I’m a Catholic man married 27 years with 5 children, only one full time at home now.
Our very rocky marriage includes her bouts with depression, very little/infrequent sexual intimacy; and a recent violent episode on her part directed at me and on another occasion, at our teen daughter. Per our pastor/counsellor’s advice, she is getting a week of intensive therapy out of state soon.
I have much blame to bear, including, beginning in the last several years, a few affairs. The last of these is very emotionally intense also, and my affair partner and I have discussed divorce and being together, since we both abhor the lying and deceit. We’ve broken up and resumed several times, and are currently broken up again, but I’d be kidding myself if I said I thought it was a permanent breakup. I’ve confessed sacramentally but obviously struggle with the “amend my life” part.
I am meeting with my pastor/counsellor tonight, to tell him about my affairs. I think he should know since he is counselling us as a couple. A question I will ask him, and probably be guided by his advice since he knows us both well:
do I tell my wife?
She is quite fragile, and if I had to guess, I think she would kick me out.
Others have argued that if I don’t tell her, how can she truly know who she’s married to, that it would be deceptive and mean to let her think I’m faithful when I haven’t been, and that any wife would want to know this information, painful and hurtful as it would be.
Even at the risk of it causing a separation, doesn’t my wife deserve to know what I’ve really done and what kind of man I really am, so she can decide if she wants to be with me? I feel like now she has a very incomplete picture of the “real me.” I’m very afraid to tell her and honestly would rather not, but I have trouble answering friends who say she has a right to know the “real” me so she can decide what to do.