Should you Kiss and Tell?

So you've gone out (without your man), and maybe you had a little too much to drink, or got caught up in the party atmosphere, and you cheat. At the time, you had this little voice in your head telling you that you won't feel guilty tomorrow, after all it's just one kiss. That is until the next morning, and wham, like a slap to the face (which you actually feel you deserve), the guilt comes rushing in. You reach for the phone, and immediately ring your best friend.

"What should I do?" you scream to her. The response you receive will be about your best friend's morals and values, not yours.

There are many ways of looking at this situation. These are usually based upon the theme of trying to justify the kiss. The bottom line is that you have betrayed your partner, and nothing can change that fact. But, does that mean you should tell him? After all it was only one kiss (well maybe two), but that was all.

This is where it gets tricky. After speaking to my girlfriends about this topic I have found that if their boyfriend were to kiss another girl, they would want to know about it. However, after talking to my male friends on this issue, I can honestly say that every single one of them said they would rather not know.

So where does that leave the guilty party and the innocent victim?

When it comes down to it, the guilty person must live with it. But should the innocent person need to feel hurt, only so that the guilty one can feel better because they were honest? Is confessing just about relieving one's guilt?

In most situations, it is only once you've cheated that you suddenly realise how important your boyfriend is. And because of this you often have this incredible need to tell them, and once you confess, for most, it's pretty much all over. Men don't deal with cheating well; it really affects their pride and ego. So often, even if he loves you and you don't want to leave, he will. And if he does stay with you after you confess, trust can become a huge issue.

Just recently a girlfriend of mine kissed a guy behind her boyfriends back. She rang me immediately to discuss it. We went through the pros and cons of cheating. She decided that it was just one kiss and that she regretted it very much, and it wasn't worth hurting her boyfriend by telling him the truth. I asked her this week how she felt about it. She explained she still felt bad and knew she shouldn't have done it. She said her partner would have left her if she'd told him, and said she feels like she's been punished enough from her guilt.

It seems these days we are all about being honest. But unless you are a 'serial cheater' or your cheating goes beyond a kiss, maybe honesty is not the best policy. If you kiss someone other than your boyfriend, maybe you should look at why you did it, and stop worrying about being a bad girlfriend. It could be time to move on. If it's never happened before, as in the case of my girlfriend, well, who are we to judge?

My advice? Don't cheat in the first place if you can't deal with the consequences of your actions later.


- Louise Ganey