Evidence of a True Affair Confession

Jacob sits at one end of the counseling couch, downcast, head in his hands, elbows on his knees. His gaze finally lifts from the space between his feet to settle on his wife, Cara, curled up in a tight ball at the other end of the couch. "How am I supposed to believe you?" he asks.

She hesitates, obviously frustrated with her inability to convince her husband. "Whether you believe me or not, I'm telling you the truth."

"You told me that before and I found out you were still lying. This whole affair was about making me believe one thing while you were doing something else. So how how can I believe you're being honest now?"

Cara remains silent. Jacob shakes his head, then turns to me as I sit in witness of their struggle. "Do you think I should trust her?" he asks, somehow hoping my counselor's insight will provide him with assurance one way or the other.

He desperately wants to believe Cara. He wants to believe the affair is over, that she desires him and not the other man, that she is committed to truthfulness, that it is safe for him to risk trusting her again. But her betrayal makes it impossible for him to be convinced, and so he asks me to make a judgment.

I've watched hundreds of couples go through the steps of affair recovery and have listened to many affair confessions. Because of this experience, couples rely on me to guide them through the process of recovery. Like Jacob, many betrayed spouses want me to tell them what they ought to believe or not believe. Honestly, I wish I could make it that easy for them, but I can be fooled by lies, too.

The words of confession are necessary, but they cannot be the only measure of truthfulness since everyone (the liar and truth-teller alike) swears they are speaking honestly. A more accurate measure of sincerity is behavior, not words.

If you are a betrayed spouse, what signs of authenticity can you look for? I've found the following behaviors to be reliable evidence of true or false confessions.

Evidence of a True Affair Confession

1. Selfless remorse. Your spouse shows genuine sorrow over hurting you, not just regret over getting caught. Their admission is expressed with an attitude of humility rather than defensiveness.
   
   
2. Concern for your relief and comfort, not just their own. Your spouse listens to you and attempts to alleviate your pain. They are willing to reach out to you rather than being self-absorbed in their own pain.
   
   
3. Ongoing commitment to truthfulness. If no secrets remain, your spouse will no longer need to fear discovery. In fact, the relief they experience from finally coming clean will likely move them to ongoing transparency, wanting to assure you of their honesty. However, be aware of this: ongoing interrogations about shameful details of an affair will almost always cause a defensive reaction and will probably not be helpful to you in the long-run.
   
   
4. Willingness to fix what they broke. Not every marriage can be repaired, but a repentant spouse is almost always willing to do their part in trying. They accept responsibility for helping you feel safe again and regaining your trust.

Evidence of a False Affair Confession

1. Confessions are limited to what has been uncovered. This is sometimes called "trickle truth" since it only comes out a little at a time as additional secrets or lies are discovered. Spouses who grudgingly confess to each new bit of new evidence are only conceding to what they have to admit. True confessions will almost always include more information than you already know.
   
   
2. Confusion, not clarity, tends to be the outcome of any discussion about "the truth." When it is hard to make sense of your spouse's story, they are likely being deceptive. Full honesty results in a clear perspective, even though it often reveals an ugly picture. Deception, on the other hand is full of awkward twists and turns and unexpected dead-ends. When you are listening to lies, you will likely end the conversation being just as confused (or even more confused) as you were when it started.
   
   
3. Quick shifts to defensiveness and blaming when questions are asked about the affair. Once a person has decided to tell the truth, it is a relatively easy thing to do. Easier, at least, than managing all the lies. If your spouse is still lying, they will want to shift the focus away from themselves (since too much attention to their story is dangerous) by becoming defensive, shutting down, or blaming you.
   
   
4. Expectation that you do the major work in recovery rather than accepting the responsibility themselves. If your spouse claims to have made a full confession and then leaves you to do the major work in fixing your marriage, something isn't right. Here are a couple examples:
   
   (a) Instead of taking the initiative to create a trustworthy environment, your spouse expects you to provide a checklist for change ("Just tell me what you expect me to do") that is reluctantly followed.
   
   (b) Your spouse leaves it up to you to fight for boundaries that help you feel safe rather than voluntarily establishing new rules for outside relationships. Genuine confessors realize the need to accept responsibility for change.

Isn't it common sense to expect that someone who broke trust should take responsibility for fixing it? Yet I regularly encounter unfaithful partners who seem annoyed with this expectation. Their reluctance or resistance indicates a heart that remains self-focused. Unless that changes, there can be no real return to trust.

Consider these comments written by partners struggling with confession uncertainty:
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• ​"My husband has admitted to an affair with a co-worker and confessed to having sex, but only once. When I ask for more information about the affair his response is, 'There's no need to look back, let's move forward. I'm not going to discuss the affair anymore.' That infuriates me! How dare you decide how much you are going to tell me. Just tell the whole truth."
  
  
• "I have been guilty of trickle truth. Tonight I finally gave full disclosure. She left and I don't know if she'll ever be back. She was devastated again. I wasn't strong enough to tell the truth when I should have. I was too afraid and now I've probably lost her forever."
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• "All I want is to have back the woman in our wedding picture. I told her she is a different person, that she has changed into someone who values their own pleasure, comfort, and feeling of safety more than anything else... I told her that I have a strength and courage in me that she will never understand. But eventually I will wake up in the morning, look over at her and see someone I don't love anymore... I can't live like this forever."
  
  
• "I have not been completely honest with [my wife] about the affair... She deserves to have all of the relevant information in order to make an informed decision about reconciling with me and trying to rehabilitate our marriage. If she finds out later and if she learns this information from a source other than me, she will feel betrayed and will conclude that I am continuing to lie to her..."

If you are a betrayed spouse, an open and honest confession provides a clearer context in which you choose to either leave or stay in your marriage. If the evidence points to a false confession, however, you should follow these basic guidelines. (Chapters 7 & 8 of my book Affair Healing: A Recover Manual for Betrayed Spouses deals with this in more detail.)

Give the responsibility of trust-building to your spouse, whether they succeed or fail. If you take on this duty, you can expect to continue spending much emotional effort reach and maintain safety in your marriage. Since your security depends on your vigilance, you'll wear yourself out doing the work that your spouse should be doing. And in the end, you will be no closer to trusting.

Determine what "life without truth" means to you and act accordingly. Don't work on rebuilding a marriage if your partner is not working to repair the damaged foundation. This choice may lead you to separation or sacrifice (temporary or permanent), but you will be taking responsibility for your healing even if the survival of your marriage is in question.

Use new information as a ruler, not a crowbar. You may discover more evidence that points to your spouse's dishonesty. Instead of using it as a tool to pry out another admission of guilt, hold on to the information as a measure of your spouse's commitment to honesty. There is little value "trickle-truth" confessions that only drip out by being squeezed. But when they admit to things they don't know you know, you have increased confidence in their trustworthiness.

I recently interviewed a couple who, seven years after the husband confessed to multiple affairs, enjoy a satisfying and trusting marriage. When I asked them about the factors that contributed to their relationship renewal, he made this comment:

There's a major difference between those who are caught and those who are confessors. I think that’s a key contributor... One of things that really helped us was the fact that I was very open about the ways I cheated. I gave her passwords to every e-mail account I had. I welcomed her to check anything on the Internet. She had complete access to my social media.

I gave her actual names of the people that I had been unfaithful with and she went through and blocked some of them. To this day, years later, those blocks are still there.

Honesty helps show the partner that that you're trying to mend and trying to build a relationship. You're not hiding things anymore, you're confessing them and I think that helps give the spouse confidence you are actually serious about trying to move forward.