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We're parked in front of our apartment. It's late, really late. Outside, crickets cheep and streetlights glow. Periodically, tractor trailers rumble by and rock our tiny Volkswagen like a German-engineered cradle.

Inside, bombs are dropping.

"Why are you always so unhappy, Jul? Why do you seem like you hate yourself? And why won't you just talk to me? Please… talk to me?" My husband rests his hand on my thigh, looks me dead in the eye and waits. And waits. And waits.

Like all couples, we've got a hit parade of common arguments. Your Laundry-Avoidin' Heart, It's The End of Eating Anywhere But Applebee's As We Know It (And I Feel Gassy). This particular one (She's Suicidally Depressed In Mysterious Ways) has been cropping up with increasing frequency, however. And unlike lesser tunes, it's poised to hit #1 with a bullet.

"You want to know why? You really want to know?"

"Yes! Jesus, Jul… I love you, I don't want you do be miserable… of course I do!"

"A few months after we started dating… I slept with somebody else."

When he responds, my husband's voice is totally flat. Tears, rage, vicious words… anything, anything would be better than the deadness with which he breaks the silence. "Really."

Until this moment, tears had trickling down my face at a leisurely pace, the stream easily dabbed up with a sleeve. I'd also been steadfastly avoiding eye contact. "Yeah," I say, looking up, "Really." As I'm speaking, my voice cracks… then the floodgates do.

I'm sobbing, shaking, howling, curled up like a comma on my sticky leather seat. My husband holds me as best he can, strokes my hair and tries to calm me. He hasn't always been a great husband. I (obviously) haven't always been a good wife. Years later, as our marriage crumbles around us, years of mutual doubts and resentments will come to the surface. Delusions and illusions will fall, and the overall mediocrity of our match will become apparent. However, we'll each retain our moments of pride… briefly transcendental bursts of kindness and compassion.

This is one of them… perhaps the quintessential one. There are pet names, special dinners, surprise parties... and then there's hugging the person who just tossed a grenade in your living room, blowing everything you know to smithereens.

When I have been sufficiently calmed, we fire up the GTI and drive, aimlessly, cruising in a haze of sodium-arcs and tears. We drive and drive and talk and talk. Some details are divulged (it was a one-night stand with a coworker; copious quantities of alcohol were involved). Others are omitted (it was the most exciting thing which had happened to me in a long, long time; with each verboten kiss, pleasant shock and self-loathing battled for space in my head). Only once do we venture close to the true heart of the issue… and, bright young things that we are, we scurry away immediately.

"The thing that really hurts is that you felt like you had to keep a secret from me for half a fucking decade." His voice isn't accusatory… just exhausted, incredulous. "Why? Why couldn't you talk to me?"

I stare out the window. Gas prices are going up again. Home Depot is a giant orange monolith against the night sky. I have no answers… nothing but a swirl of Lovecraftian emotions, immense, unbelievably frightening and lurking just below the surface.

I couldn't talk to you because you don't understand me, and I don't understand you. Because we're radically different people. Because I knew it from the very beginning, but couldn't manage to summon up sufficient balls to end things before I fell in love with you. Because one of the main reasons we're together today – sitting in a Home Depot parking lot, awkwardly crying and cuddling and bumping our elbows on the stick shift – is because I've spent the past five years trying desperately to atone.

Because one of the major reasons I wanted to get married was for absolution… to shoehorn myself into the role of ever-faithful wife.

Because a few years back, a friend gave me some high-grade Ecstasy, a cavalcade of neurological bliss in a tiny foil packet. I wound up tossing it in the trash. I was terrified of "becoming more confessional".

Because it wasn't a moment of blind, overpowering lust. It was an escape attempt. And if the thought of leaving our dull little comfort zone was scary then… it's a thousand times worse now. We're bonded. We're married. And I'm –

I sigh, a shuddery exhalation of defeat. "I'm sorry. I can't. I just can't."

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Infidelity Lesson # 5 : every infidelity is like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie... it features a well-delineated Before, During and After. You'll spend a good deal longer than 90 minutes reviewing them in your head. Odds are, they'll be a lot more painful than action-packed. As far as Aerosmith-heavy soundtracks go?... we're only addressing forgivable sins here, people.

Don't waste too much time on the After. It's boring. It's predictable. And it's immutable. Afterwards? You'll feel guilty. In some cases, it will be inordinate, debilitating guilt. In others, it will be nothing more than uncomfortable twinges at the periphery of your conscience. Regardless, it will be your burden to bear. Confession is good for one's soul like grand larceny is good for one's wallet - you're forcing someone else to foot your bill. Bearing a painful, shameful secret is difficult - and probably the single-best way to ensure you don't rack up any more of them. As the late, lamented Sherlock Holmes put it, "The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world."

As far as Before? You'd better examine Before like a long-lost Talmudic text. It's important to know why it happened - and not solely to "make sure it never happens again". Contrary to what the Moral Majority (and the moralizing enormity) may believe, cheating is not like washing a red crayon with the white laundry – a thoughtless, simple error, easily preventable in the future. Doing morally-objectionable things is painful. Not really understanding why is infinitely worse.

How did it happen? Why? What factors were present? What facets of life were lacking? It's a question of developing sufficient self-respect, self-awareness and courage to fully face your own motivations. Successfully resisting temptation is small comfort if the temptation occurs again and again and again. Grappling with mutant, super-sized self-loathing is worthless without an equally-intense tussle with introspection.

Fear might keep you from ever touching the flame again.

But it won't explain why you reached out your hand in the first place.

And then there's the illicit, explicit, oft-overlooked During...