I was particularly struck by this:
Quote:
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Yet out in the world, a consequence-rich zone, studies find that most people find it mentally exhausting to hold onto inflammatory secrets - much less lives - for long. The very act of trying to suppress the information creates a kind of rebound effect, causing thoughts of an affair, late-night excursions or an undisclosed debt to flood the consciousness, especially when a person who would be harmed by disclosure of the secret is nearby.
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One night during the first summer lurkette and I were apart, after our Freshman year of college, I cheated on her with a girl I was working with. It meant nothing to me; I was a lonely, horny, 18-year old boy with a willing and reasonably attractive woman nearby. I didn't have intercourse with her, but I did everything but.
For 12 years after that, I suffered about having done it. Literally every two or three days I'd think about it and hate myself for having done that. And every time we got into an argument or things weren't going well, I was sure the seeds I'd planted were being sown. Every time lurkette expressed any sort of jealousy or needyness, I'd go back there and hate myself. For a while after we were married, she went through a phase where she was jealous of the women I worked with. It was totally agonizing.
Finally, with the help of some really extraordinary coaching, I saw the impact that keeping my secret was having on me and her and us. I told her the whole thing and I apologized both for what I did and for keeping it secret from her. She forgave me for both things and we held each other and cried and talked for a long, long time. This was just this last May.
What's funny is, until this very moment, I haven't thought about it in
months. It hasn't come up between us, it hasn't been in my head... All the fear I had about confessing, all the worry about the consequences--all that stuff just completely fanished when lurkette saw how much I'd been suffering about it and forgave me.