After Ashley Madison, How to Cope With Infidelity

Here is a question for our post-privacy era: If you’ve been unfaithful to your partner or spouse, do you confess?
Ever since Ashley Madison, an online dating site for married people, was hacked in July and personal information about more than 30 million registered users was leaked to the public, I’ve been hearing from many marriage therapists who say they have clients who worry their spouse may find out they used the site to cheat and wonder what to do.
The answer: Confess before you get caught.
We’ve always risked being exposed if we have an extramarital affair. A nosy neighbor or friend might tell our spouse that she saw something suspicious. Our partner might walk in on us in flagrante delicto. A spurned lover might out us due to spite.

ENLARGE

The admission Illustration: Dominic Bugatto for The Wall Street Journal

In our current world, where the most-private information—from home addresses and credit card numbers to secret emails and sexual fantasies—are just one hack away from becoming public, the chance of being found out has escalated. As the Ashley Madison hack has shown, the Internet is the modern version of the proverbial lipstick on the collar. You never know when a trace of your misdeed might appear and give you away.
Even before Internet hacks became a concern, affairs were likely to be uncovered. In the Lust, Love & Loyalty survey, conducted in 2007 by MSNBC.com and iVillage, more than 30,000 people who said they had cheated on their partner were asked if that partner had ever found out. Just 32% of men and 39% of women said “definitely not.” Another 23% of both men and women said “not that I know of.” The rest said their spouse either suspected or found out about their affair.

Some therapists I spoke with were torn on whether or not to tell a spouse about an infidelity. If you have put an affair behind you, your marriage is strong, and you have reason to believe your past transgression won’t be discovered, they recommend keeping your secret and not hurting your spouse needlessly with a confession.
A study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships in April, 2001, showed that there are four ways that affairs typically come to light. There is unsolicited partner discovery (the partner who had the affair admits to it without prior interrogation from his or her spouse) and solicited partner discovery (the partner who had the affair admits to it only after being suspected and questioned by the spouse). Then there is “red-handed” discovery (a spouse catches his or her partner in the act of infidelity) and unsolicited third-party discovery (a spouse is told about a partner’s affair by another person).

ENLARGE

A friend delivers the news Illustration: Dominic Bugatto for The Wall Street Journal

The study found that some modes of discovery are better for you than others. The least damaging to a relationship is when the person who had the affair admits to it on his or her own; 43.5% of the 115 participants in the study said their marriage dissolved afterward. That compares with the 68% who said it dissolved after a third party told them about their partner’s infidelity. Of those caught in the act, 83% said the relationship dissolved and 86% said it dissolved after their partner confronted them.
“Victims may view the act of honesty as an attempt to save the relationship,” says Whitney Petit, a teaching fellow at the University of Houston, who has written on the topic. When the injured spouse has to confront his or her partner about an affair, it compounds the pain, therapists say.
According to published reports, about 1 in 6 married men in the U.S. were on Ashley Madison. This seems shocking, and we don’t know the percentage of profiles that were fake. We also don’t know how many of these men had sex with someone they met on the site—but the figure is actually a little lower than general measures of infidelity.
Reliable statistics on infidelity are scarce. Most people don’t want to admit to having an affair and everyone, even the experts, has a different definition of infidelity. Some people define it narrowly, as sexual intercourse with someone who isn’t your partner. Others define it more broadly and include emotional infidelity.

ENLARGE

Caught red-handed Illustration: Dominic Bugatto for The Wall Street Journal

Caveats and all, how often do married people have sex with someone other than their spouse? About 20% of men and 14% of women who have ever been married have had extramarital sex, according to federally sponsored research conducted since 1972 by the social-science research organization NORC at the University of Chicago.
The MSNBC.com/iVillage survey found that 15% of men and 11% of women who said they’d had an extramarital affair confessed to their spouse about it on their own, according to David Frederick, a professor of psychology at Chapman University, in Orange, Calif., who analyzed the results of the survey. This was the most common way a partner discovered infidelity.
Experts said that disclosing an affair in a sincere, respectful and contrite manner may actually help improve a marriage. “Problematic relationships are less likely to heal without open and honest communication,” says Gurit E. Birnbaum, a psychologist, sex researcher and associate professor at the School of Psychology at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.

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So how, and when, do you tell your spouse you’ve been unfaithful?
First, experts agree that you need to end the affair—with integrity. This means that you are respectful to the person you had the affair with and you are clear with yourself that it is over.
Tell your spouse you’d like to talk and find a time that is convenient and a place that is private. “Acknowledge that there have been difficulties in the marriage and that one or both of you has not been happy,” says Tammy Nelson, a marriage therapist with offices in New Haven and Fairfield, Conn.
Dr. Nelson suggests addressing three key areas of the affair: What kind of relationship you had. (Was it sexual or emotional?). What kind of sex you had. (Was it in-person, online, paid?). And what secrets you kept. (Did you spend a lot of money?)
Therapists agree that you should stay away from sharing too many gory details, even if your spouse asks to hear them. “Your partner is not your therapist or your priest,” Dr. Nelson says. Overly confessing might temporarily alleviate your guilt, but it will only further traumatize your spouse.
The goal of the conversation is “try to make meaning of the affair so that you and your partner share a narrative,” says Barry McCarthy, a professor of psychology at American University in Washington, D.C., and author of “Rekindling Desire.” “You want to look at what you learned about your marriage from the affair and what you learned about yourself,” he says.
Wait to apologize until you’ve heard your partner out. “ ‘I am sorry’ can sound like an excuse,” says Dr. Nelson. “It means nothing until you actually have some empathy for what you have done to your partner.”
Finally, you should outline what you are willing to do in the immediate future—can you commit to the marriage? Go to therapy?—and be sure you can keep these promises.
“Focus on the present and the future,” says American University’s Dr. McCarthy. “You can’t change the past.”