Two years since I ‘ve been away. Thank you for your kind response Anita – and hello to those who’ve just stumbled onto this thread now that I’ve bumped it up. I’m here to write the long overdue update since I’ve contemplated the replies here – hopefully to close the thread with a good note as well.

Since details must’ve waned off after so long, I suppose we don’t have to go through the nails again. Tl;dr, I was a mistress to a married man, and was wondering whether it’s good to tell the wife and how to best deal with the guilt.

To answer Anita’s latest reply: “I wonder about the nature of your relationship with this man since our March 2017 communication, what you mean by being removed from that environment.” –

I’ve since cut off contact with him, removed our social media mutuals, and moved from my initial house.

During my absence on this forum, I met a loving boy who became my boyfriend, to whom I’m also very open with since day one. He knew about this affair and was very supportive of my recovery since I seemed to have an unresolved trauma that manifested in the ways I handled our disagreements.

Eventually, we decided to meet up with someone who belonged in the religious organization where I met the man in question. He was the head organizer, as well as the lead pastor. There’s this one belief in my religion that if ‘one were to heal, they must first open up.’ And that’s exactly what I did: I came clean. The pastor also shared his views.

Apparently the entire organization had had their own suspicions of the man’s affair for a long while – just that they didn’t know that one of the girls was me. The wife ALSO had been suspecting the affair – but didn’t confront me, nor divorce the man in question. Their relationship remained intact though the wife had also confessed her worries in the marriage to the same pastor.

I was fearfully ready to receive repercussions – whatever it might be – but surprisingly the pastor was very fair and accepting. He thanked me for confessing, gave consolation, and reassured that should any further mediation is required for the married couple, he would be the one to mediate – especially since the organization is quite tight-knit, and everyone shares their struggles with the pastor. He would only require me to come should the married couple need a collective resolve, which didn’t happen and I never heard from them afterwards. That night, I cried a lot in front of him and my boyfriend, but also felt the guilt washing off after a long period of it sticking like glue.

What the pastor said that might’ve rhymed with the replies here was, non-verbatim: “past the mistake, it is most ideal to distance yourself from things or people who might have damaging qualities to others. You do not have to be the villain, nor hero in every story. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone has to hold themselves accountable and better themselves. If you’ve done your responsibilities, confessed your sin and moved on – it is good. Whether or not he repents, it is not up to you, nor his wife, nor anyone else’s – it is entirely his responsibility.”

Looking back to this thread and re-reading my own words, I notice a good amount of self-disgust and guilt through the words. The guilt is well-deserved for what I’ve done remains a mistake, but I no longer feel it creeping back up and gouging me inside-out like it used to. It allowed me to recognize and address my own capabilities to do good and bad things, objectively. I’d like to think that I’ve grown a little bit since then.

And for this reason, I feel like opening up about one’s struggles is good in order for recovery to safely slid into view (at least for someone like me). Had I not shared my mistakes here on TinyBuddha, and had I not been open to my boyfriend and the pastor, I felt like it might’ve done me much worse by suppressing all of the negative feelings.

For those who’ve replied to this thread and/or are now reading this, thank you very much. I hope you’re doing especially well, Anita, since I’ve learned a lot from your compassion and understanding. I’ve now just come around to read the recent threads made by others and saw you’re still very much active in writing – something that easily sets you apart from the others. Wish I could send you a gift, if not give a huge warm hug.