I empathise with you here. It is very difficult to reconcile being open and honest with your partner whilst at the same time not sharing all your feelings with those around you. Perhaps it would help to sit down with your husband and share more about how you feel - if you haven't done this already. You don't mention which people are involved - I would say on the whole that unless they are family or very close friends, there is no real need for them to know your situation. Perhaps it would be a good idea to discuss with your husband the possibility of sharing your feelings with your close family. I would imagine, although I know this isn't always the case, that they would be suuportive of you and want to help your recovery. I can understand why your husband might not want everyone to know that there is a problem - no-one wants a weakness to be in the open - but confiding in someone that you really know you can trust and who will support you is really helpful.

I do hope you can find a way to talk together. It's not just about not telling lies, it's about not keeping things to yourself. Sharing feelings can be really hard - you are opening yourself up to potential hurt - but I think that keeping them to yourself can be a root cause of lying about other things. You are more likely to be able to be honest if you can firstly admit to yourself, and then share with your husband, the things that you feel unhappy about.

You are very correct about that last part.
The lies aren't about me though, they are about him.
I think talking to him more about my needs and feelings will help, but the things I am lying about or keeping in are to protect him, not me.
Also, what are your thoughts about spouses having to be honest about their bad behaviors before/after you have cheated? I mean coming clean to those that know about the affair...

As far as being honest before or after an affair can be extremely difficult. Hard to tell and hard to hear. Honesty is best I believe. If you are to move forward there cannot be any undisclosed information. Time will cause it to move further down the brain.

My experience has been that my husband has wanted me to tell him everything, no matter how bad, and not try to think for him. So I do my best to tell him how I feel, good or bad, and he can process that himself. It has mostly been a good thing, and even when something didn't go down well at the time and he got upset, he later told me that I had at least been honest and there was no punishment for honesty. If you keep things in, there is a very good chance - I would even say likelihood - that he will find out later, or that you will tell him later and he will be hurt that you didn't tell him before.
I'm not sure what you mean in your last paragraph. Is this about you being honest about what you might have done before you cheated, or is there something that he did that caused you to cheat?

Thank you for the very important reminder in the first paragraph. My husband needed a lot more detail than I like so that part was very tough on me.
What I was referring to was some of the more negative, and uncharacteristic, responses that he's had to the affair and his own infidelity (which happened years ago, I knew it, and he JUST came clean about it). I feel like it's messed up that he talks freely about my adultery, but I am supposed to stay buttoned up about what he has done. Honestly, I wish we were being more private (not 100% shut off though) about the whole thing. I only told one girlfriend the evidence I had when he cheated and another one knew I had suspicions. That was it, and I certainly never drug family into it.
I don't know. Sometimes it's hard to deal with our differences in coping mechanisms and with trying to figure out how much I am allowed to bring up things from which I need to heal. He lets me, and sometimes encourages it, and even apologizes, but there is always this "but what you did is worse" undertone. I'm not paranoid. He even said that at one point. To be fair, my adulteries were particularly bad, even down to the timing. And he is doing incredible work toward forgiveness and kindness and is being very loving now (for a while).
I guess what I need to know is:
When do I bring up the things hurting me? (Even about how he handled this at first)
Do I let him tell everyone what I did without sharing what he did? (The reason that I want to share some of his negative reactions is that they explain the "trickling truth" that he got for a long time that he tells and complains about to everyone. I have lost friends and they didn't have the whole story. I make sure that the few people I speak to get both sides and I defend him when they get down on him.)
Am I just being whiny or selfish? I do try to take full responsibility for my actions. For instance, he did not cause me to cheat. No one can make you do anything. He did things that hurt me, but that was my ugly choice. I am responsible.
I guess I just want to know if I have to just let some things go for a while until he is healed (other than just the caddy remarks).

Also, to be clear, he WAS handling things badly. He has been WONDERFUL the last few weeks.

Thank you too Jay

Oh goodness. It must be hard for you to have had him own up to something that happened so long ago. However, if you had suspicions about it, at least now he HAS admitted to it, and that will have been a huge thing for him. I would suspect that on the one hand he is feeling relief that you know about it, and that you haven't used it as a reason to leave him. He may be feeling guilt which makes him make nasty comments. You talk about the undertone of "but what you did is worse" - I would think that he feels pretty awful about what HE did, and he is trying to make himself feel better, not necessarily trying to make you feel worse. I think you are doing the right thing in telling both sides and defending him - even if it was only him that was unfaithful, he is still your husband, you still love him, he still loves you, and it is really important that you support each other. It's possible that he feels that his infidelity was in the past and therefore he has dealt with it and it's over, whereas yours is more recent and for him it's not over. That might be why he wants people to know about what you did and not what he did. Men do think differently to women - have you read "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"?
I don't think you are being whiny or selfish. My impression is that you have taken responsibility for what you have done, and that you are grateful for the support you have from your husband. He's facing his own demons, and doing it in a different way. It doesn't seem fair, but I would say that having his support and knowing that he is really trying to work things out outweighs having him make comments.
When do you bring up the things hurting you? Not when things are bad between you. Not when you are in a particularly romantic atmosphere. Get some time together when you are in a good place and you are both comfortable and relaxed. Don't bring it up in a fight. My husband and I have been really working on talking together. At first it was every night for about five nights, from 8 at night till 1am. Things were really bad between us and he was quite serious about wanting to leave. I don't know what made him want to listen to me, but he did, without interjecting. He encouraged me to talk more and he listened more. We have just had a really bad week (after about six weeks of things being very good) and last night we talked again. We sit on our bed facing each other. We have a glass of wine each and we open up. The wine helps us, but I know it's not for everyone. That's just what works for us. We can relax and talk. Last night I talked about how difficult it is for me to tell him when I feel bad, because I feel selfish about telling him I feel bad when it was me that hurt him. And also that sometimes I take myself off to cry when he makes a hurtful comment - and how I try not to cry in front of him because it feels like I'm sending him on a guilt trip by showing that I'm upset. I asked whether I should tell him when I'm feeling down, or whether I should keep it to myself. He said he wants me to tell him how I feel. It's quite similar to how you are feeling, I think. So, that's my experience, and yours may not work the same way, but I would really say that you need to find some quiet time together and be prepared to talk things over for quite a few hours. It may not be easy and you may both get upset, but in my experience it is a very good thing to do and although it may sometimes feel like opening old wounds, once you have talked them over they will heal better.
I do feel a bit 'preachy' telling you this, but I think open communication in all respects is really important. My husband tells me very often that men are not mindreaders, and it's true. You do have to explain your feelings - what is in your mind is just as important as your physical actions, and he needs to know what you are feeling or he won't be able to help you.

Thank you very much, sincerely.
We actually had a good talk yesterday when he got home. Then we had a romantic evening. We always wake up at night and usually he holds me. Sometimes we talk and sometimes we don't. I have started telling him when I hurt. Not every time, but any time it is significant. That seems to help him because he knows that I don't just feel bad when he brings it up.
I'm sorry that you had a bad week. That must be hard after so much good, but it is encouraging that you are working through it in a healthy manner.
I will also say that it has been hard for me because I have a very unusual personality, especially for a woman. If I decide that I can live with something, even something awful, I let it go then. I don't hang on to it and dwell on it forever. It may always be an unpleasant memory, but it doesn't continue to effect my daily life. That's just me. I know that I am the strange one and that people like our husbands are the normal ones. It is just hard for me to understand letting something that happened months ago effect your daily life so much. In my mind I think, "you are acting like you are a Holocaust victim or something ". I know this is terrible, but it isn't THAT bad, as bad as being starved and tortured for years. And I think "I didn't dwell on it when I caught you and you lied for years and didn't apologize until a couple of weeks ago!" Granted, my adultery was way worse and went on for a couple of months, so it is worse than what he did. It's just hard for me to relate to his mindset. Actually his dad is like me so he struggles with it too, although he is being very supportive of him and our relationship. Again, I know my husband is the normal one here, and I am working very hard to be patient at all times and with a pretty good success rate. It's just hard. I feel so bad for him, and I am extremely remorseful, but this is exhausting.
I just keep reading articles and trying to focus on him. I love him and I want him to heal. He loves me and we both want it to work. He has also made some changes that have been wonderful. We are going to make it. This long road can just be frustrating. I know that you can understand.

I really hope things work out. Going to be offline for a couple of weeks, but good luck and best wishes in the meantime.

Thanks. Things are on a good track.