Confessing Adultry to Your Spouse

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This poll is for married people, with preferrably over 5 years of marriage and with kids.

Here is the situation:

Imagine your spouse has cheated on you, continually, for the past year, but you have absolutely no idea.

For the spouse, it’s just a “sex thing” with no real emotional commitment. You don’t notice any significant behavior change, and they are still basically fulfilling their spousal and parental duties. He/She does seem a bit more distant and tired, but why not? As a married couple, you’re both busy, tired, overworked parents, who don’t need any more stress, clearly.

Recently, though, your spouse has “seen the light” and is commited to change. He/She has gone to confession and repented, broken off their old relationship, and has vowed to be fully commited to you once again. They have taken STD tests and are clean. It’s been a full 4 months since their last transgresssion.

Your spouse is now praying to God, “should I tell?”

Now, please take the poll.
 
Yes, you should tell because its being honest and open with your spouse - clearly you were missing something from the marriage (and its never just a sex thing). And if I was the spouse being cheated on - I would leave. Once a cheater, ALWAYS a cheater!
 
convert38 said:
Yes, you should tell because its being honest and open with your spouse - clearly you were missing something from the marriage (and its never just a sex thing). And if I was the spouse being cheated on - I would leave. Once a cheater, ALWAYS a cheater!
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Please vote in the poll. It’s a hypothetical scenario. Just interested in what people think.
 
I can’t imagine my spouse abusing my trust like this. But if he did… I’d want to know. My health is very important to me.

In addition to remaining moral… Not sleeping around has a lot to do with not wanting every avail. disease out there. He doesn’t have the right to risk my body… Or decide IF I’m at risk…
 
I am a woman and I would want to know.

Would I leave, I don’t know. 🤷
 
I am a woman and I would want to know.
Imagine how marital indiscretions tend to be an open secret to all save the relevant spouse. Imagine how ‘friends’ tend to talk about their spouses. Imagine me shooting my mouth off about my husband beeing so committed to us he has never looked at another. Imagine the knowing looks shared by the ‘friends’. Imagine me intercepting the looks and realisation setting in.
In other words, sooner or later you get to know these things. Much better for it to come from the horse’s mouth!🙂
In the hypothetical scenario given, I would forgive him because he has realised the error of his ways and has turned away from it. God Himself has already forgiven him. Who am I to refuse him forgivenness?
 
First,yes,I have cheated,and I did tell it to my wife,we thought we could go one,but a year later we split up.
“What You don’t know will not harm You” as they say,and I think it is true,but adultery is always wrong,no matter what the reason is. There is no way to change that. Still,You may hurt Your spouse more be telling. If the relationship with the one outside the marriage is over,and if You have told Your sin in confession and really want to go on and be honest,I think it would be better to not tell.
I am not defending adultery at all,but I also know that it will hurt so many people,not only Your spouse,and it can lead to the fact that Your spouse start to blame her/himself,and what about the children? Conclusion,confess Your sin to Your priest,promise God You will never do it again and don’t defend it even to Yourself.
 
Its hard. Normally with sin crossing the boundary the first time is hard. It gets infinitely easier after that. And it takes years to repair it. It will be tough but I will try to get my mind to focus on Christian charity. The love and commitment to the marriage is stronger. But I’d have to emotionally recover and the other side should understand that.
 
Please see my thread

Guilty Spouse Confessing Adultery

Interesting that someone polled spouse is a Christian and would never cheat. Presumptious don’t you think?

Not all things need to be told/known. That knowledge ‘could kill one’.

To tell or not to tell: depends.

More important is to quickly turn back to God and one’s spouse with penance and renewed love.
 
The adulterer has broken the marriage vows and the other party has a right to know they have been deceived, and to make a choice on the basis of that knowlege if they still want to live with the person who deceived them. That must be a human right.
As Christians there shouldn’t be any doubt about that.
A marriage should not be lived on a lie.
 
Are those who say “don’t tell” expecting their spouse to come up with an appropriate lie if they ever ask their spouse questions like, “Have you ever cheated on me?”, and, “Remember that weekend last year when…”, or are they promising to never ask any question that could conceivably corner their spouse into having to lie, maybe by having a policy of always accepting it and rapidly dropping the subject when their spouse unexpectedly in suspicious circumstances refuses to answer their questions?
 
Exactly, Pug. Each day lived with the adultery hidden is a day with lies in it. It is the right of the INJURED spouse to choose whether to continue or discontinue the conjugal life. Has not the adulterous spouse already wronged his innocent spouse sufficiently without taking this right away, too?

And, though I am sorry for the previous poster whose marriage fell apart over his adultery, it is NOT because he confessed to his wife that his marriage broke. It is because he committed adultery!
 
I’m a man

don’t tell me

some private sins should remain private (assuming that they are done and in the past)

Only tell if you are asked directly and there is real cause for concern. To tell a spouse about a past adultery that is done and over with and not otherwise seriously affecting the marriage currently is unnecessary, even perhaps selfish.
 
larkin31 said:
I’m a man

don’t tell me

some private sins should remain private (assuming that they are done and in the past)

Only tell if you are asked directly and there is real cause for concern. To tell a spouse about a past adultery that is done and over with and not otherwise seriously affecting the marriage currently is unnecessary, even perhaps selfish.
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Yet freedom and peace can only come with living in the truth.

I cannot imagine a person who committed adultery who wouldn’t be so out of his mind with grief and remorse that telling it to his spouse would bring relief. And the honest display of contrition and sadness would make the deceived party feel compassion and agree to work on the marriage if the two really love each other…
right? I guess that’s how it should be between Christian spouses, because to ask someone to live in a lie which causes him fear and depression is also no way to solve a problem…
As someone said here there other day he knew two men who had recently cheated on their wives and these men felt like they destroyed everything and were great failures… Such a crisis/depression, probably the deepest these men have experienced ever, should they carry that around alone?.. Now, Marriage is supposed to be a relationship of honesty and love between best friends who embrace the truth about each other, and by that accepting embrace, they set each other free…
We both need that acceptance from the significant other, both before and in marriage, and without it we cant thrive .
Now if we severely damage the basis of the covenant of fidely which marriage is…then pretending it didnt happen will not bring peace to the person who suffers within himself.
I truly believe that any decent person will not be able to continue and function after having betrayed his spouse.
He will have need to hear the words from his beloved: I forgive you, before which he will not be able to breathe again freely.
 
I think that GraceDK had an excellent point as well. If a spouse is truly repentant, then the grief for his deeds ought to be so devastating that there could be no possibility of concealment. Really, how sorry can one be if it matters less about the horrifying crime one has committed against one’s spouse than about keeping oneself safe from the consequences of one’s actions? I repeat my earlier contention: it is NEVER the confession of the adultery which destroys the marriage; it is the ADULTERY.

If one fears “hurting” one’s spouse by the confession–where was this concern when the adultery was being committed? It is spelled out in the catechism that it is the right of the injured spouse to choose whether or not to continue conjugal life, and though it is laudable to do so, it is NOT required. I cannot see how the adulterous spouse making this decision on behalf of the injured spouse, a spouse whom he has himself wronged in the deepest of ways, makes anything better.
 
Well, it is really unfair for the cheated-upon spouse to be the only one who doesn’t know. And, other people probably know.

I find it distressing that the first twenty people to answer the poll think their spouse is capable of cheating.
 
PaulinVA said:
Well, it is really unfair for the cheated-upon spouse to be the only one who doesn’t know. And, other people probably know.

I find it distressing that the first twenty people to answer the poll think their spouse is capable of cheating.
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The adulterous spouse’s partner(s) in adultery know, at the very least. And that is a secret shared with the partners in adultery and kept FROM the injured spouse.

Why is it that the adulterous spouse is the one who is always heaped upon with compassion, but the injured spouse is recommended to simply go on in ignorance?

A tumor you don’t know you have can still kill you, and adultery kept secret from the injured spouse is an untreated tumor in the marriage.

Again, I reference GraceDK’s statement: true repentance for such a heinous act ought to inform every single action of the penitent. Such a change should be clearly visible to the injured spouse, and an explanation for it ought to be forthcoming.
 
PaulinVA said:
Well, it is really unfair for the cheated-upon spouse to be the only one who doesn’t know. And, other people probably know.

I find it distressing that the first twenty people to answer the poll think their spouse is capable of cheating.
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I don’t think my husband is capable of cheating(we have a great marriage) but I didn’t read the last choice only the first two. I was putting myself in the shoes of “any” woman and how she would feel and what the right thing to do would be in that situation.
 
I am not sure I would want to know. How would knowing this improve my life? If my spouse has tested clean for STDs, if his mistress or whatever is not pregnant, and he has truly, TRULY repented, confessed, been absolved and if necessary, gotten treatment for the issues, why do I need to know the details? I do not like lies, BTW, honesty is one of my most deeply-held values, but there is honesty that is merely cruel and serves no purpose other than to relieve one’s guilt. That is what confession is for.

I guess the issue is whether keeping some information to yourself is truly lying or whether it might be merciful in some situations. What about when the spouse cannot accept or deal with the adultery and leaves? How has that improved things for the children? Would it not be better to keep the home intact, if the affair can be kept quiet?

Of course these days, almost nothing is secret any more, and so it is likely that the facts would come out at some point, and then the spouse would have to go through both the fact of the affair and the cover-up, so there just isn’t a good answer. I think if I did find out later, say, after the kids were grown and on their own, and my husband told me, “I was afraid you would leave and that it would really mess up the kids,” as long as he had been exemplary in the years since the affair, I would thank him for it.

There is going to be pain and suffering no matter what option is chosen, so it’s better NOT TO CHEAT IN THE FIRST PLACE!! but people who think their spouse is 100% safe are kidding themselves. None of us is sin-proof. And the idea that we are, or that our spouses are, is dangerous because we might allow situations that others would see as dangerous.

Tough topic.
 
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