SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I WAS AN ASS HOLE

Still not an excuse to cheat. There are a ton of faithful spouses here whose wayward was a huge asshole, and remained faithful.

Generally, we suggest IC for each of you to heal. Once you've healed, then MC may be more helpful. The M didn't cheat - your spouse did. There are many MCs that will try to shift some of the blame onto you for the A. The A wasn't your fault. It was due to the choices and decisions made by your WW. Instead of cheating, Mrs. Toecutter had many other solutions that don't involve infidelity.

If you think telling your children may help you in your healing journey, then you may wish to share. But there are others here who haven't told anyone, so you may hear from both sides of the coin.

If you think telling your children may help you in your healing journey, then you may wish to share.

Exactly. If you can expect a positive outcome, tell. If you're aiming to shame your WS or venting, not telling is probably the better choice.

I post that as a general principle, not as advice to toecutter, since he's made his decision, though he can always change his mind.

Toecutter,

One other reason for telling your children, generally I'm in favor of doing so, is that you might have no one you've been able to talk to about this, except on this website.

I think this is common with men as they more so than women are looked upon as being at fault if they are cheated on and less likely to be supported.

About the OMW use registered mail or such so the OM does not intercept, or just pay a visit and inform and confront.

Have always known
Last infidelity approximately 28 years ago
FWW wife ended it" to work on my marriage"
The last 28 years have been good
Last8 to 10 best ever
In my heart I had forgiven her years ago

What did you really know?

Suspecting is not knowing, suspicion is not confirmation, and if that is all you had you were unable to process the marital relationship issues properly.

My FWS confessed, only when it became apparent to both of us that I was on the verge of leaving. I wasn't even planning on divorce, but just moving out to another nearby city and working and living separately, near enough to help with kids, but far enough to not have to cross paths with someone who was not present for me. After 18 years of marriage, I had run out of ideas, was done trying to figure it out. Some would have thought our marriage was fine, but emotional and physical intimacy was severely impaired, despite my absolute best efforts. I had come to the conclusion that I was unwanted. Truth was, my FWS was being torn apart by her guilt that was worsening every year. The lies of 9 years before kept requiring more and more lies over the years.

You can't really work on what you don't really know.

Marriage cannot flourish with secrecy.

As for telling the kids? We didn't, but 8 years later, with 4 adult children, I discovered that at least 3 of them had been talking about it. All of my kids had met the AP, my oldest daughter, only seven years old when the affair happened, recognized as she got older what her mom had actually been doing when had taken the guy back to the bedroom and locked the door. One of my kids was VERY distressed by this discussion and spoke to me.

I then told my FWS, who had a discussion with all the children.

I don’t think you need to tell your children about your wife’s affair.

You can apologize for anything to them. But IMO they do not need to know WHY things happened.

In this case you are happily reconciled and things are good in your marriage. I’d say you don’t need to inform your kids. Some things are private and since you are not getting a D, this should remain private.

I would never ever tell my kids what their father did. Cheated, lied, was kicking me to the curb, planning to run off into the sunset with the OW - etc. Yes it was horrible. If we D they would have learned the sanitized truth. But we didn’t D and we are happy — so to me, there is no reason for adult children to know that ugly period of time.

Just my opinion. No need to upset the apple cart.

I’m another one who thinks not telling the kids can be a good option for some people. In your situation, if I were looking back and realizing I had not parented my kids well, I would probably just wait for a good moment to talk to them and apologize for my shortcomings and do what I could to be a wonderful parent/grandparent in the now.

I did not tell my kids about my husband’s infidelity. Had we divorced, I would have told them a sanitized, but truthful version to give them context.

But As it was, we were all already going through so much. We were caring for my husband’s sister, whom we were all very close to, as she died slowly and painfully of cancer. And we were in the midst of the pandemic, which added a lot more stress. I suspect my husband’s affair was at least in part a coping mechanism to try to deal with it all. Anyway, there was no way in hell I was going to pile on another load of crap when my kids already had all that to deal with. If it comes up in the future I’m not going to lie about it, but I don’t feel like there’s a good reason to tell them out of the blue.