Question

You have been married to your spouse for 10 years. You have two small children (ages 7 and 5). You love your spouse, you have a good marriage and you intend to stay married for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, you made a terrible mistake. On an overnight business trip, you drank too much alcohol and ended up having a one-night stand. The next day you are ashamed and devastated. You know this will never happen again and there is no way your spouse could accidentally discover what you did. Assume that you know for a fact that your sexual partner was disease-free and that no pregnancy occurred.

Questions:

1. Would you tell your spouse? Why or why not?

2. If you told, what would be your motivations for the disclosure? Are those motivations enough reason to hurt your spouse?

3. Would you want to know if your spouse had done this? Why or why not?

4. If you knew that your spouse would leave you over this, would that play a part in your decision to tell? Are the children a factor?

Answer 1

1) I would not tell my spouse, for fear of spoiling our happy life. It was a mistake, which I do not want to repeat. I would ask forgiveness to God but if a thing which would spoil our relationship has to be avoided.

2) If I tell it, my motivation would be to be honest to him. Yes, it may hurt him initially, but if he is an understanding person, with time, he will understand me.

3. No, I would not like to know whether my spouse has done this or not. This is because, he is human after all and would have knowingly or unknowingly committed a mistake. Since, it is completely irrelevant to us at this point of life, I would not wish to know, as it has the potential to ruin happy life of us. Moreover, why dig something of which, I am not sure of how good, I am at handling it.

4. Of course, my spouse leaving me over this and my children are the biggest decision factors in deciding whether to tell this to him or not.