...Planning a wedding seems impossible because I'm so scared it will be canceled. I wish there was a time machine that could take me back to the point where I could confess to him much sooner. Complicating this issue is the fact that I recently got in touch with the married man, who says the secret is safe. I kind of believe it. He has a lot on the line—a reputable career and two young children. But in my heart, I know even a 1% chance of this getting out is too much.

Do I tell my fiancé that I was unfaithful to him six years ago? How do I ask for his forgiveness? Why am I a shitty human being?

Very Overwhelmed Wife2B

Congrats on your engagement, VOW.

Weddings can be fucking stressful, especially if you're throwing a Brides-Magazine-straight-people-type-of-wedding or its gay counterfarce. (To be clear: I'm not saying same-sex weddings are farcical versions of straight ones, only that completely over-the-top/no-expense-spared/arriving-by-fucking-helicopter gay weddings are as big a waste of time and money as straight ones.) You have so many things to think about and discuss, VOW, but a long-ago/pseudo/soft infidelity isn't one of them.

Being with someone for eight years is an accomplishment (although one that should feel relatively effortless), VOW, and very few of us manage to get to eight years without making at least one or two shitty choices. But good news: making a few shitty choices—making a mistake or two dozen along the way—doesn't make you a shitty person. It makes you a human person.

And was what you did a mistake without any redeeming features? Or was it a mistake you made early-ish in your relationship, back before your commitment was formalized/eternalized (before he proposed, before you accepted, before you were actually married), the kind of mistake that helped you appreciate what you had? Sounds to me like you stared into the abyss—you saw what you were capable of, you thought about the risk you were running, you realized you could've lost the man you want to spend your life with—and you pulled back. Your recent engagement brought back memories of that abyss and now you're having panic attacks. But instead of beating yourself up endlessly for this "mistake," VOW, you should regard at as an important formative experience, a valuable life lesson, something that made you more likely to honor the monogamous commitment you're about to make/remake, not less likely. (My rationalizations are better than yours, VOW, because mine are rationale.)

I order you to stop obsessing about this, VOW. It might help to imagine how you would feel if the shoe tongue was on the other foot in the other mouth. If your fiancé had made out with some rando six years ago (and who's to say he didn't?) and swapped a few dirty phone calls with that rando long before you got engaged... would you want to know? Would you want him to confess all? Would you want him up all night, consumed by guilt? Or would you want him to keep his fucking mouth shut, let it go, and get some sleep? The latter, I suspect/hope. (Bonus rationalization: there are probably definitely one or two things he's done over the last eight years—one or two mistakes he's made—that he hasn't told you about it. Forgive him for his his as-yet-undisclosed errors at the same you forgive yourself for yours, VOW.)

So stuff that married man down the memory hole (do NOT contact him again) and get on with the wedding planning/helicopter booking—and if your family and friends really would abandon you over something like this, VOW, then you really need to make better friends and spend less time with your family. Same goes for your love: If he finds out about this—which he won't (unless you tell him (which you're NOT going to do)), and abandons you... then you need to get yourself a better fiancé.

And if you're not already a pot smoker, VOW, take it up.

Listen to my podcast, the Savage Lovecast, at www.savagelovecast.com.