In response to my last post a couple people have written to me regarding the ideal degree of disclosure in affairs. I want to thank those voices for reminding me to clarify my message.
My last post was regarding a very specific aspect of affairs and disclosure: your partner finds out there is someone else you are interested in, knows something is going on, and asks if you and this other person have been sexual. I believe in honesty when asked this question.
What I’ve found is many people answer this question by lying. They deny that there was any sex yet they admit to having feelings for the person. Some people become so adamant they didn’t have sex that they begin to turn it on their partner and accuse them of not trusting them. This is off.
If you are trying to heal your relationship, I don’t believe you can do that starting with a lie. Your partner will begin to feel crazy, s/he will be plagued with doubt because her/his gut is saying one thing yet you’re saying something else, and you will feel forced to keep up this lie for the remainder of your marriage. If it comes out later, you often will have a much more difficult time healing from it than if you were just honest from the beginning.
That said… Frank wrote:
“I think it totally depends on the level of detail. I have had three affairs in my twenty plus years of marriage. When my wife learned of this, she obsessed over every little detail. It made little difference in telling her, it didn’t resolve the pain she felt. Nor did it help us to move forward. In fact, I think hearing the tiny bits of where we met, what we discussed, what we did, etc only made it worse. I advise both of you to decide early on if you wish to work through this to pick an appropriate level of detail.”
In regards to full disclosure of the minute details of an affair, I couldn’t agree more with Frank: full disclosure is not always in the best interest of the couple. In fact, for some couples, less is more. I don’t believe sharing every detail about the sexual relationship is healthy, warranted, or in the best interest of many couples.
The bigger issues such as how long the affair went on, what your feelings are/were for the person, and why and how the affair got started, are all important information to share; beyond that, it depends on the couple and the needs of the betrayed partner.
Some determining factors for how much sharing is right for the couple include: the betrayed partner’s ability to take in the information without using it as ammunition, the offending partner’s ability to offer the information from a loving, accountable place, the betrayed partner’s level of reactivity and ability to process the information safely (without moving into revenge, suicidality, or violence), and the offending partner’s willingness to take full accountability for his/her actions. If all of the above are healthy, and the betrayed partner feels the need to know more information to be able to move forward, then I believe full disclosure is the way to go.
The betrayed partner needs to be clear that s/he really wants to know the truth and needs to ponder whether or not the details will help or hurt her/his abilitiy to move forward. Determine if you’re asking to get reassurance, to get ammunition, or to get the truth. If you’re asking in the hopes your partner will reasure you that the affair meant nothing…than close your mouth and don’t ask for the truth; ask for reassurance that your partner wants to work on your relationship. If you’re asking to get ammunition to use against your partner for the next twenty years…close your mouth or end your marraige now and save both of you a lot of heartache.
In general, the very best approach is to not have an affair in the first place…walk away, think of your children, deal with any problems in your relationship directly, end your relationship first if you have to but…don’t cheat!
Challenge: If you’re in an affair, you’re out of integrity–fix it and do what you need to do to get back in integrity. If you’ve been caught, be honest about the extent of the affair and don’t accuse your partner of not trusting…that’s sadistic.
Seek professional help if you and your partner are struggling to move forward…and realize that healing from affairs takes at least a year.
Note: If you’ve had several affairs the odds of your partner being able to trust you and heal from this are greatly reduced regardless of the amount of disclosure given or not given.
