Fogville

If you read up on infidelity and frequent support forums, you're bound to run into the concept of the affair fog. There are plenty of misconceptions about the fog from both hurt spouses and unfaithful spouses. Some believe it doesn't exist, others think it is an excuse for cheating.

What's the truth? Allow me to take a more in-depth look at the subject.

What is the Fog?

The fog is used as an analogy or metaphor for a mental state a person sinks into when their desire for something blinds them against any reasons not to seek it. Like someone in a thick fog, all they can see is what they want, and the only reasons they see are those that justify obtaining it.

We all experience this dynamic in our lives. When I was 9 years old, I had received a record player for Christmas. One of my favorite bands was the Monkees, and my favorite song, "I'm a Believer."

I'm dating myself now, but back then cereal boxes had singles you could cut off the back of the box and play on a record player. Finally, after waiting for a long time, a new box of Honey Comb had my song on the back. Only problem is Mom had a rule. You couldn't get the prize until the whole box of cereal had been eaten.

I wanted that song so bad, I single-handedly ate the whole box of cereal in one sitting. It was hard stuffing the last couple of bowls into my stomach, but the goal was in sight. I finished the box, cut out the record, only to discover the record was scratched.

Then the consequences I had not seen due to my foggy mindset hit me. It became obvious when Mom took me and my brothers to get ice cream cones. I didn't want any because my stomach was churning. She wondered about me, but not for long. Because it all came up in Exorcist style on the restaurant floor.

 When our desire for something gets strong enough, our mind has a way of helping us to justify getting it, no matter how illogical, illegal, or who it will hurt. All arguments as to why we shouldn't get it become ineffective. The stronger the desire, the more true this is.

The Affair Fog

Due to the addictive qualities of many affairs, those in an affair tend to be deep in this fog. Even if they have no intention of leaving their spouse or hurting them, the reality that their actions will do just that is ignored. In the back of their minds, they know this is the case, but the desire for what they want is so strong such concerns are about as relevant to them as what a bird is eating on the other side of the world.

I've seen this happen multiple times on the forum unfaithful spouses visit to seek support. Someone comes there either about to have an affair or in the very beginning of one. The more experienced who have been where this person is, attempts to warn them of the pain down that road. How much it will hurt their spouse, their family, their affair partner, and themselves, describing their experience.

What happens?

Rare is the person in that situation who says, "Oh man, you are all right! What on earth did I think I was doing? This is stupid. I'm dumping him today." Instead, they will ignore all that and justify their need to do what they want. They may demonize their spouse. Or feel their spouse will never find out. Or no one will get hurt, that they are the exception to all the horror stories. Or, they feel the "love" (that is, strong desire for their affair partner) is so good any cost will be worth it.

I've seen this time and time again. Logic won't sway them. The warnings from those who've been through it before fall on deaf ears. Only in the aftermath do they discover all the warnings were right. Then it is too late.

The Invisible Fog

The interesting factoid is how when people are in foggy thinking mode, they don't realize that is what is going on. They are blind to the fact that they aren't perceiving the whole picture. It isn't until they are extracted from that mindset that they can see their reasoning ability was impaired by their desire.

My wife experienced this. Now, over three years after I discovered the affair, she looks back at what she did during those months and is not just disgusted and greatly sad at what she did, but can't hardly believed she did it. On this side of the fence, she sees it as one of, if not the most stupidest, series of decisions and actions she's ever committed. At the time, however, it all felt logical, justified, and any thoughts of consequences were ignored or dismissed.

It is this aspect which makes the fog so hard to break through. Reality has been altered into a fantasy holodeck-life. Immersed in it, the unfaithful spouse sees it as the reality. Attempts to convince them otherwise is like telling someone the life they are living is a fake and giving them the choice of pills to take to wake up or not, like in the Matrix.

The Thinning Fog

Another truth about the fog is that it isn't something that usually vanishes all in one brief moment. Rather it gradually thins out over several months or years. Sometimes, the fog stays in areas like settling into the low valleys among hills. For some areas, the fog may stay firmly ensconced for years, or a lifetime.

On discovery day, the fog thinned out for Lenita a good bit. Enough that she desired to heal our relationship and was immediately willing to do the hard things to accomplish it.

However, it took about three months before she was defogged enough to start feeling the guilt. The fog hides the guilt, because guilt of what they are doing to their spouse and family would prevent them from getting what they're desiring. It took about that long before she decided to get rid of all memorabilia of her affair partners. It took almost two years before she began to feel anger at her first affair partner and call what he and her were doing as evil. Not just think it, but feel it.

Another key area this is seen is in the tell/don't tell debate among unfaithful spouses who haven't been caught, even among those who's affair is over. Some of them believe they are no longer in the fog because they can see the thick foggy thinking they've left behind, but not realizing they're not totally out of the woods.

Despite the very compelling and logical reasons to tell, the unfaithful spouse is so driven to avoid the pain of facing the full consequences of their actions that they ignore those realities and justify not telling usually by suggesting it will "unnecessarily" hurt the spouse to do so, or that their spouse will leave them.

The main logical reason? Simply put, hurt spouses say their are two reasons that learning of an affair hurts them and the relationship. One, obviously, is the betrayal of love and trust by becoming intimate with another. The second, and often listed as the worst of the two, is the deception.

I can vouch for that. As I stated in our book, I felt a real loss to know that she was having sex with another man, something she'd never done in her life. I was her only lover in life, and she is the only one I've had.

With that as a given, the one thing that really shook me was how she could do what she did, not feel guilty about it, act like everything was normal, and that she was devoted to me. I didn't think she was capable of that kind of deception. That shook my trust and ability to rebuild it more than any other aspect. I stood over our bed, watching her sleep, and wondered how she could sleep knowing what she was doing. She had become a stranger I didn't know.

While discovering the affair itself was bad enough, the deception compounded it greatly. Blessed is the hurt spouse whose unfaithful spouse has the courage to confess rather than let them discover it themselves and struggle to find out what happened.

But the fact that the affair has already hurt the spouse and marriage, and healing it can only happen when they are aware of it, or that keeping that information is a way to control the hurt spouse who deserves to know so they can make their own decisions is pushed aside due to foggy thinking, even when they believe they are out of the fog.

If the hurt spouse doesn't know, it is highly unlikely that the fog is gone. There will always be a reason one can find to not do the right thing. I know, confessing is a hard thing to do. No one likes to tell on themselves. No one likes to confront the consequences of their actions, and experience the pain in another you know you've caused. But that doesn't justify continued deception, continued hurting of your spouse.

Foggy Excuses?

Some suggest that there is no such thing as the fog. That it is an invention to make excuses for the unfaithful spouse's infidelity.

It is true some unfaithful or even hurt spouses may use it in that manner. But such thinking is a fallacy. So dismissing it on those grounds is a fallacy.

The reality that strong desires for something can cause one's mind to block all feelings, logic, and arguments against getting it, and accept all justifications to do so is well documented. Prolonged exposure to giving into one's desires in that fashion ingrains the false reality in the mind, forming an addiction. So a drug addict will rob and kill to get their next fix, or a gambling addict will risk their life savings, mortgage, and the kids college funds to gamble.

The fallacy is in believing the fog let's the unfaithful spouse off the hook. That they couldn't help it. That if they were magically transported back to before the affair started, knowing what they know now, they would still have the affair because they can't change due to the fog.

This isn't true. It is still the unfaithful spouse who fed that desire, who waded into the quicksand, who justified crossing boundaries they should have known better than to do so. No matter the pull of one's desires, one can always say "no." I'm not saying it is easy, but it is within each person, even in the middle of the fog, to recognize they are not thinking right, and turn against the demand of their desires.

Animals have no choice. Humans always do. They do not need to be enslaved to their desires and the fog like an animal. They can avoid it, or acknowledge their wrong thinking and purposefully exit the fog. We have the ability to ignore our desires when they are destructive, and do what we know is best for those we love, not just ourselves.

How to Get Out of the Fog?

Three main steps.

One, confess. To both God and the one you've hurt. Facing the full consequences of your actions will go far in heading one out of the fog. Nothing destroys fantasy land and fogville faster than bringing it all into the light.

Two, take responsibility. Be honest about what happened. Agree to discuss it as needed, and face the sin head on. This, in addition to the first, will shatter the fog's illusion.

Three, repent. That means more than feeling sorry for what happened, or saying you're sorry. It includes actions that take effective measures to address why you gave into the temptations, and ensure that it won't happen again. Focusing on addressing the sin will continue to counter the fog until your desires give up.

In short, you're taking responsibility for which mindset you feed. The more you feed your desires without restriction, the stronger they are and the thicker the fog it creates will be. Starve them and feed desires for the good things in your life, the stronger you'll be against the affair fog.

When have you experienced a desire so bad you ignored warning against fulfilling them?

Changing Normals: Three Years

This post I decided to write more of a personal note, much as we've done in our book, Healing Infidelity.

This Sunday, May 11th, marks our third discovery day anniversary. Three years ago, May 11, 2011, I discovered, to my horror and total shock, that my wife of 29 years had been having a series of affairs over the previous seven months, both emotional and physical, both online and real life.

Life has never been the same.

I know a lot of hurt spouses will read that as mostly negative. And there are some negative changes. Can't escape all those no matter how well rebuilding goes, no matter how well one heals. There will always be a scar. There will always be that memory of utter disbelief at what I was reading, and feeling my stability crumble under my feet as my worst marital fears materialized:

The intimacy I'd lost with another man in the relationship. The deception she'd hid from me for seven months that I never thought she'd be capable of. The innocent trust that could never be regained. The realization that this could be the end of our marriage.

Some changes were positive.

But we both became less selfish. Our lives and marriage became focused on each other instead of our separate interests. We spent more time together. Sacrificed ourselves for each other. Romance reignited and we learned how to keep it going instead of letting it die.

By year three, the "new normal" isn't so new anymore. I look back at the man I was and I've changed so much, mostly for the better. Like the song says, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I'm much more focused today on what really matters than I was then. That old me seems so foreign now. The old me is dead, and in many ways, that is a good thing.

Lenita has totally changed. Her interests pre-affair and post-affair are like night and day. I know what she spent her time doing pre-affair, as well as during the affairs, is much different than what it is post-affairs. Her attitude toward me, our marriage, and her own life is why we are still together.

You see, when I discovered the affairs, their existence said to me that she didn't love me anymore. How could she do that to me and still say she loves me? While she said it, I couldn't believe it. She'd been lying to me and cheating behind my back for seven months, dead set on keeping that truth from me. How could I trust a word that came out of her mouth? I couldn't at that point.

So what changed my mind that she did love me?

Watching her unflinchingly face what she'd done, own up to it, and refuse to shift the blame onto me or anyone else. Struggle for months with her guilt and wrestling with what was wrong in her heart and soul that allowed this to happen. Seeing her go to confession for almost a year every week. Watch her strengthen her spiritual life, so much so, that she put me to shame. Experiencing her consistent attention, affection, truthfulness, honesty, and commitment to me. Making me the most important person in her life after God.

I saw what lengths she was willing to go to in order to save our marriage and keep me.

That convinced me that her love wasn't merely words, but real. Discovering the affairs said she didn't love me. Experiencing the extent that she went to keep me revealed how much she loved me.

If it wasn't for that drive of hers to do all she could to repair the damage she'd caused, I wouldn't be here writing this blog post right now. We'd not have written a book together on how we not only rebuilt after infidelity, but created a vibrant and stronger marriage in its wake. We'd likely have divorced by this point.

We're headed off on a weekend anniversary trip. Both to celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary (May 15th) and having made it three years since discovery day in not only good shape, but with a renewed and vibrant marriage.

I wish everyone approaching their third discovery day anniversary were in the same boat. Part of my mission with the book and blog is to help as many as possible make that boat before it sails.

On our trip, we'll spend time discussing what has changed in this past year and look forward to planning for the coming years. We've changed. Even during this past year. "Normal" is never a static state of existence. The question is never what should our normal have been, but what will it be in a few months, years, and when we're in a nursing home some day?

I don't know what the future holds, but I know right now, despite what happened, there's no one I'd rather grow old with than Lenita.

Happy anniversaries, Sweetie!

Managing the Passions

An old Cherokee legend illustrates for us the basic concept of how to manage one's passions.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

In the first article, Fire of Passion, we examined what the passion are. In the second, The Passions in Christianity, we examined the Christian understanding of the passions, their origin and the main key to being able to manage them. If you've come to this article without having read those two, I highly recommend you do before proceeding on here.

Now we want to examine the various ways we can starve the bad passions and feed the good ones so we can effectively manage them.

How Do We Tell a Good Passion from a Bad One?

The easy answer is anytime a passion damages yourself and/or others, it is a passion you don't want to be enslaved to, but control. The longer answer is it can get a bit complicated at times.

There are two categories of bad passions. One is the inherently bad passion. Some passions are going to be destructive to you 99%+ of the times they are indulged. Many drugs fall into this category. The first time some use a drug like cocaine, they are immediately hooked. It would be a rare case indeed when even trying it once didn't end up causing a lot of pain for the addict and those around him.

The other is abused passions. Some passions are inherently positive and good. Hunger is an obvious one. If we don't eat, eventually we'll die. Hunger insures we don't go too long with needed food. It is a good passion that does help us to survive. But each good passion can be overdone, abused, to the point it becomes destructive rather than positive. Someone who overeats can cause diverse health problems and leave their families/loved ones without a father, mother, or friend before their time. If the passion of hunger is not managed, it can become a bad passion.

The trick, of course, is if a passion already has a pull on you, you don't tend to stop and consider the consequences, evaluate whether it is going to negatively affect you and/or others, and make a decision on whether to do it based on that evaluation. Why? Because here is a truth one needs to be aware of:

Passions motivate you to act. Reason lays the groundwork to support actions through the passions.

Reason doesn't motivate you to act. Reason can stir the passions within you to motivate you to act, but of itself, it is helpless to override one's passions. The stronger a passion is, the less that contradictory reasoning will be at reversing that passion and influencing a change of actions. This is exactly why someone who has become passionate about an affair relationship is not affected by some very logical and rational reasons to not go that route. Instead, they tend to use their reasoning to support what their passions are demanding to have.

However, reason is not helpless when coupled with the spiritual power I mentioned in the last article, and attempting to manipulate the passions through your mind, so that they change course. This is done by learning to feed the right wolf, the right passions. It is easiest to do this at the beginning of a passion's pull on you, but can be done at any stage. The following are tactics you can use to feed the right wolf.

1. Confession

If not to a priest or pastor, find a trustworthy friend who can hold you accountable. Tell them the story around the passions you are struggling with. By confessing it to someone you can talk to, you gain support and help in dealing with it. Confession is the first step toward conquering the passions. Once it is no longer your dark little secret, you are no longer emotionally blackmailed by it and have more freedom to fight against it.

2. Fasting

Based on Genesis 2, the first sin was a failure to fast from eating the fruit of a particular tree. God had told Adam not to eat from one tree. Yet, when push came to shove, he ate from it. When God questioned him on it, the first recorded instance of blameshifting occurs:

And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (Gen 3:12 KJV)

When it comes to food, we're pretty spoiled.

The passion of hunger is a foundational passion. If we fail to control that one, we will not be able to control any of them. Many of us rarely tell ourselves no with food unless we're already stuffed or can't afford it. Usually the only people who say no than those two are people losing weight, and we know how many tend to fail at that. But if you can tell yourself no to eating a food, simply because you've decided that for a period of time you are not going to eat something, it provides support for saying no to yourself in other situations, like when someone lights your fire.

It is best to have someone else help you establish a regular rule of fasting. If not your religious community, become accountable to a trusted friend. Start off small and work your way up. Maybe you'll decide to fast from meat on Fridays. Then later, for a whole week. Then later, maybe you'll join others in doing so for the Lenten season, or other group fasting periods.

3. Align Your Will with Your Mind

The will tends to be highly influenced by your passions. But it is possible to just say no with your will and mean it. Our problem is we're really good at knowing we need to say no, so we say it, but don't mean it.

Let your no be no.

Shortly after Lenita started her second physical affair, she could see where it was headed and she knew she needed to break it off. So she met her affair partner at the gym and they sat in her car. She told him this had to end. Despite that declaration, within minutes they were hugging and kissing, and it didn't stop, obviously, or I'd not be writing this blog right now. Why was her no not no?

Surprise! Our passions lie to us.

 They convince our brain that we have to obtain this feeling if we are to survive. We become convinced if we pass this up, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives and be miserable. The truth? You'll live, you'll enjoy life. Even more so because that passion didn't win in getting you to do something destructive to yourself and those you love.

You'll have more respect for yourself because you were driven by compassion instead of passion.

Paul stated it this way:

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Gal 5:16-17 KJV)

This is where the key from the last article comes into play. He can help us align our will with the mind and not according to our passions.

But how do we access that power? By being drill-sergeant strict with ourselves.

You see, Lenita's no was not followed up by the corresponding actions. If she was serious about her no, she would have immediately requested he leave her car and to not contact her again, or approach her in the gym. If he didn't immediately respond, she would have stepped out of her car until he left. But she failed to say no with her actions. Why? Because she had not aligned her will with her mind, it was still influenced by her passion for him. Consequently, her words said no, but her actions said yes.

When we say no, our passions start working to wiggle their way back to a yes. They will work like the devil to keep even the smallest foot in the door. To let your no be no, you have to decide to firmly close the door. How?

By doing two things. Identify the boundaries that amount to squeezing a foot in the door for that passion. They tend to feel innocent, but you know where it will lead. List them out on paper if need be.

Then convince yourself that you will now be strict with yourself about those boundaries. Tell yourself you don't care how much you'll feel like you want it, no matter how much begging your emotions will do to cross this one innocent boundary, agree within yourself that nothing will move you to do that, no matter how bad you want to. Divorce the will from the passion. When you get ultra strict with yourself, refusing to allow emotions to influence your behavior, you can start starving the bad wolf.

4. Distractions

The above is preparatory work. But what happens in the midst of temptation to give in? There is a rule that monks have been taught in overcoming the slavery to passions, especially those of a sexual nature.

Frontal assaults on the passions rarely work. Instead, they end up feeding the passions.

Why? Because the more attention you give a passion, the stronger it becomes. A drunk doesn't conquer alcoholism by visiting bars on a regular basis. He does it by avoiding alcohol, by not thinking about it. So it is for overcoming a temptation. The more you think about it, even to focus on not giving in, the harder it becomes to avoid giving in. Because giving a passion your attention feeds it.

Instead, when tempting thoughts come to cross boundariess you know would lead to a bad place, do these or varations on these ways of distracting yourself so as not to think about it.

Use pain. Lenita was instructed by our priest to wear a rubber band around her wrist. When she found herself thinking negative thoughts, focusing on the affair, thinking about her affair partners, she was to snap the rubber band to distract her mind from those thoughts with the sting of pain. For her, it was highly effective.

Use music. Collect some uplifting songs on your portable music player. When tempting thoughts arrive, listen to the music to distract your mind. Sing along with it if possible.

Use prayer. Or if not religious, a saying you can repeat over and over. For Christians, an old short prayer known as the Jesus Prayer can be repeated as many times as necessary until the temptation passes: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Or the shorter version, "Lord, have mercy." Most religions would have similar prayers/meditations. If you are not religious, a saying like "Que sara, sara," "Whatever will be, will be" can be used.

Use work or a hobby. Keeping your mind busy and your body working avoids a passion from getting a strong hold on your attention. This is one of the reasons why monks will stay busy either working or praying, for hours. Too much idleness leads to focusing on the passions. Invest yourself in a productive hobby or volunteer to help someone rather that sitting around thinking about what your body is saying it really wants to do.

Use your friends. Especially those you've made yourself accountable to. When temptation arrives, ignore it by calling a friend, or anyone really, and focus on them. If you have an online support group, go there and spill it all on a forum rather than on your mind.

In effect, when a bad passion attacks, you defeat it by ignoring it. Remind yourself that you don't care how much you want something, that desire is a lie, then use one of the above methods of distraction to turn your attention away from the passion, and starve it to death. Over a period of time, you'll begin to realize you didn't need that passion to live, because you've been hardly thinking about it and life is still great. Even better than before.

When we are afflicted with a passion, sometimes we slip and fall to it.

Often when that happens, we'll feel like we're back at square one, and feel like giving up because we don't seem to be overcoming it.

That is the wrong way to think of it. Rather, think of it more like you're working to beat your last record. If one time you last three days before you allow yourself to think about the affair partner, stop. Use the methods above, and see how far you can get this time. If you go a week, that's some success. As you continue to pick yourself up, and go again, the passion will get weaker and weaker as you ignore it for longer and longer. Then at some point it will dawn on you that its been months since you've given your affair partner a second thought.

Then as we train ourselves on how to say no and mean it, it will provide us freedom from the slavery to our passions. We learn to control them instead of them controlling us.

Should I Tell, Reloaded

In our book, Healing Infidelity, I included a chapter directed to the unfaithful spouses who have cheated but haven't told their spouse about it. Usually don't plan to. Usually these are spouses who have ended their affair or in the process of doing so, though sometimes a guilt-ridden unfaithful spouse in it up to their necks can struggle with this question as well. Naturally, to read that chapter, I'd suggest buying the book. But if that isn't practical, you can read the article on the web.

In that chapter, I looked at whether to tell or not from the perspective of healing. In short, as long as this secret remains hidden, it will act as an untreated cancer. It is only when it comes into the open that it can be effectively dealt with and the relationship fully healed by applying the needed medicines.

To that end, I gave a couple examples of when an unfaithful spouse might have valid reasons not to tell. One, with an abuser. Telling would give the abuser more emotional control over you, and the more pressing problem is getting out of that relationship, not healing this one breech, as wrong as it may be. IOW, there are bigger fish to fry.

The second generated a little more disagreement among my fellow hurt spouses. I suggested another time one might not tell is if the marriage is essentially over, divorce has happened, in process, or is a foregone conclusion. From a "I want to heal our marriage" perspective, telling at that point would be pointless. Telling is certainly not going to heal the marriage, only accelerate the breakup.

But my hurt spouse friends disagreed, saying that even in that situation, they would want to know the truth and telling would confirm to them they weren't crazy in suspecting something was off. It would bring a sense of closure to the separation as well. I can see that aspect. That, however, is not going to be a compelling argument to an unfaithful spouse to out himself. Is it the right thing to do? Yes. The other spouse has a right to know what was done to them, just as an employer has the right to know a former employee embezzled money from the company.

That said, for some hurt spouses, they wouldn't care to know. You get some of those when they are married and regretted finding out. These are certainly in the minority among hurt spouses. Most hurt spouses, overwhelmingly, are glad they discovered the truth, despite the hurt and the trauma. But I'm sure that number would go up significantly if it was about a former spouse. A relationship that is over and done with. Why waste emotional energy on discovering a former spouse was cheating? Personally, I don't think I would care to know at that point because I can see no practical benefit to me knowing. So I feel there would be a lot more hurt spouses who would rather not know if there was no chance to fix the marriage.

For me, at least, the decision on whether to tell or not centered around healing of the relationship. If telling only added another nail into the coffin, then why drag the hurt spouse through more pain and potential trauma? But if not addressed, the hidden secret can eat away at a marriage that is otherwise not teetering on the rocks of divorce. Better to get it out in the open and work together to renew the relationship as a team.

But I'm adjusting this a little. There is a reason an unfaithful spouse would want to tell in that instance. It still centers around healing. Not the relationship, if that is gone, but one's self.

One unfaithful spouse posted one time that she was having a problem dealing with her guilt. She had ended her affair, but hadn't told her husband. She was asking for ways to deal with her guilty feelings short of telling him, which she had vowed she would never do. I spent an hour writing a response to her, only to have the Internet chew it up and spit it in the garbage, never to be seen again. But here was the gist of my message, which would apply equally to a divorced or headed that way marriage, or simply troubled but no one thinking they wanted out.

After suggesting some things she could do, I boiled it down to a simple fact. To deal with the guilt effectively required forgiveness from the one you offended. Until you received his forgiveness, guilt would tend to hang around, and healing of yourself from what you've done would not only be near impossible, but would be dragged into any future relationships. Not telling prevents any of that from happening. It is hard enough for unfaithful spouses to "forgive themselves" when their spouse knows and has forgiven them. It is near impossible when your spouse hasn't a clue about the damage inflicted upon them.

So I'll amend that to say from the unfaithful spouses' perspective, there is reason to tell even if the relationship is in the throes of dissolving. You may not heal that relationship, but it may be the only route to healing yourself and not infecting future relationships with this destructive dynamic.

Telling is a hard and brave thing to do. What are other situations where you think telling would be unproductive?