I sometimes hear of people who were really trying to do the right and honorable thing when they told their spouse that they cheated on them. They usually felt very guilty, didn’t want the lie to hang between them and their spouse, and cared enough about their marriage to bring the deceit to light so they could heal and move on. Unfortunately, many look back on this revelation with regret because it has made things so much worse, and because they cannot take it back.
I recently heard from a wife who said, “I cheated on my husband with one of his friends. I’m so sorry I did that and I made a unique mistake that I would never do again. There was alcohol involved, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse.” It was my mistake and I struggled to know if I should admit it. I didn’t want to lie to my husband or have something that big between us. At the same time, my husband had always made it clear that cheating was not something he would tolerate. He broke up with the girl The one he was dating before me because she cheated on him so I knew how he was going to react. Cheating is bad enough but cheating with his friend was going to be inexcusable. Still, the guilt was nearly killing me so I kept going. Go ahead and clarify. I’m sorry because at this point, my husband says our marriage is over. He says he can’t look at me without thinking about what I did. The sad thing is, before I told my husband about the cheating, we were reasonably We would have stayed married and I would have felt guilty, but my husband would have happily remained unconscious and then I had to go and open my big mouth. I know there’s no going back now, but is there anything you can do to make it right when you regret telling your spouse you cheated?”
The wife in this scenario was right. There was no going back. It’s unrealistic to expect your spouse to forget about the cheating or pretend you never told them. Once you admit to cheating, that admission is there forever. With that said, you can make the best of the situation and use time to your advantage. And frankly, while confessing to cheating may seem like the wrong thing to do right now, it’s something you may never know for sure.
Even if you regret admitting to cheating, your regret does not mean that it was the wrong decision: Like the wife in this situation, most people regret disclosing the affair when the response to it is worse than they expected. So it’s not that they necessarily regret doing the right thing. What they regret is that their spouse may well be done with them or with the marriage, or at least may feel that way at the moment.
However, your grief and regret over his reaction does not negate that you know that being honest is the right thing to do. And if you could turn back time and undo your confession, who knows if things would have turned out better? This lie would always be between you. And you would continue to feel guilty. Living under this type of stress may also have negatively affected your marriage. So often there is no perfect result.
Dealing with the consequences of your confession as best you can: I know it can be very tempting right now to throw up your hands and proclaim that you give up. This is especially true when it seems like your spouse is never going to forgive you and you can’t even look in the mirror. But to the best of your ability, give yourself credit for trying to do the right thing. Someone who didn’t care as much about right or wrong as you do or who didn’t care about getting their marriage on the right track would have kept quiet and continued to lie. But you did not. This says something about you. Eventually, your spouse may come to realize this as well. He understands that his reaction and feelings today may turn into something different (and more positive) tomorrow. They may just need some time to process this and assess their feelings and desires.
When my husband first told me all about his affair, my initial reaction was explosive anger. He couldn’t even bear to be in his presence. But eventually, I came to appreciate that he told me absolutely everything without being forced to and we eventually saved our marriage.
Making the best of an unfortunate situation: I know it may feel like your hands are tied right now, but please understand that your situation may change. So try to handle this with as much integrity and grace as you can muster. In this wife’s situation, she could simply offer her husband some time, and then whenever he expresses her outrage at the affair, she could tell him that she understands her feelings and that she will support him. with what she needs. Now, she may not jump on this right away. She probably needs some time. But, in the future, he will remember the integrity and patience of her wife, and the way she did the right thing instead of just hiding the truth, even though it may well have benefited her to do so. And the wife will always know that she did the right thing instead of the easy and deceitful thing.
I have to tell you that many cheated spouses who contact me on my blog indicate that they might have reacted more favorably to the affair if the cheating spouse had come clean. Sometimes when you have to find out about the affair from someone else (or worse, the person who has been cheating on you with your spouse), your reaction is much worse than when your spouse had the decency to tell you.
