Hi Hopeful2,

     I saw your post and felt compelled to answer.

  I was similar in thought to your husband. I told my wife many times that i'd divorce her if she ever cheated. In reality this was a fear based statement and what i was really doing was trying to set a strong boundry. When she came to me last summer and confessed her affair, i/we realized the fragility of our marriage and it shocked both of us into major changes. Instead of a divorce, we are into a complete new standard of living as a married couple and have a more positive future in front of us than we had before the affair. It's VERY hard at times but were going to make it.

  I wouldn't discount your husbands ability to forgive you and to move on. It sounds as if he loves you very much and could have the depth to love you even more in the wake of difficulty. In all fairness to your husband, the sooner he should have found out about this event, the better. Your going to have to confess to move forward in your marriage, when you do, prepare for months and years of surfacing pain that will be shared between the two of you. Counseling is a must, as is drawing closer to God. This will be incredibly difficult to deal with but dealing with it honestly and completely can finally remove the guilt your living with now. Prayers are sent for you and your husband...

                                                                                     J.R.

Hello,

I have been married for 38 years. I am one that had a affair after 5 years of marriage and never told my husband. I kept inside my guilt and shame. After the affair was over I got stronger in the Lord yet our marriage went through a lot or trials over the years. In 2005(34 years married) I left my husband because of emotional and verbal abuse he was doing to me. I didn't realize I was "letting" him treat me this way. That I could of done something to stop it. That my childhood molestations and other things that happened in childhood started my learned fears and behaviors. We started counseling with a Christian counseler and I returned to my husband 8 months after I left. I and we were in counseling for 1 year. Now 4 years later our marriage is stronger then it ever has been. Though I never did tell him about the affair, I beleive that if I would have and if we would of then went to a good Christian Counselor that we may have avoided a lot of pain in the next 30 years of our marriage. Our Lord is a forgiving God and He will be with you whatever you decide to do. His Grace and Mercy endures forever.

Hello Hopeful2,

It doesn't affect my marriage now because of the counseling I had that helped me, yet as I said "Though I never did tell him about the affair, I believe that if I would have and if we would of then went to a good Christian Counselor that we may have avoided a lot of pain in the next 30 years of our marriage. So saying that, If you choose not to tell him, I believe as RH08 said you need to seek Godly counsel to work through your issues and understand how you fell and what, in your heart, in your marriage; or in your husband led you to contemplate, and commit this sin. You will be different then I was if you seek to understand and get counsel, because I did not. I did not know the Lords forgiveness and grace. I will be praying for you as you go through this time. Blessings to you.

hopeful2,

I, too, have stated that infidelity is a deal breaker, in large part because my husband cheated on me once prior to our marriage, and like a previous post metioned, in an attempt to establish boundaries.  While I was shocked the first time it happened, I already knew on some level that something had happened.  I had just discounted the feeling.  In retrospect, the unspoken lie led to a lot of tension in our relationship - and a lot of inauthenticity.  And it didn't matter that two years had elapsed.  When I found out, it felt like it was happening right then and there, and it made me doubt all that had happened since.  I also felt angry and manipulated because I might have reconsidered whether this was a good relationship for me.  I felt that was my right to know, and as strange as it sounds, if I chose to love my husband, I wanted to love him for who he really was, and not a projection of who he wanted me to think he was..  I guess what you need to ask yourself is this:

1. Why aren't you telling him?

2. Are you CERTAIN that he won't find out some other way?

3. Are you willing to live with the impact that it will have on your intimacy?

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I believe if you are truly sorry and know that God has forgiven you, put all that you have to develop your relationship with God.  You never want to do this again.  Understand that before you hurt your husband, you hurt GOD. He can make you whole, find out why you fell to begin with, maybe your relationship with God was not what you thought.  My husband told me of his affair, i wish he never did.  His pain of what he did was released when he told me, but now the pain is with me.  God has healed my heart, but this is something the devil uses to hit me with.  The devil drops things into my mind all the time during our intimate times.  My husband is fine, he has grown so much, i love him and trust him because i trust God wont let him hurt me again.  But, i would rather he never told me, i wish he could have just changed his life from that point.  But i guess he needed me to know in order for him to feel free to start his new life with God.  God worked it out though, he always does.  But all in all i wish he had never told me, sometimes i wonder if he compares me to her or i compare myself to her even though i dont know her. The pictures of him with another woman that come into my mind, i wish were never there.  God bless you.