If they've truly gotten away with it after all that time, my guess is it's because of the exact same reason they cheated in the first place, Selfishness. They probably feel guilt for some reason or another, and they can't bare it anymore. So they spill their guts, not bc they feel their spouse deserves the truth, but because doing so finally relieves them of their burden. And they probably think since it was so long ago, their spouse will probably just rug-sweep it and move on. Guilt is relieved and life goes on.

 

This. All of this.

 

It seems that is sometimes just comes out in an angry response or admission to question. Variety of reasons, not all innocent or good.

 

Imagining that your entire relationship or so much of it, was kind of a lie, would be worse than learning about it around the time it happened. Both scenarios would be bad to deal with, but even if you had a blissful marriage for most of your life, you’d wonder if you would even be there still had you been aware when it happened. 😕

 

Great question !!!!

I don’t have the answer that’s for sure. As strange as it sounds I don’t want to know and I’m not even sure I would care at this point and after all this time if it was something while we were dating. If it happened while we were married it would be a very different story.

People are a different person than they were 20/30/40 years ago. I know I sure am. I wouldn’t want to have to be accountable today for the jackazz I was 30 years ago 😅

 

😳 Jeez I'm getting old....I was married already, at all those numbers...

Happily thank the good Lord. Still.

Sorry for temp tj....W and I have the oldest grandson for weekend.

W and I took him to a theme park yesterday, fun time. A perk for old M couples... 👍

 

I’m sure there are a variety of reasons but I wonder if sometimes it’s an ego thing. Ha, let me tell you what I pulled on you 30 years ago… And you never suspected…you moron.

 

I think in most cases they already know but just won’t admit it to themselves.

 

I believe that the disclosure of an affair by a cheater can occur for several reasons.
1. Someone who knows the truth is blackmailing the cheater or simply threatening the cheater to tell their spouse what happened because of revenge, because of shame or jealousy because they "found God" and other moral reasons.
2.The cheater reveals the truth themselves because they feel that their partner already knows the truth or guesses about it and is about to find out the truth themselves. That is, it's better to admit it, or it will be worse.
3. (The rarest case). The cheater has realized the gravity of their heinous actions and can no longer live with their secret.
.................................................
But I am sure, and this has been confirmed by hundreds of millions of cases of infidelity at all times and in all countries, that the most far-sighted and painless solution for a betrayed partner in the long run after discovering infidelity is to end the relationship/divorce. It is such a threat that will encourage the cheater to reveal the full truth to the end, if, of course, the betrayed partner needs it.

 

painless solution for a betrayed partner in the long run after discovering infidelity is to end the relationship/divorce.

I am talking about people who have been married a lifetime. They are nearing retirement, maybe already retired. 60s and 70s.

There is no painless route. Divorcing when old just adds more turmoil and disruption at a time when the betrayed is too old to recover. It most likely shortens their life.

I think it is a selfish, self centered person who unloads their guilt onto their spouse.

I wouldn’t want to know about a tryst that happened, even if suspicious. Certainly wouldn’t go digging for dead bodies. If a spouse had an affair at 30 and we are now 70, I don’t want to know. She needs to keep it to herself.

 

This happened to my great uncle (if that is the correct term) in the 1970's. They have been married a long time, 30 - 40 years is my guess.

He found out she had an affair (a one night stand, no idea how he found out) in WW2 while he was fighting in Europe.

He divorced her immediately and moved on. She was heartbroken because she thought they had a strong, happy marriage. She died a lonely, bitter woman.

I guess somethings things are unforgivable.

 

in WW2 while he was fighting in Europe.

I think infidelity during a man’s deployment is more common than not. And in some cases, suspect they give one another a pass. With understanding it will forever be secret.

 

My wife and I have been married for 38 years.
When we met she told me I was her first boyfriend and a virgin.
4 years ago I discovered a photo in our albums of her taken 18 months before we met and she`s clearly wearing a promise and engagement rings.
She did not have those rings when we met. I asked her about the rings and she has given me several unconvincing answers to how she got them and what happened to the rings all unconvincing, her story has changed multiple times.

So I had to let it go this having been so long ago and accept I`ll never know and given up caring.

Many wives will only give censored or toned down versions of their past and some won`t say anything if asked.
Husbands may be shocked if discovering what their wives got up to in their single days and considering most won`t say anyway probably best not to know.

 

So I had to let it go this having been so long ago and accept I`ll never know and given up caring.

Wise!! Let it go. Don’t care!

 

Here it comes.....

The Karma bus has arrived.

Fate has its own needs and it's own timeline.

Truly, the truth seemingly blurts out from another dimension.

Karma owns no form, and no voice, it borrows those of living things.

Preferably, human.

😳

Oops!

 

Sins must be atoned.

Sins committed in this lifetime, or in a former.

Sins of your own, or that of your father, or mother.

There is no escape.

Dammit!

 

Sins must be atoned.

Sins committed in this lifetime, or in a former.

Sins of your own, or that of your father, or mother.

There is no escape.

Dammit!

Had a family friend of parents, she cheated with their pastor no less, (she cleaned the church). It was brought before the congregation and they let the pastor remain there! He did not divorce for the 3 kids sale. She soon got bone cancer and it killed her quickly, he remarried to lovely faithful woman and is happy again. Sometimes karma is dealt in spades.

 

What you fear most only awaits to happen.

Fear is that voice that you often hear.

We attribute this voice to our own conscience.

What fools we are. Our minds try to make sense of the unknown.

Phobias are given to you, sometimes for a lifetime..

 

What you fear most only awaits to happen.

Fear is that voice that you often hear.

We attribute this voice to our own conscience.

What fools we are. Our minds try to make sense of the unknown.

Phobias are given to you, sometimes for a lifetime..

Pain!!!
That crazy clingy gorgeus beautiful destroyer trusty friend.

You can be destroyed by it.

Or you can linger in "I have no idea" land.

Or you can become stronger. Scarred by it but stronger.

The Transylvanian.

 

Caring is a desired personality trait.

 

I also wonder whether age can unleash accidental reveals. My suspicion is this was factor for a TAM member’s wife revealing events long in her past, resulting in separation.

 

At some point later in life I suspect a women’s practicalities of sex over ride the emotional.

That which is practical is not viewed as harmful as that which is emotional. The damage isn’t foreseen as being that damaging to her. I don’t think chicks wear that sex on their sleeve like men do. Chicks get real and the dudes get bent.

 

@mynymprostory somehow managed to compartmentalize living with a sex addict for a long married life. So maybe that is a strategy for dealing with long ago infidelity discovered recently. It seems he dealt with it by viewing it as a habit his wife couldn’t kick.

So thinking of long ago as being a different person than one presently married to? The woman asking young husband “is that all you have?” when seing his package is a different person from one wanting to renew vows 46 years later.

 

I would 100% bury it - it's a selfish thing to do, to tell someone 20+ years later. If you weren't "man" enough to come clean back then, now you have to live with yourself. The choice is made early. After awhile it's too late.

 

Because people are inherently selfish.

They either can’t live with the guilt or they wanna hurt their partner or maybe it’s a mixture of both.

 

Because people are inherently selfish.

They either can’t live with the guilt or they wanna hurt their partner or maybe it’s a mixture of both.

Do you think after all that time they really feel guilty? I personally wouldn’t think so. Maybe the first year after and then much less each year after I would think.

 

I think it depends.

I`ve read on forum websites and watched YouTube videos of wives that have made men wait til marriage until giving it up and even after marriage the sex is vanilla and then out the blue the husband receives a video of his wife during her college days or before they met having threesomes and even gangbangs with guys and doing stuff she`s never done or won`t do with her husband.

I`ve no doubts most of it is fiction but I`m sure this happens. If this happened to me I`d be devastated. On the other hand if my wife was in a couple of relationships before we met this wouldn`t bother me at all unless she didn`t tell me and I found out later.

A good business venture would be visiting a professional and couples given compatibility tests prior to marriage and even lie detector tests, could save a lot of heartache later on. Rather be hit by a bomb prior to marriage than after marriage.

 

This is a bit off topic since there is a big difference in revealing an affair decades later that occurred during the marriage vs revealing undisclosed relationships prior to the marriage. IMO they aren't even close. Finding out she was wild and crazy before you, but plain and boring with you falls somewhere between the two, but still nowhere near the same as infidelity.

Why would it bother you to find out she had a prior relationship that she didn't reveal to you if it is totally in the past? Suppose your wife has a LTR before you and you found out now decades later, what would you do? Divorce her?

 

Poser:

Is the "Guilt" due to withholding info from spouse?
Or -
Guilt for having done the deed(s)?
Or -
Pawning oneself off as pristine when they are not?

Or?

 

Relationships before marriage aren’t what am talking about. Neither is infidelity in here and now or even few years ago. I am talking about infidelity decades ago in a long marriage.

Maybe @Mr.Married is onto something. Do older women not attach as much importance to infidelity long past?

How would a wife married 5 decades respond to her husband revealing he had an affair when they were newly married?

 

How would a wife married 5 decades respond to her husband revealing he had an affair when they were newly married?

Personally, I don’t know that it would even phase me.

The focus on adultery is relatively new - historically speaking. And I think that‘s more because women are now free to behave just as badly as men, and yet not get stoned for it. Men really don’t like that.

Men have been committing adultery, divorcing, abusing, and murdering their wives literally forever. And other men have pretty much been okay with that.

Now you hear a lot about how men have to protect themselves from women who’re doing the same sorts of things men have gotten away with for centuries.

 

We only own our own past.

Try as we might, we cannot change our past or rewrite someone else's.

I understand honesty, I do.

It is said that the truth will set you free.

Sometimes, out on your butt, in the street.

What does a lady with a past do...?

Lie, or minimize, deflect, or say nothing?

None are good choices.

I see both sides of this dilemma.

One side is sordid, the other a sore subject.

A man might deserve to know about her romps.

Alas, no good will come from this.

The Lass is left with her pants down.

We only own our own past.

Try as we might, we cannot change our past or rewrite someone else's.

I understand honesty, I do.

It is said that the truth will set you free.

Sometimes, out on your butt, in the street.

What does a lady with a past do...?

Lie, or minimize, deflect, or say nothing?

None are good choices.

I see both sides of this dilemma.

One side is sordid, the other a sore subject.

A man might deserve to know about her romps.

Alas, no good will come from this.

The Lass is left with her pants down.

We only own our own past.

Try as we might, we cannot change our past or rewrite someone else's.

I understand honesty, I do.

It is said that the truth will set you free.

Sometimes, out on your butt, in the street.

What does a lady with a past do...?

Lie, or minimize, deflect, or say nothing?

None are good choices.

I see both sides of this dilemma.

One side is sordid, the other a sore subject.

A man might deserve to know about her romps.

Alas, no good will come from this.

The Lass is left with her pants down.

Just tell them about your past. Some people dig a past. It fuels their jollies. There's an ass for every seat. If they don't dig it, then you both dodged a different kind of bullet. I always told of my past and all it got me was several marriage proposals.

 

@Rus47 - I‘m also not a grudge/vengeful sort of person. Even if the other person never confesses, there’s no closure, etc., I’m good.

I‘m pretty resilient.

 

I was asking if wives and husbands deal with exposure of a long ago infidelity differently. My sense is husbands are much more resentful and damaged discovering something that happened decades ago.

I also often read on TAM cases where wives are more resilient to infidelity in general, especially if it was “just sex”. It seems that if their husbands affair was short duration and he didn’t profess love for the AP, the wives readily reconcile.

OTOH, for a husband, if his wife strays once, no matter how briefly or how long ago, he is ready to end the marriage immediately. And often divorce cost is the only consideration.

 

Wild thread.

I think infidelity during a man’s deployment is more common than not.

A relative on my mom's side came home from WW2 to son (hint - not his). He, the soldier relative, disappeared. Never to be heard from again. Ghosted the wife and her baby.

Why would it bother you to find out she had a prior relationship that she didn't reveal to you if it is totally in the past?

Depends. I can attest from experience that when you find out she was being a more sexually expressive parter with the prior guys...odds are you will hate that if you are a guy.

How would a wife married 5 decades respond to her husband revealing he had an affair when they were newly married?

I've long joked that if I ever cheated and my wife knew, I would simply never go home. i would cease to exist as far as she is concerned. Not exactly sure if that holds true now in our 60's. But i'm not taking the chance

I‘m also not a grudge/vengeful sort of person.

I believe that. But I believe this is very much a wiring issue. Some folks are mellow. Some folks will deploy the death star and happily destroy a planet if justice demands. Personally, my wiring puts me on the death star. That said, necessary retribution does change based on circumstance and time. If I discovered a long ago affair by wife, I might not leave now in my 60s. But there would abso-****ing-lutely be consequences.

I also often read on TAM cases where wives are more resilient to infidelity in general, especially if it was “just sex”. I

This baffles me. One of the most elementary, provable, replicable findings in (evolutionary) psychology is that men are overwhelmingly concerned with the sex part of infidelity. It's massive - in the 90% range - and global. All cultures. All men. So not a single one of us should be surprised, shocked, amazed or confused about why men react the way they do when infidelity is uncovered. It's also beyond established that women focus the vast majority of times on the emotional (attachment) side of infidelity (as I recall, it's in the upper 60% range for them). TAM and other long standing relationship sites have been a virtual lab for these findings. So the "it was just sex" line actually is much more likely to sound plausible to a certain % of women. The "it was just sex" excuse will be plausible / acceptable to almost NO men. You could place that bet ahead of time.

 

The "it was just sex" excuse will be plausible / acceptable to almost NO men. You could place that bet ahead of time.

Exactly. Since sex to me has emotional meaning, and a woman can get pregnant having sex, then to me, she is willing to be impregnated by and carry that man's child and that is a bridge too far for me.

 

I believe that. But I believe this is very much a wiring issue. Some folks are mellow.

My perspective is different.

We have innate wiring from birth - selfishness. And trust me, I’m not mellow. 😅

I’m a Christian, which is a call to die to that selfishness. Am I going to obey? Or am I going to give in? It‘s a choice.

Have you ever been jealous?

No. I don’t particularly want what anyone else has. Most of what we perceive as ‘better’ isn’t real.

 

My wife was well aware of my cheating on her prior to our marriage. But, she did not know about the last one after our engagement. I confessed to it about 2 years ago after being on these forums for a couple of years. She hugged me tightly, kissed me, and told me she loved me. She also said she was very happy I ended up with her and not someone else. My gal is some kind of special.

 

My wife was well aware of my cheating on her prior to our marriage. But, she did not know about the last one after our engagement. I confessed to it about 2 years ago after being on these forums for a couple of years. She huugged me tightly, kissed me, and told me she loved me. She also said she was very happy I ended up with her and not someone else. My gal is some kind of special.

Must admit that to me trust is so very important. Plus sexual faithfulness too. For both to be shattered together would be just awful.

 

Not being a traitorous ***** is the kind thing to do. Once heard of an elderly couple where a woman admitted to her husband in the last years of his life that she cheated soon after they married and that the one child they had wasn't his. He confirmed it with a DNA test and spent the final years of his life in depression. His daughter wondered why he acted so strangely in the final years of his life until she finally figured out the truth from the journal he wrote.

This happened to my great uncle (if that is the correct term) in the 1970's. They have been married a long time, 30 - 40 years is my guess.

He found out she had an affair (a one night stand, no idea how he found out) in WW2 while he was fighting in Europe.

He divorced her immediately and moved on. She was heartbroken because she thought they had a strong, happy marriage. She died a lonely, bitter woman.

I guess somethings things are unforgivable.

Maybe he found out from a friend or perhaps she had some kind of written evidence she forgot about. I don't know why men go into the military when it's like a death sentence for your relationship with infidelity is so common in military couples. Pic related.

Spoiler: Redditor finds list of encounters

Nope! I'd give her the boot and not look back.

But, she never would do it anyway.

It was not an ONS. I actually had a few months relationship with that AP.

Never say never.

True story:
Did you know that in England during WW2 especially when the Americans and Canadians were deployed there and many of the British servicemen were fighting abroad, that many wives were having affairs with American and Canadian troops. Quite often when the British troops arrived back home they discovered their wives have had a child from an AP. But in most cases to hide their shame wives would have abortions if falling pregnant. The back street abortionists were doing a roaring trade. Once completed the fetuses were dumped in lakes or rivers. Just after the war the local council decided to dredge and clean up the lake at Victoria Park in the east end of London. Once dredged they discovered hundreds of fetuses and bodies of unborn babies in that lake, all the result of illegal abortions. Sometimes after a backstreet abortion a woman would become infected and die. My aunt told me this story, she remained faithful during the war, well, so she said.

What a world we live in. But I can't say I am surprised because women seem to be very allergic to taking responsibility for their actions.



What admission are you referring to exactly?

 

What admission are you referring to exactly?

Other threads in this forum. That prompted this thread.