Is it really best to confess, tell everything, spill the beans, purge yourself of what’s burdening you, bearing you down, sinking you into the quagmire of guilt? It is said that confession is good for the soul. What is true, is that certain religions take confession so seriously that it’s actually a ritual that they go through regularly, as they sit in a darkened booth across from a priest and confess their sins.
I guess it’s a sort of catharsis, an unburdening of your sins that makes you feel lighter afterwards. Some men confess to bartenders, while others seek out psychiatrists. Some women may confess to their friends, but that can be dangerous as people do tend to gossip and carry your business all over town.
Anyway, all that advice about confessing being good for the soul was from long ago. That was then, but I really wonder how wise it is to confess your past to your current partner in these modern times. Remember the old Jamaican saying, “Is not everything good fi eat good fi talk.” Some things are best left unsaid.
If you truly love your significant other, shouldn’t you be able to confess any transgressions that you may have committed? Or should you leave well enough alone?
If you saw the wife of your best friend sneaking around with another man, holding hands, kissing, should you tell him?
To add to your dilemma, should you tell your friend that his wife who you saw sneaking into a hotel room with that other guy, that many years ago you also dated her?
Now you can see the dangers of confessing to not only what you saw, but also what you did in the past.
Sometimes people do not take confessions very well and may even resent the confessor for unloading all that disturbing data on them. “If you were my true friend, you wouldn’t have told me all that hurtful information, especially after all these years.”
And yet, on the flip side, the person may say, “Why did you wait so long to tell me? Thank you anyway.” Shouldn’t there be a statute of limitations on confessions? There was this lady who confessed to her husband that she had an affair fifty years ago, a year after they got married. They man filed for divorce immediately.
There are women who choose not to confess their history of transgressions to their men, for they know from experience that a man’s fragile ego cannot handle certain types of confession.
How would you feel if after being married for sixteen years, your wife came to you and said, “Honey, I have a confession to make, before I met you, I used to sleep with your best man!”
Her conscience drove her to make that confession. “There, I said it, got a load off my chest, I feel better now.”
But what about the person hearing the confession? That burden is often too much to bear.
There are women who confessed to having secret children prior to their marriage but gave them up before for adoption. After years of torment, she confessed to her husband with disastrous consequences. “Say wha, yu breed for anodder man an neva tell me?” “Babes, plus the second and third children aren’t yours.”
Also, there are men who sire children out of wedlock and never confess this fact. I know of wives who have walked out upon hearing that confession and I have known others who forgave the man and accepted the reality of that child.
Then there are current confessions that people make to each other. “I never really enjoyed making love with you, I just tolerated it to have children.” “That’s why I’ve been sleeping with your best friend.”
It really is a tough call, and many sayings about confessions were from a nobler time, where honour, civility, class and forgiveness were the order of the day. Nowadays in this unforgiving world, it may be quite risky to lay true confession on your spouse. The consequences could be dire.
