Sigh! I just heard from another betrayed spouse, where the unfaithful spouse decided NOT to do what we teach, stress, emphasize and re-iterate over and over again.

YOU’VE GOT TO TELL THE TRUTH!

Yes, integrity is hard! That’s why so few people actually have it.

Here’s the thing. If you’ve been unfaithful by having an affair/s, you’ve already hurt your partner as much as it is possible for one human being to hurt another human being. There is only one way that you could hurt your spouse more at this point, and that is by continuing to lie, while you claim to be telling the truth.

If you want to succeed at anything in this life, it’s a really good idea to seek wise counsel. Where do you get wise counsel? From someone who has already achieved whatever it is you are trying to achieve. 

It never ceases to amaze me how often an unfaithful spouse will seek advice about what they should do from a divorced person, unmarried person, or person in a terrible struggling marriage. Please don’t make this mistake.

Sometimes when we have set our hearts on doing the wrong thing, we go to painstaking lengths to play psychological games with ourselves to try to convince ourselves that the wrong thing is the right thing. There’s a word for this. It’s called self-deception. We know exactly who to ask, who might validate our bad choice. But in the end, we will pay a big price for this. In this case it could cost you your marriage.

The trickle truth is almost more damaging than the affair itself. Every betrayed spouse would much rather have the “bandage ripped off,” rather than play the game of death by a thousand cuts.

I’ve seen so many marriages well on their road to recovery, only to be thrown back completely to ground zero because it turns out that the unfaithful spouse had not told the whole truth – was withholding something because they were too afraid of what might happen to them (the betrayed spouses’ response) if they told the truth.

You tell yourself that you are not going to tell the whole truth because it will hurt your spouse too much. And while that’s not without some merit, the bigger truth is you are afraid the truth will hurt you too much.

Here’s what you need to know: “If you tell the truth it becomes your past. If you tell a lie it becomes your future.”

Does this mean that the unfaithful partner should just do a verbal vomit to purge themselves? No!

Motives are everything when it comes to affair recovery. If you want to tell the truth merely to purge your own conscience your heart is not in the right place. If you want to tell the truth to hurt or punish your spouse your heart is not in the right place. Truth needs to be told with love.

An unspoken lie between you is like cancer in your marriage. It eats away at your intimacy, keeps your heart guarded, and keeps you from experiencing the fulfilling marriage you long for.

Perhaps here it might be helpful to define lying. A lie is not merely willfully and knowingly giving false information. It is also a “lie” when we knowingly withhold relevant information. And relevant is not whether or not it’s relevant to you. Relevant is whether or not it is relevant to the one who was betrayed.

Does the betrayed spouse always need to know all the details in order to heal from an affair? No, not necessarily. But they need to know that they can know if they want to.

If you have relevant undisclosed truth that you are afraid to tell your spouse, we recommend that you contact us to get some guidance on this. It’s important to know how, when and what to say. It might also be important for your spouse to be prepared and have support.

There is also a lot to be said to the betrayed about receiving the truth.

If you have questions, please reach out to us.

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