Mustache said:
Very good advice
But every time I try to do it, a question comes up in my mind
"Is it fair to forgive myself ?"
Is it fair?
What sort of question is that to ask poeple on a forum, only you really know the answer and this is based on your beliefs, now one can present the options to you and you can waigh them up:
1. You tell your wife, this could result in your wife:
Either forgiving you, but this always and i mean always will come at a big price to you and the relationship.
2. She will leave you.
3. you try to get over this and keep things smooth in the relationship, what your wife does not know can not hurt her.
4. You cant get rid of the guilt and are wracked by it due to the love you have for your wife, you keep it inside and be haunted by 'your' internal demon.
The way i see it, if you love your wife and the relationship, is it ok and fitting to tell her and in that possibly hurt her? If she does not know and can never find out, what is the problem?
the problem seems to me totally infused in you, for some reason the guilt is a product of a certain chain of thought.
Now why do you think this is, why do you feel guilty about not telling your wife? and what are your beliefs?
For example a christian may be wracked with guilt for destroying marriage vows, e.t.c does this play a part for you?
Also you say your wife did not cheat, well she did something you clearly was not happy about, now why is that missing from the post? A better idea would be to illustrate why you cheated.
Now you thought she was being unfaithful, well there are more ways then one to be unfaithful in my book that does not just equal sex.
There is something called by some, an emotional affair, where by a man and women spend all there time together and fill in the gaps they dont get from a marriage, this can be taken to mean 'doing things with the other partner they could do with the husband/wife, but choose the other one', this is not for say 'catching a movie that you hate' and her male buddie likes, this is for example, setting up dates and choosing the other man/women over you and vica versa. Emotional relationships are very much as harmful as sexual ones imo, since the other partner is aware of them and they are hardly covered up as the partner doing the emotional relationship stuff thinks they are doing no wrong, when in fact they are placing another person of the opposite sex in a higher degree then there actual partner. But there is a fine line, for example your partner having lunches with work mates at work, or there is going out with jim again on a weekend whilst your looking after the kids, but its ok there not shag*ng.
Anyway i know as animals having multiple partners is more natural then forcing oneself to just one partner, one partner requires one put up a dam of support to try to block out advances from others around us and sadly some peoples dam or supports for that dam just aint that strong, or certain things in a relationship just keep chipping away at it.