Should I tell my husband that I committed adultery?
Question:
I'm a born again Christian. In the last two years my marriage was having problems. I knew my husband was cheating on me, but I didn't have proof, so I in return cheated on him. I found out he cheated because the young lady texts him. But he never found out about my affairs because I ended them right after I found out for sure that my husband was cheating. Since then I gave my life back to God and repented for my sins and have become active in my church, I've forgiven my husband, and we're still married. The question is: Should I tell him what I did? I mean I gave it to God, but should I tell him?
Answer:
I hope you realize just how foolish your thinking was in the past. You justified committing adultery because you suspected adultery by your husband and ended it when you were certain that it did happen. I have trouble even conceiving how you could have thought that would have fixed your situation. Evil cannot ever fix evil. "And why not say, "Let us do evil that good may come"? --as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just" (Romans 3:8).
Now that you have repented of your sins, you wonder if you should tell your husband of your transgression. I suppose if you are set on destroying your marriage, you'll do it. But if you want to keep your marriage and improve it, you'll not burden your husband with your past sins.
A marriage is built on trust. You undermined it by your past adultery. He did so as well, but you forgave him of his sins, so that is past. Telling your husband about the adultery will undermine his trust of you. Since you managed to totally and firmly change, then demonstrate it in your commitment to your marriage.
Will the shame of your past sins bother you? Yes! Just because we have been forgiven, it doesn't mean we forget what we have done. Our sins ought to bother us. We don't ever want to become so calloused to sin that it doesn't affect us (I Timothy 4:1-2). It is the wicked who have no shame over sin (Zephaniah 3:5).
But David told us, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." David is not advocating protecting the sinner in his sins, but protecting the repentant believer from the shame of his sins. Yes, you committed sins in your past, but why bring those sins up over and over again? If you have done as God had asked in confessing your faults and have repented of those sins, then it is time to leave the faults behind and press on to better things. "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). Hence, if you truly left your adulterous past behind, then there is no need to bring up your past sins. Bringing it up will not help your husband or enhance your marriage.
Response:
I would like to thank you for your reply, as well as your straightforwardness if that's a word. I am not set on destroying my marriage. I also realize I was wrong to try and do evil for evil. Yes, I was very foolish in my past way of thinking. Again thanks so much, we need more people like you who aren't afraid to tell it like it is!
