IF YOU ARE CHEATING OR HAVING AN AFFAIR

Hi Adrian

If you missed the Today show and you would like to watch it, you can
watch it online. I thought our brief piece, the introduction, was
handled nicely, and it did give the message that a marriage can
survive this.

Here is the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633/

Scroll down the page, next to where it says "A Day for Dad" on the
right, look for the title "Should you tell if you cheated?" on the
left, and click on it to watch the segment online.

We have our work cut out for us as far as breaking down conventional
myths as to what people believe about affairs. Research proves
Cosmopolitan’s Michele Promaulayko’s view that you should not share
the details of the affair is not true.
http://www.dearpeggy.com/results.html

We’re not saying the one who had the affair should share all kinds
of personal details of the affair if the faithful spouse doesn’t want
to know, but they should willingly answer the questions and tell what
the faithful spouse wants to know. To the faithful spouse, we say be
careful. Make sure you don’t ask questions if you aren’t ready to
accept the truth. All your question asking should be done with a
motive to understand, not to point fingers at your spouse for what
they did and make them feel worse.

As far as if a spouse who’s had an affair should tell, we believe
they always should, but they should give thought to the timing and
how they tell.

Although some unfaithful spouses may tell for the wrong motives, I
think they missed a very important reason for telling, which is to
create intimacy in the marriage by getting rid of the lies and
preventing future affairs by creating an atmosphere of real honesty
in the marriage.

I believe an unconfessed affair is like having a rotting corpse in a
closet in your house. You might lock the door and not be able to see
it, but it’s stinking up the place, and you’ll never have a great
marriage with this kind of unconfessed secret in your relationship.
As Brian so rightly made the point on the show, there is a high
possibility that the "secret" will come out at some later date, and
then it will do even more damage. We’ve worked with many, many
couples where this is the case, and the worst of all, when the
betrayed spouse finds out after their unfaithful spouse has passed
away. This seems to be the worst case scenario of all.

It is often said that the reason someone doesn’t confess their
affair to their spouse is because they are being so kind and loving
that they are sparing their spouse the pain. I’d like to suggest,
that it is more likely themselves, the unfaithful spouse who is
sparing themselves the pain and shame of having to face the
consequences of their actions.

It is also said that the reason that one should not confess their
affair is to keep the marriage together. The question I have is why
is it the one who has been unfaithful who gets to make the
decision of whether or not the marriage should stay together after
infidelity? This seems wrong to me.

I have yet to meet a single betrayed spouse who has told me they
wish their spouse never told them. Interesting.

To read more on this topic, I recommend Peggy Vaughan’s article:
http://www.dearpeggy.com/com019.html

Sincerely,

Anne Bercht