A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I made the bad decision to cheat on my husband but I don't know what makes me feel worse... The fact that I cheated or that the other guy broke it off because he doesn't want to hurt his wife. We are all very close and have been friends for years. I have known him longer than my husband and his wife and him have been together for much shorter. I cannot tell my husband and honestly it made me realize how lucky I am as the other guy was not what he pumped himself up to be. at all. I feel crushed but don't know why. I guess I just hate rejection. And myself.
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female
reader, YouWish +, writes (23 March 2013):
 Judgment and mercy should be married to each other. There should be no judgment for which the person being judged is pounded into oblivion with no hope, no name, and nothing but contempt. Likewise, there should be no mercy without truth, meaning someone stomps all over marriages with no remorse except for being caught and hurts innocent children or spouses. They should be told how it is, and that what they're doing is wrong.
I personally hate cheating, but I don't despise the people personally, especially if those who did cheat learn from it. There are people who cheated, are full of remorse, and want to make it right. I don't spew hate and hopelessness their way. Likewise, I don't coddle someone who is still lying to their spouse, yet is only sorry that the person they cheated with broke up with them. Like I said, judgment and mercy are married. One is unhealthy without the other when it comes to giving advice. Just my opinion, and I speak only for myself. There are always exceptions to every rule as I've learned on here.
A
female
reader, llifton +, writes (21 March 2013):
 judgment within ourselves about ourselves is important. knowing right from wrong and holding ourelves to a strong moral standard does help keep society in check.
that being said, from a therapeutic standpoint, however, judging someone who comes on here for help .. what good is that doing? telling them that they deserve punishment and all the anguish they are experiening .. that's not helping anyone. you're letting your personal biases get in the way of trying to help. i'm all for tough love sometimes. but casting judgement is another thing.
from someone who is involved with marriage and family counseling, i'm sure you can imagine a huge number of clients that come in are dealing with infidelity. they are coming in for counseling on how to help their marriages. can you imagine if the therapist immediately started berating and ripping them, telling them that they deserve the pain and guilt they are feeling for cheating and that they deserve my judgement? how is that in any way helping a situation at all?
as a counselor, which is also what i believe we are trying to somewhat portray ourselves as on this site, we are to be unbiased and unjudgemental. i have a friend who counsels pedophiles. now that's a field i can't bring myself to stay unbiased and unjudgemental in, so i stay far away from it. if i can't be unbiased, i don't try to get involved. i'd want to kick those people in the nuts. so i can't properly counsel that group of the population.
anyway, all this being said, i don't believe we are ever to in any circumstance, judge the people we are trying to help. and if we feel that we can't fairly and unbiasedly give advice, we really have no business giving our two cents in the first place.
peace!
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A
male
reader, Serpico +, writes (21 March 2013):
Whatever you are suffering from rejection, you deserve that.
Your husband needs to know. The acid test for ethics and morality is, if the roles were switched, do you think itd be right for you to know? Ie, if your husband did the same thing you did, do you think you'd have the right to know?
Lies always tend to come out anyway...
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (21 March 2013):
It only takes once! It's still hanging in the air! You may have cheated once, but you're lying every single day now. Your marriage is a lie. Your vows broken.
I want to address the poster who said "it's no one's place to judge you". Actually, it is. There should be MORE judgment when it comes to cheating, or lying, or betrayal, and the greatest amount of judgment should be from ourselves. It's true that no one is perfect, but those who strive for honesty and loyalty are those who hold themselves accountable for what they do when no one is looking.
Without judgment, no one should be married, and the very idea of a relationship or faithfulness or honesty is a joke, because there is no accountability from society, and it devolves into a lack of civilization. Is there redemption from someone who is a cheater? Of course there is, if the person who cheated allows the magnitude of what happened shake them and their marriage to the core and they choose to come clean and become better because of it. I've seen marriages become stronger after one or both cheat, but it's a long, painful road back for both people to rebuild a new bond from the ashes of the old one.
There must be judgment, both from within or without. We must judge ourselves and sentence ourselves to making a mistake right, to make amends to the loved ones we wrong. From outside, we should judge those who betray the ones they love, and be quick to support those who want to make it right with kindness, or show that cheating and destroying innocent spouses or children's lives has social consequences to those with no desire to change their ways.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (21 March 2013): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you for all the helpful words. It only happened once and I never thought that I could do something like that to my husband. I am not justifying it by saying "only once" but wanted to address the one comment that said I made a mistake by repeating the cheating. I will never repeat this.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (21 March 2013): Just give yourself time and end contact with that other guy. The pain of rejection will lessen with time. Also think of it this way, he didn't reject you rather he did what he had to do to ease his guilt that was eating him up inside or the fear of getting caught.
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A
male
reader, LivingWithBadDecisions  +, writes (21 March 2013):
 cheating is one thing... keeping it from your husband is rubbing salt into the wound.
you made your bed and now you have to lay in it...
you made a mistake if you cheated once but you repeated it... that's a choice. as soon as you made that choice you gave up the right to pass this up as something your husband doesn't have to know...
Cooper
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A
female
reader, malvern + ♥, writes (20 March 2013):
 You were tempted and made a mistake and you got hurt. Unfortunately you're just going to have to bear your hurt and guilt in silence. I don't think the man involved will ever tell his wife. It is also best that you don't tell your husband and most certainly never never never confide in one of your friends at a later date. Friends have big mouths and can never resist telling others no matter how much you trust them. Try and erase it all from your memory banks and put it down to an experience you are never going to repeat.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (20 March 2013): It's no one's place to judge you. Not a one of the aunts and uncles who will post here to criticize your decisions can point to every single moment in their lives and say it's something they are proud of. You're human. We all are. Rejection hurts in any situation. In your case, you would be foolish to take it personally. The issue wasn't whether or not you are a desirable woman. Your affair partner had many other things to consider in his decision to end things. You could be the most amazing woman in the world, but to stay with you permanently this man would have had to wreck two households: his own and yours. Maybe he didn't have the stomach for that. You say he wasn't all he claimed to be, so don't waste any more time pining after him. If you've realized how lucky you are to be with your husband, work on showing him, with actions as well as words. The pain and guilt you feel now is its own punishment, and while it may never completely disappear, if you are an honest and faithful wife from this day forward you will find that time will heal those feelings, too. Best wishes.
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A
female
reader, llifton +, writes (20 March 2013):
nobody on here can claim perfection. we all slip up and do things we regret. i don't think this makes you a bad person. it makes you human.with that being said, i think it's what you choose to do with this situation that speaks volumes. sure, you could sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. but what happens when your friends wife accidentally finds out and tells your husband? or if your friend begins to feel guilty and comes clean to his wife about it? and then she tells your husband? i think honesty is always the best policy in all situations.what you choose to do from here is you call. do whatever you feel you need to do. but remember this feeling you have. if there's ever a next time you begin to think you may want to cheat, keep in mind how you're feeling right now, and don't do it. good luck.
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (20 March 2013):
So what, exactly, do you want from us?? What, exactly, is the question?? Which is worse, rejection, or betrayal?? It would make you feel worse to betray your husband and to be an accessory to betraying the man's wife by alienating her husband's affection than to be rejected by him.
So are you only feeling bad, or do you want to make it right? There's a big difference, because quite frankly, saying that you hate yourself is worthless unless you make redemption your life's pursuit.
You will never change as long as you hide what you did from your husband and give him the choice on what to do about your betrayal. You do realize that it is *going* to come out, and then what would make you feel worse, telling him yourself, or having him find out, only to have you try to lie to save your own skin, and then really make matters worse?
Not only that, but whatever it was in you that made it so easy to cheat on your husband is still there, and you most likely will cheat again. It's cheap and easy to say "I hate myself". Big deal. So what will you do about it? Wallow in self-pity and deception and live a lie, or turn your life around, pay the social and marital price, and become someone you can like?
Yes, if you come clean, your marriage will likely be over, and rightly so. OR, he may in fact take you back if you devote your life to making things better in the marriage, an arduous, emotional anguish-filled journey full of penance and honesty. You are now compounding betrayal with cowardice. Who cares if the guy you cheated with isn't what he's "pumped up to be". He's married, you're married, that's all that matters. All words are worthless in an affair and designed simply to have sex on the side. Nothing more, nothing less.
Eventually, either your husband or his wife are going to find out, and then you are screwed. Saying "I hate rejection and myself" is a cop-out. Coming clean, figuring out why you cheated, and devote your life to redeeming yourself in life either by saving your marriage or devoting yourself to honesty and loyalty in every relationship going forward is your only solution. It's harder, but it's the only right course of action. Drowning yourself in sleeping pills is dodging away from life.
Every day you are lying to your husband, and you will crack.
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A
male
reader, nitroman008 +, writes (20 March 2013):
Yeah pretty much if you wanted to do things with other people, try talking to your husband about a threesome or going to a nudist camp and getting frisky with other couples. Never lie, never that. either break it off and do what you wanna do or stay loyal and come up with fun ideas for your and your husband to do.
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A
male
reader, CMMP +, writes (20 March 2013):
I guess that's your punishment.
Rejection sucks. Use this as an opportunity to reinvigorate your marriage.
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