| | should you confess to an affairPage 1 of 3 (1, 2, 3) | what would you do?
an article from the Canberra times June 24...
Honesty after an extra-marital affair is not always the best policy and neither is confessing to ease a guilty conscience, clinical psychologist Bruce Stevens has said ahead of a national conference on mental health and relationships.
In his 20 years of experience, Dr Stevens said only about 50 per cent of couples who entered counselling after an affair managed to salvage their relationship.
''Anecdotally, that is what I have seen, but in some cases working through all the issues afterwards can make a relationship stronger,'' he said.
''After an affair is found out, it's like a bomb has been dropped on the relationship and you cannot predict how it will go.
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''I don't naively suggest using truth and honesty at all costs - especially is you are trying to repair the relationship.''
Dr Stevens, who is an associate professor at the University of Canberra, will present a talk at the Australian Psychological Society's clinical psychology conference in Sydney this week. He is also the author of a book for clinical psychologists on couple counselling, called Happy ever after?
''We know that disclosing an affair will be pretty explosive but you can't guarantee you will be able to manage the consequences - it's very risky,'' Dr Stevens said.
''I think a lot of people disclose it to get it off their conscience and that is not a good reason.
''The problem is that you are practically playing Russian roulette with at least three bullets in six chambers.
''But if they do get through it and say, 'OK I'm married to a flawed person' and take some responsibility for the emotional poverty of the relationship, they can work on building a relationship which is based on reality and building a life together.''
Dr Stevens said affairs were usually a sign of desperation that started with a honeymoon period that didn't last.
''It's a period of un-reality,'' he said.
''It's like a fairyland because it is protected against seeing your partner in hair rollers and things like that. They are always dressed to go out and in that head space. And if somebody goes into an affair then someone gets hurt and it's hard to pick up the pieces.'' | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 1:06:12 AM | Tough choice...My first thought was NO!!! Work on the relationship to make it better and suffer the guilt in silence. However if caught out telling the absolute truth so that the partner has all the information they need to make an informed decision is the only fair thing to do. ..
Best thing is not to fool around in the first place. It never happens by accident. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 1:20:58 AM |
what would you do?
I would not have an affair. Problem solved.
I think if someone has an affair it is because they don't see the relationship they're in as fulfilling (and they're too selfish to end it before starting the next one). That they failed to leave it before moving on doesn't mean they should assuage their own guilt and shatter the other person's self-esteem by confessing. The right thing to do would be to simply move on without so much as mentioning it.
Oh, you could say they really want to make it work anyway... it was just a momentary lapse... Tough! They stuffed up, so they need to take responsibility and leave doing as little damage to the other person as possible. Better for the other person to be left by someone they trusted than to never be able to trust again.
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 2:34:24 AM | | Should you confess to an affair?....Personally I think your partner has a right to know you are a lying sh1tbag,tell all your friends, take all your stuff and leave you snivelling in the gutter in just your undies. So thats probably a yes from me! :-) | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 2:41:15 AM | hilly02 wrote:
Should you confess to an affair?....Personally I think your partner has a right to know you are a lying sh1tbag,tell all your friends, take all your stuff and leave you snivelling in the gutter in just your undies. So thats probably a yes from me! :-)
So would you still stand by this if the perpatrator was a female? Your assumption was based on gender bias.
Thank me later for challenging your thought process hilly :) | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 2:46:09 AM | | You challenge absolutely nothing in me. There was no mention of male or female in my post so the assumption was all yours. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 2:50:41 AM | | Ah huh Hilly....yes. You would leave a female friend of yours snivelling in the gutter in just her undies because she cheated on her boyfriend? And you expect us to believe this ? Where is the sisterhood babydoll? lol | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 5:24:56 AM |
Should you confess to an affair?....Personally I think your partner has a right to know you are a lying sh1tbag,tell all your friends, take all your stuff and leave you snivelling in the gutter in just your undies. So thats probably a yes from me! :-)
^^^^^^^^^^^
Hilly , you have just received my nomination for " Bestest Ever Summation & Evaluation Possible "
(And yep I's also agrees no gender bias there , lying sh1tbags are gender neutral :) ) | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 7:05:05 AM | I know a lot or rich businessmen who go on business trips and have an affair. Should they tell their wives, absolutely not. They could have been married 15 years, did it for one of many reasons from wanting to feel desirable by a younger woman, something new and different, etc, etc. They love their wife and have kids and things are good at home. They are smart enough not to mention it to anyone. Mature enough not to tell their best friend either.
If a man or woman was having an outside relationship outside the marriage which I think is different from an one night stand then that should be discussed and decisions on the marital relationship should be worked on. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/26/2012 6:52:15 PM | extra-marital affair ...............
your relationship is done, its over.............my X wife did, & she left home, as she new i had found out.
she new that i would bad her bags, & close the door behind her..
if your marrage is not working, leave.......get out.......if you find yourself looking at the other sex just way too much, you have a problem...........
play up, your gone, its over............a good friend of mine husband had an affair, turned out he had it with another guy..
she got hempC...................a one night stand, or something like that,
is it really worth it????
i dont think so | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/27/2012 1:10:18 AM | Ah huh Hilly....yes. You would leave a female friend of yours snivelling in the gutter in just her undies because she cheated on her boyfriend? And you expect us to believe this ? Where is the sisterhood babydoll? lol
I cant answer for my good friend Hilly.....but yes I would happily kick a girlfriend to the kerb if she cheated on her bloke...sans her undies !!! Screw the sisterhood...your obviously out of loop if you think the sisterhood exists when it comes to moral issues like this. No decent person condones a cheater no matter what sex they are....but heres the difference, before I would kick one to the kerb, I would at least try and find out why they thought that cheating was the best and only option/solution to their problem....and listen to them......because thats what people/friends do...sisterhood..pftt
Çheating is cheating..both sexes do it...and in my humble opinion there is no justification whatsover.......if your unhappy then have the decency, dignity not to mention the balls to end the relationship that is making you unhappy before taking up with another...or heres a thought .....spent a bit of time by yourself and do a little inward reflecting..could be that YOU (the cheater) are the actual problem , chasing the Nirvana dream when in fact happiness starts within ones self...or another alternative...work on the relationship...instead of looking for the easy way out..just a thought
Affairs are a choice...if you screw around (irrespective of whether you are a man or a woman ) be prepared for the consequences and be man/woman enough to accept them when it all comes a tumbling down.
and Hilly......having the pleasure of knowing you offline...your not a baby doll.....Your just one HOT BABE !!!! mmmwhaa | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/27/2012 1:10:45 AM | Hilly , you have just received my nomination for " Bestest Ever Summation & Evaluation Possible "
Is this like an Oscar or something?...will I need to get a speech ready Fox? :-)
At the end of the day, I reckon everyone has the basic right to know what they are involved in and to be able to make an informed choice about their actions and decisions. Lies are lies and trust in a partner is everything.
and Hilly......having the pleasure of knowing you offline...your not a baby doll.....Your just one HOT BABE !!!!
It can't be denied lol... | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/27/2012 5:45:25 AM | | Yeah I reckon being a grown up and being honest enough with yourself and everyone else so that you're only committed to one person at a time is the healthiest option. And I dont believe its healthy to think you can have an affair without losing something, even if its your own self respect, but... there is no point making your spouse suffer by telling the truth just to offload some guilt. It would be nice to think that absolute openness was possible though otherwise intimacy suffers. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/27/2012 11:43:54 AM | So the question simply put is -
"Is it better (FOR A RELATIONSHIP) to tell your unsuspecting spouse that you have cheated on them?"
In a loud Samuel Jackson type voice [l]HEEEYELLL NO![l]
Why should you shed some of your guilt by making your spouse miserable. Either leave so that they can get on with their life (intense but short term pain for them) ... or appreciate that you, a coniving manipulating dishonest scumbag will probably never deserve someone so true and spend the rest of your life making their's heaven on earth.
From what I have observed, "confession" is not "for the sake of the relationship" but just old fashioned bragging anyway.
"We've got to work on our relationship." usually means, "You've got to work on what you think is our relationship (as if ...) while I continue to be a scumbag having successfully shifted the blame onto you." | |
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Msg: 15 | |
| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/27/2012 5:06:33 PM | If I was stupid enough to have an affair I would confess.
if you have an affair that shows disrespect your partner, fess up I say! | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/28/2012 10:55:07 AM | | hmm I have a running joke that should Nigella Lawson happen to fancy my partner then as long as I am in the wardrobe looking through the key hole...go for it....mind you I might get in there first and stuff him in the wardrobe....oh happy dreams lol. Interesting that 50% aka half do get through it...not bad odds. Personally I deal much better with infidelity than violence and drug addiction. I often think people who have such black and white attitudes to monogomy are invariably quite ego centric and their sense of entitlement far outweighs their proported love of the naughty partner....it takes two to tango even if one of them two steps with another. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/28/2012 9:20:56 PM | When I love someone, I just don’t want anyone else. Not even Robert Downey Junior. (That reminds me…I didn’t even text him, I just stopped calling...oops!) So if I am in a relationship where I love and am loved in return (and I wouldn’t want a relationship where I don’t love or am not loved) fidelity doesn’t feel like an effort, restriction or sacrifice. Because I have no experience in cheating and can’t imagine ever cheating, deciding what would be the most appropriate course of action to take after cheating just doesn’t compute.
I am also definitely egocentric and self-entitled enough  to expect my husband to not screw around. For the same reasons as I don’t screw around…(eg. because he just doesn’t want anyone else, not because he “isn’t allowed to”). For me it’s indicative of respecting each other within context of our mutual choice to be exclusive. I couldn’t just snap my fingers and stop loving my husband if he cheated, but I’d end the relationship. Two different things. I also wouldn’t stick around for violence or abuse or other evidence of non-reciprocation of feeling. If I’m going to be badly hurting no matter which side of the door I’m on, then I’d rather be on the outside of it. I’m just not cut out to be a martyr.
But I was surprised by this…
The right thing to do would be to simply move on without so much as mentioning it. Thinking of the recipient of this pain here….you think to be left by a loved partner with no explanation is the less painful option than being told the partner cheated? Wouldn’t the lack of explanation leave them endlessly wondering what they did they did to cause that person to just leave? Just curious about your reasoning there. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/29/2012 1:56:15 AM |
you think to be left by a loved partner with no explanation is the less painful option than being told the partner cheated? Wouldn’t the lack of explanation leave them endlessly wondering what they did they did to cause that person to just leave? Just curious about your reasoning there.
We can probably all agree it wouldn't count if someone held a gun to someone you cared about and said to commit infidelity or the bunny gets it. Technically it is infidelity, but to really count it must be voluntary.
As greying red pointed out, it also doesn't count if you and your partner agree that sharing is permissible beforehand. Otherwise the default in our society - whether consciously agreed to or not - is monogamy in a relationship. (once it is 'exclusive', and if it hasn't got that far then it's not a problem)
So true infidelity involves the free choice taken to deliberately break a core promise to the other half of the relationship despite, or because of, the harm it will do the relationship.
Why would anyone do that when they're supposed to be in a loving relationship? Either A) there is no love and only selfishness, or B) there is a deliberate desire to harm their relationship due to self-hatred. Either way it is clear that continuing a relationship with the cheating person is never going to be in the best interests of the other person. (I do have some sympathy for people in scenario B), but they need professional help and time to work on themselves before not being a menace in a relationship. And there is little certainty that even after that time there will be an improvement, so I still think leaving is better for the other person.) I don't think infidelity is an isolated event within an otherwise loving relationship. It is a symptom of toxicity.
If the proposition is to put myself into their shoes after the infidelity has occured and take the most moral choice of action from that point, and I have strong evidence that I'm the type of person who will continue to cause them harm by continuing the relationship, then logically my only option to limit total harm to the other person is to end the relationship.
Now the choice becomes do I leave them with the certainty of betrayal or not? Either way there is the certainty that I have left. The person left knows from that: A) I do not love them, B) I do not love myself, or C) I believe they do not love me. Or some combination of these.
I believe it is the scenario C) that you are concerned about, that the lack of certainty may mean the person left believes they are 'at fault'. This is true, however people are resilient and recover from such self-doubt reasonably well. In addition, would there not be more lasting self-doubt if they knew they had been cheated on before being left? What harm would the certain knowledge of betrayal do? It still doesn't explain why they were cheated on, and only increases the damage bill. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 6/30/2012 9:27:47 PM | Im sure this question stirs up emotions for many.
I was a teenage bride when I was first married, a few years later was about to have a beautiful son and all seemed to be going well. Shortly after bringing my son home my husband was spending more time at work, I thought I was very tired with a new baby and imagining things but 12 months later learnt the truth that he was having an affair. "my husband had an affair", words that brings a conclusion that she was married and he cheated on her, now the marriage is over. There is so much more behind those words. The sense something isnt right but told your just imigining it, you feel like your going crazy and start blaming other things, is it post natal depression, is it my insecurities. Then the truth when the 'other women' confronts you. Did I just get knocked thru a wall or hit by a bus cause it felt like it. Ok so I wasnt crazy or imagining things for 12 months but now what to do, my world and my babies world is falling from under us and no one is catching us. He didnt want to end the marriage and tried hard to keep us together. The unanswered question - why disrespect us and risk so much pain to those you supposedly love. I left and the pain and damage it caused kept me a single mum for a long time.
2nd marriage, it was a good one for a time, we had so much fun travelling, boating, hiking. I am older but was of equal fitness to the husband. I noticed he was starting to groom himself and take more care of himself, he was more flirty with other women. (being religious he wouldnt even touch other women previous) so I ended the marriage. Shortly after he met and started dating another women and many others since. Result for me was that it was painless and we are still friends today.
Cheating in a marriage or committed relationship causes so much more pain to many. Recognising a marriage is over, being mature about the break up, leaves everyone, partners, family, friends, all that loved us as a couple, disapointed but thats all.
There are many things that seperate us from animals, one is the understanding of consequences.
Sorry for the long post. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 7/1/2012 6:39:57 AM |
There are many things that seperate us from animals, one is the understanding of consequences
Firstly ..never apologise for a long post - its your rite...:)
Secondly - thankyou for sharing your story...there is much to reflect on there....
I hope all is well in your world now | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 7/3/2012 10:47:54 PM |
I am also definitely egocentric and self-entitled enough to expect my husband to not screw around. For the same reasons as I don’t screw around…(eg. because he just doesn’t want anyone else, not because he “isn’t allowed to”). For me it’s indicative of respecting each other within context of our mutual choice to be exclusive.
absolutely agree and I re read my sentence...whoops my bad.....not monogomy but infidelity (which only makes a subtle but important difference. It can be a wake up call for both and sometimes for the better, so 'orf with scumbag's head' is rarely the right knee jerk reaction especially when children and long years of togetherness is involved or the cuckold has actually been the main perpetrator of lack of intimacy etc etc. so Ginger's a, b, c scenario is a sensible start though simplistic.
I have managed to circumnavigate the fact that Johnny Depp was going behind my back because I still love him...I think he is being unfaithful because a certain person still retains access to emoticons ;-). He is so fickle but oh so pretty. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 7/21/2012 10:03:08 PM | As immature as it sounds - I've always believed in the motto 'deny till you die.'
Confessing is never a win for either party.. | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 7/22/2012 4:07:28 AM | my X wife did
as she went ou the front door........
& it wack her in the butt
i would have kicked her out the back door
you play up, you will get it
someone will see you, always happens
or you will go to the Dr, & they will tell you, you have hiv, or hep,c
play up, or leave
leave............dont play up...............weak people do that | |
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| should you confess to an affair
Posted: 7/23/2012 1:48:29 AM | cavebeach wrote:
its not the cheating or the lies that kills the marriage, its the finding out
He's right. Always check the floor for her panties after she goes home. Some women are sneaky, and want your partner to know.
Don't try to make the bed after your done either. Your wife will know that the bed has been remade. Easier just to say you were tired and had a sleep.
Make sure the toilet seat is up...if you were supposed to be home alone.
Shower..a woman's perfume may not be noticeable to you, but obvious to your wife.
Check for lipstick on the pillow...and lipstick on your face or peni.....
Use a towel in bed to avoid a wet spot. Those are a dead give away.
If your wife is a brunette....watch for blonde hairs...and vica versa
Do not ever use a credit or debit card when seeing the one on the side.
After calling the love of your life on the landline, call another number straight afterwards so wifey doesn't do the old star 10 hash trick. Delete history on moby constantly.
If caught...deny..deny...deny. | |
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