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I cheated on my boyfriend about two months ago. It was with a guy from home and he’ll literally never find out. It was one time and just a kiss. Should I tell him? I keep getting mixed advice from my friends. Some tell me that I should just let it go and others say that if I’m not being honest we aren’t in a real relationship. — Guilty at Georgetown
Guilty at Georgetown,
Think practically before getting into personal ethics. You need to first consider if your boyfriend really will never find out. You say you’re getting “mixed messages” from friends, so I’m getting the impression you have talked about this to a fair number of people. Are you sure they won’t say anything? Cheating, even in relatively innocuous incidents like yours, is a stigmatizing activity. If this is really bothering one of your friends, he or she might decide to say something. The worst possibility is your boyfriend finding out about this from someone else. Can you really trust that your secret will stay safe?
If you’re sure he won’t find out from any of your confidantes, then don’t tell him. The actual incident probably would have merely bothered him. Knowing that you went two months without saying anything would really make him upset and angry. When you first cheated, you should have come clean about it immediately. That being said, I think at this late date it would be a mistake to retroactively hurt your relationship. He may become suspicious. He could start accusing you of hiding other things or become overly jealous. Or maybe he’ll just dump you. I think it would be for the best if you just moved on from the incident.
I realize many may disagree with this opinion, and usually I am all about total, brutal honesty. In this case though, you should keep it to yourself. This was a betrayal, but I don’t think the incident was major enough to corrupt the principles of your relationship. Most importantly, it happened so long ago that it seems wrong to inflict that kind of painful knowledge months after the fact. It sounds like you have learned your lesson from cheating. Now move on from this experience and stop discussing it with others before he learns about it from someone else.
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