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Both of these questions deal with the concept of secrets and their effect on trust. To some extent this is a philosophical question about the value of honesty that we each have to decide for ourselves. But, in my clinical experience, there is an important distinction to be made between secrecy and privacy. If you have engaged in a one-off behavior that does not represent you and you are committed to not repeating it, I believe that you need to think very, very carefully before you decide to “come clean” about the incident. If telling the partner is a way of “clearing your conscience,” I believe that sharing can often do more harm than good.
If you choose not to tell the other person, however, there are some very serious rules that you need to follow if you want to avoid hypocritical behavior. First, you can never lie to yourself about the episode. If you sent flirty e-mails to an old girlfriend, don’t pretend to yourself that they were innocent. Privacy is only appropriate when it means we keep an error to ourselves having learned our lesson. Second, don’t act piously around the issue. If you choose not to tell your partner about a mistake you made, don’t act superior if they slip up in a similar manner. Third, if you find yourself starting to feel smug that you have managed to mislead your partner by keeping the secret, it would probably be wise to both rethink your smugness and confess your misstep to someone you trust (minister, therapist, grandmother). I think it can be honorable to make the commitment to hold in a painful truth about a poor act. It can be seen as falling on an emotional hand grenade to protect an innocent partner from unnecessary and fruitless pain.
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