I recently read an article tooting the reasons why a person who committed an affair might not want to tell their spouse about the indiscretion. It seems that some experts share the belief that the truth may do more harm than good and that the motivation for telling the truth is most often to get rid of a guilty conscious.

I completely believe that these experts are only looking at one part of the marriage equation. From my own experiences as well as those of numerous others Ive come to the conclusion that when an affair happens in a marriage the most likely reason behind the affair is that there are some issues with the marriage. These issues need to be resolved before true intimacy can occur.

This is true even of a marriage where no known infidelity has occurred. Intimacy can not be attained when one spouse holds a secret in their heart. When not exposed to the light of day, secrets tend to take on a life of their own. The space in that persons heart should be open for inspection by their spouse without notice. However, they have this big secret that they are hiding in there and they have to keep their spouse from that particular spot. They may become defensive when their spouse ventures too closely to that spot and this further injures the marriage.

Make no bones about it, when a husband or wife is holding a secret in the marriage that persons spouse knows something is amiss and knows that something is wrong with the marriage.

When an affair has taken place it becomes the job of the adulterer to be transparent in all their words and actions. Take my own case as an example, my husband was caught cheating. He admitted to only once with her. Things didnt add up and then they really didnt add up when I talked to her. Many more lies were exposed and the pain I felt grew by significant proportions all because my husband refused to be honest with me even after I knew of the infidelity. He didnt want to reveal the details because he was ashamed of what had transpired. Had my husband been honest with me about everything when I first found out about the affair then I would have been spared months of additional heartbreak. For a time it felt like we took one step forward and two steps back.

There came a point when I said thats enough. You will be transparent or you will be nothing. Honesty has become a quality that is most important in my life. Without my husbands continued daily honesty we would not be where we are in our marriage. Had my husband developed a heart of honesty early on, I would have been able to move forward in the recovery of our marriage much sooner than I was able to. Trust would have never been regained had my husband never developed a heart of honesty and we would not be sitting here today.

No matter where you are in your marriage, develop a heart of transparent honesty in your marriage and you will be shocked by the level your marriage will go.