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

I fully believe that these “experts” are only looking at one part of the marriage equation. From my own experience, as well as many others, I have come to the conclusion that when an affair occurs in a marriage, the most likely reason behind the affair is that there are some problems with the marriage. These issues need to be resolved before true intimacy can occur.

This is true even in a marriage where no known infidelity has occurred. Intimacy cannot be achieved when one of the spouses keeps a secret in her heart. When not exposed to daylight, secrets tend to take on a life of their own. The space in that person’s heart should be open for unannounced inspection by their spouse. However, they have this big secret that they hide there and they have to keep their spouse away from that particular place. They may become defensive when their spouse ventures too close to that spot, further insulting the marriage.

Don’t worry, when a husband or wife keeps a secret in the marriage that the person’s spouse knows something is wrong and knows that something is “wrong” in the marriage.

When an affair has taken place, it becomes the adulterer’s job to be transparent in all his words and actions. Take my own case as an example, my husband was “caught” cheating. He admitted that only once with her. Things didn’t add up and then really didn’t add up when I talked to her. Many more lies were exposed and the pain I felt grew to significant proportions, all because my husband refused to be honest with me even after he found out about the affair. He didn’t want to reveal the details because he was embarrassed by what had happened. If my husband had been honest with me about everything when I found out about the affair, it would have saved me months of additional heartbreak. For a while it felt like we took one step forward and two steps back.

There came a time when I said enough is enough. You will be transparent or you will be nothing. Honesty has become the most important quality in my life. Without my husband’s continued daily honesty, we would not be where we are in our marriage. If my husband had developed a heart of honesty early on, he would have been able to make progress in our marriage recovery much sooner than I could. Trust would never have been restored if my husband had never developed an honest heart 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 surprised at the level your marriage will reach.