Does disclosing an affair do more harm than good?
Would you tell your partner if you cheated?
Lifestyle
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Cheating on your partner doesn’t come without consequence – but does coming clean about an affair cause more hurt than it’s worth? We asked an expert.
When Lily Cross* cheated on her boyfriend of two years, she was left with a painful decision.
“The morning after, my first reaction was that James* could never find out,” she tells Body+Soul.
On a night out with a bunch of friends in Sydney’s CBD, she ran into a guy she knew in highschool, but hadn’t seen in many years.
“We were good friends once but kind of lost contact, so it was a nice surprise to see him when we were both out,” she says.
Fuelled by cocktails and her friends’ dislike of her current partner, James, one thing led to another and Lily wound up in a number of places she shouldn’t have been that night: in a dark corner of a loud bar with her arms around Connor’s neck; in an Uber, with her tongue down Connor’s throat, and in a bed, in the master bedroom of Connor’s house.
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“The next day I felt sick,” says Cross. “I was so hungover I couldn’t stop throwing up, and had to piece together what happened the night before.”
But amidst trips to the bathroom to resurface last night’s cocktails for dinner, she knew she’d made “the worst mistake” and was shocked by the level of regret and sadness she felt.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” she says. “I felt like I’d made this decision that ruined my life and I wish I could take it all back.”
By “my life” Cross is of course referring to James – the boyfriend she’d been in a seemingly committed relationship with for years, but hadn’t once considered the night before.
According to Cross, she and James had their issues. She wasn’t always happy in the relationship: she and James fought a lot, and didn’t always seem compatible, which Cross is sure formed part of the reason she’d allowed the cheating to happen. But nevertheless, she loves him, and cheating on James was never part of the plan.
On top of trying to reconcile her own moral code – and stop throwing up – Cross now had one hell of an ethical dilemma to face: to front up to the mistake she made and tell James what she’d done, or hide it – pretend the night never happened and move on with her life, determined to never make the same mistake again.
While her initial urge was to bury the truth, Cross soon discovered that the aftermath of infidelity is far harder than the act of infidelity itself, and neither option felt like the right one.
Cross’ circumstances are not at all unusual. According to the Body+Soul 2024 Sex Census, one in five Australians have cheated on a partner. Of that 20 per cent, 15 per cent cheated on a former partner, and five per cent on their current beau.
A third of Aussies have thought about cheating, even if they haven't followed through.
With divorce rates still on the rise, and cheating often cited as the reason for a split (or “irreconcilable differences” as the celebrities say), it’s an easy inference that people’s willingness to transgress is not slowing down either. Relationship psychotherapist Esther Perel claims that the number of women who admit to adultery has increased by 40 per cent since 1990.
But while people are seemingly more willing to cheat (or at least willing to disclose their transgressions in a survey), the question of whether you should reveal or conceal an affair is still no easier for its participants.
“I have been asked the question of whether to disclose infidelity to a partner or not in my practice more than I ever would have expected,” Dr Alissa Knight tells Body+Soul. “As a clinical psychologist, you’d think this would be a simple answer, but it really isn’t.”
“I see the initial decision to disclose or not more like a paradoxical catch-22 situation,” she continues. “On one hand, the most important element of affair recovery is complete honesty, but on the other hand, releasing the truth comes with great risk of destroying your partner emotionally and psychologically, along with any hopes of reconciliation.”
If you were to ask a group of 10 people what they would do in the event of a transgression, you’d likely get 10 different answers.
Many people are adamant that cheating on the person you love is your cross to bear: 'you made the mistake, so now you have to live with it’, provided it’s a one-off of course. But on the other hand, isn’t honesty touted as the best policy?
Of course, having to actually make that choice is a different matter altogether, and as with any crisis, how people choose to handle that decision is as unique as the affair itself.
“I think what is incredibly important to understand is there is no ‘right’ choice when deciding to disclose an affair,” says Knight.
“People may begrudge that comment…[saying] a cheater should always be exposed and the betrayed partner always deserves the truth. And while on many levels I do absolutely agree with this, we always have to try and think outside the black and white box for circumstances and situations we may never have considered.”
Whichever way you slice it, Knight urges people to remember that “Affair discovery is one of the most earth-shattering, psychologically and emotionally traumatic events that can happen to any person within a relationship."
“In most circumstances, it completely destabilises and dismantles relationships, and is by far one of the greatest contributors and risk factors for divorce among couples in Western societies.”
For that reason, many people believe that cheating on the person you love is your cross to bear. And by breaking the rules of a monogamous union, maybe it is an apt punishment for the cheater to live with that in silence for the rest of their life, and save their partner unnecessary pain.
It’s a noble approach, I guess. But usually, the decision is based as much on protecting the partner as it is on fear of the reckoning that lies on the other side of an admission.
“Many cheaters fear with a nightmare sweat how their partner will react,” says Knight – and rightly so.
“From scenarios that play over in their mind of whether their partner will emotionally fall apart, try to physically hurt them back, threaten to take the kids, tell the entire population of friends and family how unfaithfully shameful they are, divorce them and take the house – all of these procrastinating ‘what ifs’ can paralyse a person in the mind and stop them from coming forward and being clean,” she explains.
For others, honesty about an affair just comes at a cost the cheater is not willing to pay: taking responsibility, or facing up to their partner’s hurt or anger.
Sometimes it just comes down to a lack of empathy altogether, or knowing that it won’t be the last time they stray from their relationship – why tell a partner the truth when the transgression is still in motion?
“No one willingly steps into a fire line without a gut-wrenching sense of how uncomfortable the confrontation is going to be,” says Knight. “Especially when they know they are about to be at the receiving end of another person’s anger, hurt, pain, tears and hypervigilance.”
She also points out that men in particular are often reticent to deal with (or are just inherently scared of) “women’s ‘big’ emotions, and not having the ability to cope with them once erupted.
“That fear can sometimes be so intense that it fuels the idea of keeping the affair a secret.”
In Cross’ circumstance, her reluctance to disclose the affair came from a deep desire not to hurt James – why tell him about something that was an error, never to be repeated?
But it was also rooted in terror: that he would break up with her, that everyone would know she’d done something terrible, and that she’d know she was responsible for blowing up her own life.
Of course, the one thing that’s worse than that terror is deciding not to be honest, and their partner finding out anyway – and knowing they’ve been actively hiding it.
“In this circumstance, not only have they broken the bond of trust, they have also destroyed the mechanism for fixing it,” says Knight. “It becomes extremely difficult (if not impossible) to repair a relationship from that point.”
It’s the fear of discovery that usually leads cheaters to do the right thing – but it also hinges on the person’s ability to deal with guilt.
In Cross’ case, that threshold was not high. She hoped to never admit the truth, protecting James from the mistake she’d made while also vowing to never repeat it. But as she sat in her room the next day, trying to understand what had gone wrong, the guilt was eating her alive.
“Sometimes, carrying this enormous secret becomes like an anxiety-infested plague in the mind. Due to the increasing level of discomfort it creates, a cheater can almost be driven to tell their partner just to relieve the weight of the burden,” says Knight.
“What can sometimes happen is while [a cheater is]so focused on relieving the discomfort, they haven’t quite mentally prepared themselves for the behavioural and emotional reaction of their partner” – which can then catch them unawares.
Some people will yell and scream or get physically violent, while others will freeze, unable to speak at all. Some people may not even be able to engage, and blank-faced, will turn around and walk straight out the door.
“Despite how one reacts in the movement, the vast majority will find themselves in some state of shock [and may experience an] intense emotional outburst sometime after the news has sunk in,” says Knight.
“When you are delivering heart-shattering news to a partner about an affair, your utmost priority is to be as emotionally prepared as you can be to allow your partner the space they need to express their feelings,” whatever that reaction looks like (physical violence excepting).
There are a few other considerations that Knight says are also important to think about before making an admission.
For one, any person who experiences some kind of mental health condition could be destabilised by this news, more so than an otherwise mentally “well” person. So before jumping in and telling them the news, ask yourself whether they are in a place to safely accept it, and if they have a support network to help them heal and recover in its wake.
It’s also key to consider your own health – could you be at risk of any danger if you come clean? And are you mentally well enough to bear the load of responsibility when you admit to your transgression?
Knight suggests talking to a trusted friend or confidant in the lead-up for support, along with a therapist who can help to prepare you for the conversation and how this decision will impact your partner. That also involves learning “how to rebuild trust, make amends, offer forgiveness and reconstruct a more mutually satisfying relationship,” she says.
After confiding in her mum and a close friend, Cross made the decision to come clean to James. “It was horrible,” she says. “I cried a lot, so did James. But I tried to be honest about what happened and told him how much I regret it.” To his credit, he believed her, and decided their relationship was worth rebuilding, despite Cross’ mistake.
As unpleasant and uncomfortable as these conversations can be, Knight says “If you want any chance of staying in the relationship and it working, honesty is paramount for the healing process of both people involved."
At the very least, it shows that a partner is “willing to put themself in the firing line to show they can be trusted again, held accountable for their actions, and has the capacity to say sorry, all the while knowing they have broken that trust, with a risk of never getting it back,” she says.
“Yes, revealing the truth can be scary and often painful. It may even seem sadistic to reveal what you have done knowing how badly you are going to hurt them, but your relationship will depend on it.”
How to tell a partner you’ve cheated on them
So you’ve made a mistake and cheated on your partner, but you want to take responsibility for what you’ve done and come clean. Now what? Dr Alissa Knight shares three things you should keep in mind when you tell them.
Give the whole truth
No, you don’t need to tell them the hairy details of an affair – no one needs to know what specific sex acts you engaged in, or the exact messages you sent.
But you should aim to give your partner a comprehensive understanding of what went down, how it happened, and why.
“Even if you think that nothing is going to hurt your partner more than the truth, I can assure you that what someone can create in their mind is far worse,” says Knight. “If you do not give them the breadth of information and answers they seek, or only bits you feel comfortable giving, they will simply create them.”
“Providing the whole truth provides the first step to rebuilding trust overtime.”
Offer answers upfront, don’t force your partner to ask
“What can emotionally overwhelm a betrayed partner more than anything is when they first hear the words “I had an affair”, and their partner then sits in front of them in dead silence,” says Knight. “Those words in isolation are so powerfully destructive to a person.”
Instead of dropping a bomb and letting it fester, start talking.
Even if all you can do is acknowledge how hard it must be to hear that and that at the very least you’d like to answer any questions they might have, it shows you have considered the person’s feelings and want to be honest with them – plus it starts the process of reconciliation.
Avoid being defensive
Your partner’s immediate response may not be a particularly pleasant one. “They may embark on a verbal lashing of how despicable, untrustworthy, terrible, sly, and awful a person you are, as a way to distance themselves from the hurt and pain by directing it towards you,” says Knight.
“This can be very hard to sit through without becoming defensive. However, you must commit to remaining calm and responsive. Continue to allow your partner to express their feelings, validate them, and take accountability.
“Each confirmed truth for the betrayed partner is like a brick in a wall to rebuilding trust and healing.”
*All names have been changed for privacy reasons.
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Originally published as Does disclosing an affair do more harm than good?
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