Is Honesty Always the Best Policy When It Comes to Infidelity?
June 27th, 2012
According to a recent article, being completely honest with your mate about infidelity might not always be the best strategy. Clinical Psychologist Bruce Stevens explained that understanding the need to be honest about the affair can help guide the decision whether to do so or not. Stevens has worked with couples for more than two decades and said that his experience has shown him that only about half of marriages survive after an affair has been revealed. He says, “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.”
When someone confesses to having an affair, it can create a sense of chaos unlike any other the relationship has ever experienced. Stevens knows that couples who put in the effort to work through the many issues that arise after the affair have a good chance of salvaging their relationship and usually have a stronger, better, healthier relationship because of it. Stevens says that many people admit to their affair in order to assuage their own guilt. He believes that this reason should not be the motivating factor for full disclosure. Stevens says there is no guarantee that both partners will be able to overcome the damage caused by the truth and thinks it’s almost like playing Russian roulette.
The good news is that Stevens also thinks that there is significant hope for couples who can be realistic after they go through the pain of discovering an affair. If both partners are willing to accept responsibility and recognize that they are both human beings, flawed and imperfect, they have a very good chance of moving forward in their life together. Regardless of whether partners choose to come clean about their infidelity or not, Stevens reminds us that affairs are like fairytales. They are illusions that allow us to temporarily escape reality. The difference is, affairs rarely end “happily ever after.”
Related articles:
Reasons for the Affair
When Is the Marriage Really Over?
The 5 Truths Every Married Person Needs to Know About Affairs
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I only wish that I had not been so honest with my ex wife when it came to my affair that I had. I think that if I had not told her then I could have let it all go on my own and we could have worked through the problems that we were having. After I told her everything though, there really was no hope for the two of us reconciling. She is a good person, don’t get me wrong, but she could have never forgiven and forgotten like we would have neede to make the marriage work. I am not placing the blame for the marriage failing on her, because I was the one who made the choice to cheat and to confess when that affair ended. But it did not make it any easier knowing that she would always hold all of this against me and that our marriage was no longer salvageable.
What would irk me more would be if my husband was not honest with me about infidelity and then I ahd to find out about it on my own. Now that would be trouble. Man up and tell me if there is something going on on the side, and the same thing goes for the wives too.
I think that there is a line that you have to draw when it comes to reporting infidelity to your partner.
Do I think that you should be honest with your spouse if you have cheated? I do. But do I think that they need to know every single detail, every thing that you did together or every time that you met? I don’t.
There is only so much that a loving spouse could deal with, and all of that detail is just too much for them to have to thin about.
be honest, be forthright and try to work it out together. It will be hard. But maybe not having all of the salacious details will help them to have a better chance at surviving this.
The hardest thing is for both partners to admit that they were are fault. The partner who does not cheat has a tendency to want to be the martyr, and while it is not a good choice when someone has an affair with someone else, it always takes two to tango. There could have probably been a better solution but sometiems it can feel like this is the only way to live a little. I am not making excuses and thankfully I have never been put in this situation at least not that I know of. But I know marriages that have survived this and those that have crumbled and at some point in every one of them the one who did not cheat wants to think that it is all the fault of the cheater. But the ones that survive it are finally able to reach a point where they can see there own faults and the things that maybe they did to drive their partner to choose this. They know that this does not excuse the behavior but being able to see that in all likelihood they were ate fault too makes it a little easier for them to forgive the infidelity and move forward, often with a stronger relationship than before.
Honesty is usually going to be the best policy. That does not mean that the truth doesn’t hurt because many times it sure does. But I would rather have the truth than live in the middle of a lie. Wouldn’t you, or do you choose to remain blissfully ignorant, because I am sure there are a lot of men out there who would be happy to comply with that.
This is weird. how is coming out with the truth about you having cheated be bad? Yes, the relationship may not survive but its better than your partner finding out otherwise. then there is almost no chance of the relationship surviving. At least the truth route has chances.
I love my wife too much to ever cheat on her, that is one thing that I would first wish to make very clear. But even if something did happen and I cheated, then I think that I would feel much too terrible to not confess to her what I had done.When you love your spouse you want to be honest and truthful with her, and not withhold anything. That’s the part about being best friends, and always having that kind of friendship to fall back on when something else in the marriage feels like it is going wrong. I have known guys who have a different girl in every town, but they still go home at night to play the role of the doting husband and father. I just don’t get how they live with that kind of duplicity and duality in their lives.
in cases like this i have to say that i think honesty is highly overrated
sometimes we know it can do more harm than good
so you have an indiscretion, why do you always have to tell?
it may or may not ever happen again- and if it doesn’t happen again do you want to take the chance of ruining your otherwise healthy relationship over the actions of one night?
My husband and I went through intense counseling together after I had an affair. I don’t really think that either of us was surprised that I did it, given the amount of travel that he has to do and the fact that I just got lonely. But even though there was no surprise, it does not mean that we had an easy time working through the issues. There were a lot of things in therapy that we knew we could work on, like making time for one another and making the most of the time together when we were not traveling for work. But changing all of that travel was something that we knew we couldn’t control so we had to come up with better skills for dealing with it. I am not sure that our journey toward marital reconciliation is completely over, but we are working on it. Thankfully I love him and he loves me so that does make it a little easier to work through but I know that sometimes even that is not enough.
I had a workplace affair amidst depression and a seperation from my wife. I ended it and moved back with my wife. I told her a few months after I moved home in hope of an honest connection and rebuilding “us”. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but we just had our second child and I wanted our family together more than anything and we had a “hollow” connection. I believed because of my shame and guilt being a burden on my spirit. A few days after I confessed she told me about a one night fling during this same time. The fallout ended in the death of a beautiful dream for a family that never had a chance to be a family. Life moves on and everyone is ok these days but there is an emptyness in me that I have just accepted as the norm. I write this all to share a bit of advice. Sometimes the priceless lessons in life will cost you everything but I would rather lose than cheat and win. If you have already screwed up and are wrestling with telling the truth to your spouse. Do it with a counselor or third party and be prepared and realistic about it. If you do this with the hope of a better love and your partner sees this then you are headin in the right direction. After you tell them give them as much time and space as they want to heal. After a long time you both will be able to think clearly and process things without emotions affecting your decisions. Looking back I believe this would have worked for us. I hope it works for you because I wouldn’t wish my life the last 3 years on anyone.
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