I'd be interested in hearing why "Once a cheater, not always a cheater" believes she isn't going to cheat again. Hopes she won't, sure, but the real question is what assurance she can offer her fiance that it won't happen again. All it took last time was opportunity, and there will be opportunities galore in the years to come.

Simplistic, but here's a link:

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I think you have a harsh attitude. People make mistakes and can move on from there. What is your advice to her? Brand a scarlett "C" on her forehead and go for it?

The greatest man that ever walked this Earth-Jesus Christ once saved a woman from being stoned to death for the same offense. He told her to go and sin no more. It is possible for someone to mess up one time and then stop it.

The LW has been with this guy 5 years. If she was a tried and true cheater, it would have already happened many times. I know. I was married to one. We didn't even last two years.

I didn't like Prudie's advice either. She should not tell the fiance. If she truly means to be faithful she should just bear this little dirty secret in silence. Why hurt him with that? If he somehow finds out, yes she should admit it, but if not she should keep it to herself. Getting something off your chest sometimes hurts someone else.

If LW needs someone to talk to then by all means go to a therapist. Anybody but that so-called best friend. Didn't anybody else think that was odd? The best friend put all the blame on the LW and then started dating the guy she cheated with. Weird. What did he say? She raped him?

The obvious trademark cheater is this guy. He is still trying to cheat. The LW definitely needs to drop that crazy friend. Not very much of a best friend, in my opinion.

No, he's going to find out one way or another. She's getting texted by this guy, and she's hanging out with his allegedly current girlfriend. Unless she can completely eliminate both this scum and her friend from her life, it'll hit the fan eventually. Better now than when there are one or two kids involved.

Jesus forgave. Maybe this man can, also. If not, she just will have to live with the consequences of her choices, and learn from them.

I'm puzzled by the references to Jesus. Sure, I'll be happy to forgive her for cheating, but she didn't cheat on me, did she?

She's not planning to marry you either. The fiancee has to make the decision but he should have all the facts made available to him.

I can't understand those people who advise her to keep it a secret; they must have never lived in a small town. As it is, too many people already know about the fling and they know Mr. Hottie is dating her "friend" now. One normally invites their close friends to the wedding.....so how likely is it that the fiancee will not find out? That would be a heck of a thing to find out at the church.

Sandstormz60:

The LW has been with this guy 5 years. If she was a tried and true cheater, it would have already happened many times.

And how do we know that it hasn't? It may be this is the first time that her cheating has the potential to spill into her life with her fiance. Or perhaps this was merely the first time her fiance went on a business trip since they've been dating.

She doesn't need to be branded, but she certainly should let her fiance know so that he knows who she is, especially if he has a job that requires a lot of business travel. Maybe he will forgive her, maybe he won't. But simply letting him live in ignorance is not fair to him. She made a mistake, and now as an adult she has to face the consequences of her mistake.

Sandstormz60:

She should not tell the fiance. If she truly means to be faithful she should just bear this little dirty secret in silence.

She may believe that she truly means to be faithful now, while her fiance is around and the fling is infringing on her life. But what about next time he leaves? It doesn't seem like she understands or owns her own motives. She's like a kid who is very sorry for her actions while being punished for them, but the sorry is due to the punishment rather than the actions themselves.

Sandstormz60:

Why hurt him with that?

So he knows what sort of person she is before they have their 2 kids and buy a house in the 'burbs.

Sandstormz60:

Didn't anybody else think that was odd? The best friend put all the blame on the LW and then started dating the guy she cheated with.

I've seen this behavior before. My opinion is that either this guy wasn't a complete stranger to their social set, or that the both of them met him at the bar at the same time. Many people when they start dating someone believe that their new SO is perfect and wonderful, so incidents like this are a result of the other "evil" person doing bad things. The BF sounds as emotionally immature as the LW.

She should tell her fiance, then leave him, then forgive herself, then find a new man, after she sluts around for a few years and hopefully gets the fratboys out of her system, cuz at this point she is too weak to resist the temptation. She can be rehabilitated, but her current fiance deserves better at this point. Her new rehabilitated self can remain true to some other fellow down the road.

...of course the big secret goes down the toilet when he finds out about her f***ing around by getting a positive test for HIV, or syphilis, or warts, or herpes.....all because she does the naked starfish dance for the first guy that happens to find her drunk when he's out of town. What, she "can't help it"? What a crock.

What's she supposed to do then? Lie? He should forgive her for putting his life at risk because she had an itch that could have been dealt with in under a minute with the help of a battery powered toy?

A person with integrity wouldn't have cheated in the first place. Anyone with a sense of common decency would break the engagement, tell him what she did, and leave quietly.

*applause!*

Thank you Messy!!!

My personal feeling is cheating must be diclosed, for exactly that reason. The emotional stuff you're going to have to deal with separately, but the safety/health issue trumps it. Sure, it would hurt me emotionally if my husband came home and said "honey I slept with someone else", but that is EXACTLY what I expect him to do, so we can take any necessary health related precautions.

Just the cheating, well, we can deal with it. We can get therapy. Cheating and then lying about it, and possibly giving me a disease, is unforgiveable. Strike one, you're OUT.

I really think the whole health thing around an affair is a cop out. Tell me, if your spouse did something that was guaranteed not to pass on a disease, would that really change anything? Let say a spouse only using sex toys on some stranger. Or your spouse simply masturbated while watching a stranger masturbate. Do you really think that would change anything about the situation?

Yes, the health issue is something that needs to be addressed. But it is something separate from the cheating itself, not the defining issue. Otherwise there would be a problem every time your spouse brought you chocolate (what, is he trying to destroy my health??).

I never said I would have no problem if he cheated. Of course I would be devastated. It might destroy our relationship. Or we might be able to work it out. I can't know what I would do unless it actually happened and I was faced with dealing with the particular circumstances (why, with whom, how, and under what circumstances did he cheat, for example).

I was only saying IF he were to cheat, and NOT tell me about it and I were to find out later through some other means up to and including finding out I have some STD that he gave me as a result of his cheating, that is an automatic dealbreaker.

I have no intention of cheating on my husband, nor have I ever cheated on anyone. He has never cheated on me, but he has the understanding that with me, if he ever does cheat for whatever reason, he had better tell me. If he doesn't, it's over no matter what.

I trust him. I don't expect he ever will cheat on me. But he knows that if he does, I expect to be informed. It's just my personal preference.

The Greatest Man to walk the Earth?

Hmmm. He must have obeyed all of God's commandments - and in particular, God's first commandment, "Be fruitful, and multiply."

And it was good. Otherwise, well, not so much.

***

The obvious solution would be for the slut to talk her best friend into doing a no-holds-barred three-way with the fiance.

Problem solved!

After a wild night like that, the fiance wouldn't give a damn if she had cheated, or not.

Bless you.

Maybe I shouldn't have picked your particular post to respond to. I tend to do that with whatever triggers my thought, not necessarily that I was agreeing / disagreeing with that particular post.

Anyway, I agree with you completely, it is a personal preference and I think every couple should have that discussion early in the relationship. Personally, I think that if somebody makes a single mistake, I'm happier not knowing it. But I'd never assume to tell somebody else that they'd be happier one way or another.

Oh, no, it's fine that you replied to me. I'm not offended, because I can see your point. I just make the distiction that, it's not so much that I WANT to know if somebody makes a mistake, it's that I feel I NEED to know. I trust my husband, I just don't trust the hypothetical, unlikely to ever exist, but mistrust just in case, person he hypothetically would cheat with.