Dear anonymous:

It’s been a month since your last post in this thread. I hope that you are feeling better. I am writing you today because I think that there is something I can add that may be helpful to you and to me.

First, a review of our communication in this thread: in your original post, you shared that sometime during the summer that just passed, you “made a mistake” while being “simply drunk“: you “didn’t ‘cheat’ but came quite close” to cheating  on your long-term partner. Your questions were: “is it worth it to tell my partner?… Should I tell or not? and if not… how do I let go of these feelings and move on from this terrible mistake?”

You elaborated on what you referred to as “these feelings” in posts that followed: “the thought of hurting my partner in this way has brought me great shame and regret…  feel like irreparably broke something in my relationship… I feel ashamed and not worthy.. do you think I will carry this guilt with me forever?… I just hate myself for putting myself in this situation…  whenever I try to act normal, I feel a stabbing pain of guilt inside me… I feel like I did something unforgivable..  I feel anxious all the time“.

I tried to make you feel better about the mistake you made (I called your mistake “ache”, an acronym for the one, singular almost cheating incident) . On Aug 10, I quoted from the bible and made you an offer: ” James 5:16: ‘Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed’ –you don’t need to confess the ache to your partner because it will hurt him and nothing good will come out of it. But you need to confess it to someone so to heal. It so happens that you confessed it to me, and…  I forgive you. Next time I make a mistake, I am okay with confessing it to you and asking for your forgiveness. Is it okay with you?”

You answered shortly after: “anita, thank you so much, this has made me feel so much better. and yes please, next time you dele (sic) you did something wrong, I would love to forgive you…I hope your words of forgiveness will sink in for me soon. the Bible verses have also helped me.. I’ve asked God for forgiveness so many times too“.

On Aug 11, I wrote to you: “seems to me that it means that you have a Guilty Core Belief, and that this core belief was formed when you were a child (core beliefs are formed during the formative years of childhood). It is also possible that you suffer from obsessive think”. You answered shortly after: “This would make sense. I’m going to look into the core beliefs and see how I can deal with mine. Maybe I also do suffer from obsessive thinking. I tend to be a perfectionist and am a bit failure averse“.

Your last post addressed to me on this thread was on Aug 16, and it included a red heart emoji: “I wanted to give you a special thank you. when I was first faced with this difficult situation, I looked to this community for guidance and found your name everywhere. thank you for all that you do here, your love and dedication are seen and appreciated. “.

These last 3 sentences that you wrote to me (right above) were sincere, appreciative, kind, affectionate and precious, thank you! I want to elaborate on the review of your thread that I put together in this post, and I would like to do what I said that I am okay doing back in Aug 10 (“Next time I make a mistake, I am okay with confessing it to you and asking for your forgiveness”), but I need to know first (1) if you are reading this post, (2) if you have any idea as to what mistake (and wrongdoing, on my part) I am referring to, and (3) if you are interested that I proceed.

anita