your spouse to lose trust in you – well you DID betray your spouse; that IS, after all, what you are considering confessing. Truth be told, your actions conclusively demonstrate that you don’t DESERVE your spouse’s trust. But your spouse deserve the pain and anguish such a confession would cause even less.
I’m a barber. Occasionally married clients show me photos of their lover(nude).
Funny thing, in all the years, no one, and I mean no one, has shown me a picture of their wife(nude)…
I know that means something…
Some of us believe the only valid grounds for divorce is infidelity. If a person’s spouse is unfaithful, then the wronged spouse has the right to a divorce and then to a faithful spouse. Not informing the wronged spouse deprives the innocent person of the right to a faithful and true spouse. Isn’t it something how unfaithful people are able to rationalize their horrible dishonesty and pat themselves on their backs for not telling the truth?
I’m sorry, but the cheated-on spouse bears some burden here.
Just like the woman who marries a constantly out-of-work loser or the man who desperately wants children, yet marries someone who has stated that she has no desire for them (and yes, I’m friends with both those people)…your potential mate’s flaws are usually quite apparent to someone who has the wisdom to look past infatuation and see them.
A woman who keeps a clear head about a potential husband will, in most cases, easily see the warning signs of a cheater, or even worse, an abuser. The two biggest favors she can do for herself are to clear her head of initial infatuation, and avoid engaging in premarital sex (which creates an attachment difficult to break on both sides).
I had an affair and did not confess. The affair woke me up to the fact that the marriage had been over for some time. I was there out of habit, convenience, not love, partnership or an emotional bond. I need to feel connected to another person in an emotional and physical way. Therefore, the affair. I ended the affair and the marriage.
Two practical reasons why adulterers should confess:
1. The truth will come out someday. No one is smart enough to cover their tracks that well. Not with modern technology. Cell phone calls, emails, texts, hotel stays, restaurant meals all leave “audit trails”. Some one is bound to find out someday and you don’t want your spouse to find out from someone else.
2. When the adulterer confesses, he or she gives gives up a piece of themselves and yields some power in the marriage to the spouse. When a husband confesses to the wife, she now knows that he can no longer withhold affection from her as he did before because he squandered it on another. This gives her some power over him. Likewise the cheating wife can’t easily say she is too tired to meet her husbands sexual needs because in the past she had plenty of energy to sleep with her illicit lover. The cheater who refuses to confess is really being selfish because they don’t want to pay the price of their sin. By confessing, the cheater gives the spouse the privelege of being the forgiver.