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I just received a question on my contact form asking me if I wrote a particular article found on the web.  The person didn’t leave contact information, so it is probably a spammer’s attempt to get me to publish a link to their article.  But the article presents an interesting question.  If you are cheating on your wife (or husband), should you tell them?

I don’t know.  You should consider all sides of the problem – and you should recognize that you are going to lose either way.  The question is, which is the bigger loss?  The one thing I can say without any hesitation is that cheating on your spouse never turns out well.  Ever.  Best case, you get away with it, your spouse doesn’t contract a disease from you, the other person’s spouse doesn’t come after you and you have to live with a pretty big secret for the rest of your life.  The worst case, I think you already know based on your own situation.

If you come to see me, I will probably suggest that you to either break off the affair or tell your spouse that you want to be with the other woman.  If you end the affair, it is up to you whether you tell your wife.  And there are cases where it’s not good idea.  But either way, she doesn’t need to know the gory details.  That will just put an image in her head that she will never get rid of.  But if you don’t talk to a marriage counselor about this, at least talk to a friend or family member who can be objective.