How to Decide If You Should Tell Your Spouse That You Cheated

The fact that you are reading this suggests that you have a conscience and that having done the deed, and betrayed everything that you hold dear, you are now struggling to decided whether or not to tell your spouse that you cheated. That's a massive decision to take and whatever you decide it could have a major impact on your life.

Is there any clear-cut, simple answer, unfortunately not. If you are agonizing over whether or not to tell your spouse that you cheated, the yes and no, but I shall try to give you points to help you make your mind up.

The fact that you had an affair suggests that you have problems in your marriage. Maybe it had become stale, dull, boring and lacking in excitement. These things don't have to happen if you work at your marriage. You can keep the passion going the whole of your married lives, but it does take some effort, and the two of you have to work together. Whether or not you tell your spouse you need to identify the problems in your marriage and deal with them.

Is your conscience bothering you or do you just feel guilty. If it's your conscience that's bothering you then you need to seek absolution from your spouse. If you feel guilty about what you have done, then if you bitterly regret it, then so long as it is over you could probably stay quiet.

Are you aware that if you tell your spouse that you cheated, it will not just hurt them or make them angry, it will destroy them, and it will probably take months before they are able to come to terms with what you did to them.

You have to work out why you cheated. The fact that you might have problems in your marriage is not an excuse, if that was the case then you should have worked them through with your spouse. You didn't have to cheat, you could have said no, so why? It could have been a stupid one of or it might be more serious.

If it is more serious, then you have some questions to ask yourself, namely do you still love your spouse and can you live without your significant other. You cannot go on living a double life indefinitely and at some point your spouse will find out. If you try to pursue this affair then you will become an expert in lies and deceit, and do you really want that?

You need to take into account that what you have done might have affected your behaviour, and your spouse might be aware that something is not quite right. If they suspect what you have done then they will probably start looking for evidence.

If you are going to tell then that you cheated, then the sooner you do it the better. The longer it takes the more difficult it will become, the more nervous you will become about letting your spouse know, and the more that you will look like you are hiding something, and the more nervous you will. The longer you take the worse it's going to be for your spouse. You might have been living a lie as happily married couple for months or even years, that could devastate your spouse.

Do you have any kids? If you do and you decide to tell your spouse that you cheated then make sure that you kids are somewhere else when you do. What will happen if you do tell your spouse, will you divorce or stay together? Are you aware that the children of divorced parents are statistically more likely to struggle for the rest of their lives as a result of what their cheating parent did.

How to decide if you should tell your spouse that you cheated on them? That's not any easy question to answer because there are good arguments for both sides. If you cheat on a regular basis then you probably need to tell your spouse so that you can work out if there is any point in going on with your marriage. If it was a stupid one of then it might be better to keep quiet. If you conscience has been bothering you then your body language has probably alerted your spouse to the fact that there's a problem, if they discover that you have had an affair and kept it quiet, then you could be in worse trouble that if you confessed. If you do confess this could mean the end, but so long as you both love each other and you are genuinely repentant then you could go on to build an even stronger marriage. If you divorce and you have kids then you will blight their lives, but if you stay together in a loveless marriage then it could still harm them. I wish that I could give you an answer, but how you deal with this mess depends on your personal circumstances and gut instinct.