My personal belief (and this comes from the dozen-odd folks I’ve known with infidelities to their (dis)credit – some caught, some not, some admitted, some not) is once a cheat, always a cheat. I’ve never known someone who cheated “just the once” and never again. So I think the OP posits an unrealistic scenario.
Having said that, I think it boils down to condoms.
What?
Yes, condoms.
If you’re in a relationship where you are using condoms we can infer two things: 1) The likelihood (though not certainty) is that the relationship has not yet reached a certain level of commitment, trust, exclusivity, and length of time, and 2) the issue of disease becomes less relevant.
In this scenario, I can agree that possibly not telling is a valid response, depending on your assessment of the “lesser evil.” But only if it truly was/is a one-time-only thing (and I don’t believe you, by the way).
If you’re in a relationship where you don’t use condoms, we can infer two things (maybe three): 1) The likelihood is that the relationship has reached a certain level of commitment, exclusivity, etc., and 2) the issue of disease is VERY relevant – you’re either risking your partner’s health by still having sex, or compounding your lies trying to justify condoms/abstention for long enough to test accurately.
Optionally: 3) You are not using condoms, even though the relationship is not a strong/committed one. In this case, you’re stupid and there’s little hope for you. Tell them and let’s hope they have the sense to boot your sorry butt outta their lives.
In this case (1 & 2) you should tell. You owe it to a committed partner and you cannot risk their health.
I am one of those silly people who considers ommision to be as heinous as the cheating itself. I also think that if you have a solid marriage, you will not stray, and if you do stray then there is obviously something wrong with your marriage and why do you care if they find out?
Anyhow,
If I owned a gun and my husband cheated I would shoot him
If I owned a gun and my husband cheated and did not tell me and then I found out, I would shoot him multiple times and watch him die slowly.
Actually I am not that drastic, but I would be 500 times more hurt by him ommitting information rather than coming clean to begin with.
The fact that I could never not tell (coupled with the fact that there is not a line out the door of prospects) keeps me in line.
The STD angle has been covered. Other than that there is no earthly readon to unburden yourself unless of course your particular relationship isn’t challenging enough.
Furthermore, if you are not my partner but a friend or acquaintance who is cheating and has been for seven years, in the name of all that is great and sacred *** do not tell me !!!*** (especially if you and your SO (either one!) are likely to show up together at places I’ll be).
When hiding your salami or plucking your peach with the the person who isn’t the farmer of your dell, I say it’s only right that you do admit your dirty deed(s).
Someone has suggested that the confessor admits to his/her actions only to assuage the burden of his/her guilt. “It don’t matter to me” who benefits the most from an admission; until the truth is known, a crucial lie awaits to be discovered.
I’d rather know that my SO has cheated on me and end up with an unsalvageable relationship, than to spend years together, happy, and find out about the affair long after. YMMV, of course.
Hmmm, I have an idea. How about… don’t cheat? If you need to cheat then end the relationship. If you were stupid… once… than a strong relationship can get over it, but if you did it a lot the relationship is pretty well doomed anyway so just end it. If it was a one time mistake you damn well better come clean, because the relationship that may have survived is dead in the water if they find out from another source.
True the trust will take a long time to rebuild, but at least they know you own up to what you have done and that you would not have admitted it if you planned on continuing. If you get caught then the SO will always think you could be at it again and just more successful at covering your tracks. Cheating really pisses me off. There ARE those who cheat and admit it just to hurt their SO, but they are so messed up I think we can leave them out of this discussion.
The only time it MAY be OK to lie about it is when it happened very long ago and you are just now having a moral dilemma. No need to drag that out of the past, but you should never have gotten there in the first place. Bad!
Let’s see… you’d screw around on your SO and THEN worry about “sparing them pain”? If you cared that much for your SO’s pain, you wouldn’t cheat in the first place.
Tell your SO what you did, and let them make the decision to try to work things out, or not. To make that decision for them in the name of “not hurting them,” (conveniently sparing you any consequences) is condescending and a second betrayal of trust.
I think it’s just a judgement call, based on the relationship and what the situation is. Sometimes, as in the hypotheitical case, it would be better not to tell, for ingorance is bliss. But for some relationships, it would be better to tell.
Speaking as someone who has slipped in a very loving relationship with our best friend, you’ve got to make the decision. whether to know and be suspicious, or to be ignorant that the cheating ever happened.
To anyone in this situation…use your best judgement on it…and I hope it doesn’t happen to anyone:)
Please allow me to suggest some research on your part, HIV can (and does) lie dormant for a LONG time, during this time it is virtually undetectable so the person that you cheated on IS at risk (for now I am ignoring the fact that you have shattered your SO’s ability to (possibly) EVER trust again).
It baffles me that relationships (and the lives of the people that you claim to love) are taken this lightly.
I really think that you should tell the person, and I am speaking from experiance of the person ‘cheated’ on. My boyfriend Kevo4us and my best friend were the people and they told me. It upset me some but when they first told me I burst out laughing, don’t ask me why. I was fine with it for about the first night then it got to bothering me but I’m fine with it now. If I would have found out from someone else, well lets put it this way, all Hell would have broken loose on the two of then. She is still my best friend and he is still my boyfriend but I know if I would have found out from someone else I would be putting up a best friend wanted sign!
If my husband was a serial cheater, yes I would want to know.Then I’d kick his sorry ass out.But if he only slipped up and cheated once in our 18 year marriage, I’d never ever want to know.I would be so hurt I don’t think I could ever forgive him on a subconsious level.While I would try to work things out between us, the hurt would run so deep that our relationship would never be on the same footing again.
If you’re gonna tell, tell your SO about it soon after it happens.
Otherwise – and only as long as you know it won’t happen again (but then, WTF do you know? Prior to cheating, you probably “knew” it wasn’t going to happen at all in the first place) – take it to your grave and spend the rest of your days being SuperSpouse, slave to your SO’s whims and desires.
The thing that bothers me with the “But you’ll only hurt them further!” response is that it seems to be based on flawed logic, i.e., all things with the final end of keeping the peace. Maintaining the relationship. When after cheating – and I could be alone on this – none of that’s your call. Or, it shouldn’t be. It should be the wronged SO’s.
So my $0.02: Tell, and quickly. It’s not your only option, but to me, it’s certainly the fairest.
While it’s argued that a confession is to appease a guilty conscience, it’s the only thing to do. As if having an affair were not disrespectful enough, not sharing is even moreso. It’s disrespectful to the relationship and to your SO.
I personally would want to know, but I’m known as a bit of a relationship masochist.
I believe that it is better to know than to suspect.
Of course, that’s in an ideal world and not taking into account so many possible variables like kids and mutual investments, etc. In the real world, I think it best to reverse the situation and answer the question in your own mind, as honestly as possible, and treat your SO as you’d want to be treated.
What if it wouldn’t bother you if you found out that you SO cheated on you, but you know it would bother them if they found out you cheated? It’s really hard to apply the Golden Rule to that situation.
Assuming you ware safe and careful and did not contract any diseases during the cheating, and you still love your SO very much, I say don’t tell. It’s not worth the pain and agony on both sides. Your relationship hasn’t been changed drastically by one act, only your conscience has been altered. It’s up to you to live with that.
Also, I don’t think that the factor of “unhealthy” or “problematic” is a neccessary pre-condition to unfaithfulness. In some cases, I’m sure problems are aparent that may have somehow contributed to the act of infidelity, but not in most, and certainly not in all cases.
Wow, you’re either a really good person or a doormat. As i don’t know you, i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former. But there’s no way that i could be so understanding in similar circumstances. I would have ditched both the lover and the friend.
My parents split up in 1993 after 20 years of marriage. They had a very rough time for most of those 20 years. LAST SUMMER, my dad had the BALLS to tell my mom that he cheated on her while she was pregnant with me. My mom said that she’d had suspicions and “knew” as only a woman could know that he was cheating at the time. His exact words were, “I’m sorry that I LIED TO YOU about the level of my relationship with Susan.” Not sorry that he screwed around, but just that he didn’t tell her about it for 22 years!!!
[/slight hijack]
So in this case, all his confession did was piss off his ex-wife, make him feel better, and lower my already-pretty-shabby opinion of the man as a husband, father, and human being in general.
[Not to mention the fact that HE INTRODUCED ME TO Susan when I was 17 - and explicitly told me (at that time) that he had met her when mom was pregnant and that they had been very attracted to one another but had never “consummated the relationship,” in his words. GDD@MNED FCKIN’ SON OF A B1TCH!!]
NEVER EVER ADMIT TO ANYTHING
Learn phrases like:
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“I was at Bills house all day”.
“That’s not mine.”
“That IS mine.”
“That must belong to my sister.”
“That’s not me on the videotape.”
“Hi! I’m <your name>'s identical twin brother, ‘Jeff’! Didn’t he tell you I was coming over with my girlfriend today?”
See here’s the deal. Maybe you got bored or drunk. Maybe you just got lonely on a business trip. You fucked up. Whatever. If you never plan to see the girl again, why compound one mistake with another?
Forget the “total honesty” bullshit. In order to relieve your guilty conscience, you are willing to throw away an otherwise good relationship?
If there’s a problem with the relationship talk about the problem with your SO. If you want to get the cheating off your chest, go talk to a doctor, lawyer, priest or someone else where client privlidge is in effect.
If, after all that, you still feel a need to confess your sins…well that’s what deathbeds are for.