Years ago Mattheo had an affair with his work colleague. Now the possibility of her coming out threatens his marriage. Should he dare to flee forward?
Dear Mrs. Peirano,
my wife and I have been married for 20 years with two children (14 and 17). We have always had our conflicts, but we also fought each other again.
It was particularly difficult in 2017. I’m not proud of it, but during that time I had an affair with a colleague who was also married. I didn’t tell my wife about it and I wasn’t planning to. I ended the affair after six months – with a heavy heart at the time.
Now the woman I had the affair with has broken up with her husband. She wrote to me and warned me that her husband knew about our affair. I am something of an enemy for him and he has threatened several times to tell my wife about it too.
I am very tense and nervous now and turn the options back and forth.
Should I just wait and see if he contacts my wife?
Should I try to talk to him on my own terms and try to dissuade him?
Or should I tell my wife about the affair myself so that I can no longer be blackmailed?
All the possibilities sound terrible to me. I am very afraid that I will be the scapegoat in front of the children if my wife finds out about it. She could tell the children and use it as a reason for separation.
I would be very interested in your advice.
Many greetings
Mattheo G.
Dear Mattheo G.,
You are really in a very difficult situation, and right from the start I can share your assessment that none of the options mentioned are even remotely attractive to me.
From my therapeutic experience, there are actually only two times when you should tell your partner about an affair: Either at the very beginning of an external relationship, so that the partner is in the picture and does not feel deceived (and beyond that, if necessary can separate yourself) – or never. And if you decide on “never”, you should do everything possible to ensure that it stays that way and that you take the knowledge of the affair with you to the grave.
When your partner falls in love, for many it feels like an absolute loss of control. Suddenly there is another force at play, pulling on the partner from the other side, influencing him, driving him away from you, endangering the relationship. Routines and agreements are ignored, pleading and begging do not help. The relationship is rocking. What was once certain is suddenly threatening.
Many people whose partner has or had an outside relationship are traumatized by it, and the feelings of loss of control and emotional harm persist for a long time. In many cases they can never be cemented. Time does not heal all wounds.
So there are understandable reasons not to tell your partner about an outside relationship. Many act out of selfishness in order to be able to continue the external relationship at all, and many want to protect the partner from the injury by keeping silent – and themselves from what the partner would say about it.
At the time, she decided to conduct the affair in secret. I suspect that you were under no illusion that your wife’s knowledge would have meant the end of your marriage.
You ended the relationship after a few months and hid the feelings that were associated with it from your wife. Was it guilt? Are you sad about giving up the other woman? How did you feel about your wife – then and in the years after? Your wife probably sensed that something was going on in you emotionally, but she couldn’t put her finger on it at the time. You might be in a different situation now if you had talked about it. Your wife could have helped decide that.
Now there is a real risk that your wife will find out about the affair anyway, four years later. And she does not find out about it because it would be beneficial for your relationship to put it on the table, but only because you are afraid of a disclosure by your colleague’s husband.
From my experience, I assume that your wife will lose confidence in you if she finds out about it now. It makes little difference whether you tell her about it yourself now or whether you only admit it when you are forced to do so by your colleague’s husband.
Most people feel very insecure when they learn that their partner has been keeping an affair a secret from them. Did your wife suspect something at the time or even asked whether there was another woman in your life?
If you denied it back then, she will probably be very bitter because you clouded your perception.
All in all, it is a very difficult situation and I cannot give you any good advice on how to get out of it and save your marriage.
I can rule out one of the unattractive options: I would give you not Recommend talking to your colleague’s husband, as that will give him the upper hand in the story. Since he feels revenge towards you, he could enjoy the fact that he has you in his hand.
Statistically, it would be better not to tell your wife anything. After all, there is no guarantee that your colleague’s husband will contact your wife. But we’re not talking about statistics, we are talking about feelings.
Waiting would have two disadvantages: On the one hand, you would continue to be tense and fear that the bomb would burst every day.
Second, your wife is likely to get more angry every year that she has lived with you in a lie.
If you dare to flee forwards and tell your wife about your affair, you will prove – although (too) late and driven by external pressure – the decency to draw the conclusions from your actions.
There will most likely be a scandal. Your wife is unlikely to take credit for the fact that you ended the affair yourself and that you wanted to protect her too. And let’s be honest: Could you forgive me if you were in your wife’s situation?
But when the affair is on the table, the two of you can decide how to proceed. You could also use it as an opportunity to seek clarification from a couples therapist. Preferably with an open end – so that a breakup can also be therapeutically supported.
It is best to put yourself in the shoes of your wife and think about what you would want in your position.
I hope that you can lead a suitably peaceful and mature process of clarification – also with regard to the children.
Best regards
Julia Peirano