Should You Tell Your Partner You Cheated?

You screwed up, and now you’re in a bind: Do you keep quiet or confess? It’s a complex dilemma without a one-size-fits-all solution.

“There are no universal rules about coming clean,” says Michele Weiner-Davis, M.S.W., a Colorado-based marriage therapist. “For some couples, the truth can help them begin to heal in an honest and open way.”

In other cases, though, it can lead to a painful breakup, she says.

Here, marriage counselors explain how to determine which course of action you should choose—and how to minimize the damage for both you and your partner.

How to Resolve Those Stupid (but Heated) Fights With Your Partner

The easiest way to end an argument might be to jump into a time machine, suggests a new study from the University of Waterloo.

You won't use this machine to go back in time to stop the fight from happening (although, wouldn’t that be nice). Instead, you’ll use it to look into the future.

The researchers asked more than 500 people to think about an unresolved conflict between themselves and a partner or close friend.

The particpants who imagined how they would feel about the spat in one year were more likely to reinterpret the conflict, be more forgiving, and avoid assigning blame than those who thought about how the conflict made them feel today. It changed their perspective.