Sometimes I hear from 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 deception out into the open so they could heal and move on. Unfortunately, many remember this revelation with regret because it has made things so much worse and 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 one-time mistake that I would never repeat. 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 this 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 almost 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 happy pages. We stayed married and I would have felt guilty but my husband would have remained blissfully unaware and then I had to go and open my mouth. I know there’s no going back now, but is there anything you can do to fix it when you regret telling your spouse you cheated on them?”
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, this admission is there forever. That said, you can make the best of the situation and use the 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 doesn’t mean it was a wrong decision: Like the wife in this situation, most people regret revealing the infidelity 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 over with them or the marriage, or at least may feel that way at the time.
However, your pity and regret for 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 any better? This lie would always be between you. And you would continue to feel guilty. Living under this kind 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’re giving up. This is especially true when it seems like your spouse will never forgive you and you can’t even look at yourself in the mirror. But as best you can, 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 wishes.
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 eventually we saved our marriage.
Making the best of an unfortunate situation: I know you may feel like your hands are tied right now, but 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, each time 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 her wife’s integrity and patience, and how 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 yet, 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.