Sometimes I hear from wives who are quite confused about a confession that has just come out from their spouse. He has confessed to cheating, but there is a catch. The deception did not just happen, despite the fact that the confession is recent. There are some people who choose to confess to the cheating years, or even decades, after it occurred. The faithful spouse often wishes the cheating spouse had kept quiet, or wonders why the hell would he wait so long to be honest.
A wife might say, “To say that I am stunned is an understatement. Today, out of nowhere, my husband came home and announced that he had something to say to me. He asked me to sit down. He took my hand and said it was almost Twenty years (about two years after we were first married) he had a four-day affair with someone at his job. He recently found out that the woman had died. But he said other than that, he hadn’t thought about her in years. However, he emphasized that he wanted to go ahead and tell me because he didn’t want to die without confessing this (he just had a health scare that went well, but it scared him). He said he felt I deserved to know. He said I hadn’t done it. cheating since then, not even close. And he felt that he did it early in our marriage simply because he was young and immature. He says he is very ashamed and does not want guilt to follow him, although he emphasized that he believes he has been a good husband since then. tuned because, from h echo, he’s been a good husband. If you hadn’t told me this, I would never have guessed. Frankly, he doesn’t flirt with other women and gives me his full attention. I’m confused. And I am furious. Why raise this now? Do you want to hurt me? Do you want me to know that someone else found you attractive? I really don’t get it because we really have a good marriage. I thought we had always had a good marriage. But I guess I was wrong. He said he didn’t tell me before because he didn’t want to lose me. I’m not sure why you don’t think you can lose me now. I guess you think it doesn’t matter since it’s been so long, but I still care a lot. It is still cheating, no matter when it happened. I just don’t understand why the hell I would kick this hornet’s nest now. “
I can certainly guess that I am based on a similar situation among some friends of mine. Due to my own experience and my articles, I asked the husband in question why he would make a confession so long after the fact. He responded similarly to the husband above. He basically said that now that he was older, he was looking at his life’s accomplishments, his mistakes, and his legacy and that he didn’t want to leave anything on the table. I wanted to do things right while I still had the chance to do it. The matter was not the only thing he confessed. Basically, he reached out to everyone he felt he owed an apology to. He tried to heal old wounds and heal grievances and broken relationships. Yes, the affair was the biggest surprise to come out of this, but it also reached out to former business partners, old friends, or anyone you wanted to have a sense of closure with. He wanted to get rid of everything and know that he had done what he had to do to feel free from the burdens of the past. He honestly did not realize that he was now placing this burden on his wife. Because she felt the same way this wife felt, she wondered if he just wanted to hurt her by mentioning it now. All he could say in response was that he never intended to hurt her, but now he wanted to be completely honest. I am not here to say whether or not I agree with your reasoning. I’m just trying to share the possible thought process. In his mind, he was trying to do the right thing, even if the attempt came too late.
So where does this leave you? Well, at the end of the day, I think you have to decide if his behavior as your husband for all these years nullifies the deception of not just the affair, but of not telling you all this time. You are right that it is still an affair and it would be within your right to demand that you amend and rehabilitate yourself (just as you would have if the affair had occurred yesterday). case when he chose to confess.
You have every right to feel the pain and shock that you would have felt if the affair was recent. Time does not deny that. It still happened regardless of the date it happened. However, in a new adventure, you are often unsure whether your spouse will rise to the occasion and will once again be a good, trustworthy spouse. You have no way of knowing if it is going to get it right. In your case, that has no mystery. Her husband rose to the occasion. You have had a long and happy marriage and that is quite an achievement. You will have to decide if you want to erase that because of something that happened a while ago.