you dont control your whole brain. if you dont tell him and get away with it, you will teach yourself that this crime goes unpunished and your instincts will keep shooting armor piercing rockets once again when you are confronted with a similar situation that would lead up to a similar act.

also telling him would be doing him a favor. or not. totally depends on the person. but it is his right to know, and "rights" are the most important things to a human.

Seriously, I'm in a long distance relationship myself and I would never do that.
You have shown us that you need the touch of a man to get by.
You're supposed to be a college student, where is the reinventing yourself and independence that you're supposed to go through?
I'm all about keeping your relationship, but seriously girl.

Ultimate would be lying since a relationship is built on trust. If you made a mistake you made a mistake. Maybe he'll forgive you or maybe he won't, I don't know him.

Would probably be better to tell the truth and have the relationship end over it then continue lying.

can this please get locked?

Tell him for sure. Honestly is always the best policy.

I don't have much to say about the relationship issues, but on this note:

"I think what you need to do is think about why you did, honestly and seriously with yourself and what you want from your life."

...I would like to point out that you are looking to be dramatic here. Take note of this, in your OP:

"in polite company...b-but having him so far away"

Why the "stutter"? I can accept the overly poetic and dramatic descriptions as an understandable outpouring of emotion, but we don't naturally stutter on computer monitors. It's not like your fingers tripped, hit the hyphen key, and then hit the b again. You purposely and deliberately put that there, as though you're acting for us, putting on a show.

I'm not asking you to defend yourself to me and frankly I don't care why you did it or whether or not you're looking for drama, but I want you to think about it. Maybe it has something to do with why you cheated in the first place.

Ok, based on what I saw most everyone else say, I'm going to say something different that might seem bad to some people.

I think what you need to do is think about why you did, honestly and seriously with yourself and what you want from your life. Do you want to continue this relationship now or take a break and start it up again. If so, telling him the truth, will kill most chances of that. The damage to trust will never be repaired and it never get better. Even he stays after you tell him the truth, it will create this festering wound that will never get better, just sit under the surface of everything and rot slowly with time, getting worse.

In the end only you will know what you did, it's just a matter of how much you can life with your own guilt. Can you put it behind you and move forward, or will it eat you up inside? You have no reason to tell him, unless the guilt will destroy you. Then you have to, and as soon as possible, because that is the only way the truth route will have a chance to succeed.

For reference, I've been where you were. I finally told them, and they stuck around for another 2 years, but they never forgave me, never let it go, it was always there eating away at everything. Even when she left 2 years later, she blamed it on something that happened 2 years before. My friend who is married is going through the same. And he has never let go of it, resents her every day, and calls her a horrible person all the time, and only stays with her because of his religion.

It'll kill your relationship if you tell him. But also, if you can't live with your own guilt, that will kill your relationship too because then instead you'll rot from the inside out and be unable to confide in them. I've been there too, unable to say what I was thinking or feeling, feeling like everyday was a lie. Eventually that falls too.

Neither choice is really good. The best is just to try to start over somewhere else. But if you are planning on staying I would recommend forgetting that it happened and trying to be a better person in the future.

Be straight with him. You did a stupid thing and now your responsible for the problem. Act like an adult: Take your lumps and learn from them.

Wow, I guess i'm the only one who would have advised against telling him. Everyone who says tell him, what are you really thinking that will accomplish? Telling is only an escape for the person who cheated. You get out of this with some heartbreak, but a clean conscience and the knowledge that you did the "right" thing.

What does he get? A broken heart, betrayed trust, and probably a lot of misery, which you could have entirely saved him by never telling him. As an LDR, he never would have found out otherwise. Ever. It's different if you KNOW you'll get caught, or there's reasonable suspicion that you might, but in this case, it wouldn't have happened.

Well, what's done is done. You probably shouldn't be in this relationship though. I'd break up if I were you. You clearly don't even care about this person enough to not fuck other people, and if you're forgiven, you're just setting both of you up for misery in the future when you finally are honest with yourself and realize you don't give a shit about him.

Tell him, break up, move on.

if you love him, let him go. You've already betrayed him once so spare him the pain of you doing it again.

I see you've already told him, that's good, he has the right to know.

All I'd say is don't make excuses for what you've done. Don't say 'I only did it because [insert petty excuse here]'. A partner deserves better that and there is no way for you to rationalize what you've done beyond the fact that it was your own decision. Sure you feel bad about it now, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that you, and you alone, are to blame for this betrayal.

Hang in there! I'll just tell you my story. I hope you can pick up anything from it that might help!

I've been having a not so long distance relationship for one year and nine months now. I cheated on him on our eight month after he cut all communications with me for five months starting from fourth month of our relationship. On our third month we agreed to be exclusive however when he showed up again after the five months of "AWOL" he said that if "I liked somebody else" within the months he was absent, then he's going to disregard any of it.

The thing is I faithfully waited for him. Him saying that after he was gone for so long was a betrayal of trust. I fucking gave him my v-card! So I was really mad and decided to retrieve it by cheating or so I thought I could.

I knew it was wrong but also I was younger and I was a very curious soul. I kept on asking myself if my feelings for him were true or was it just a virginal attachment. I found out it wasn't after all. My boyfriend really loves me and there's nothing else more I could regret in life than cheating on him or giving my body to someone who doesn't really give a shit about me more to encourage me to cheat.

I fucking hated myself after that and the guilt I had was killing me. I can't really speak with him without thinking about it. Also when we plan our dates and talk about the sex, if I've done this and that, I had to be careful not to hint at my secret getaways. I had to keep on lying and I felt like my whole life is going to be a lie. I had to tell him for my sake and his too. I had to tell him also because I'm worried that if I hide from him a part of me and what I've done then I might impede with his right to decide if I'm really the one he wants as his partner.

So I told him about it and I hoped for the best. I was crying like hell and I said sorry many more times that day than I did before that. He listened and he didn't get mad quickly. Thank God. We talked about it more than once though. He said I shouldn't have told him. Maybe I shouldn't have. He was hurt. You have to be prepared to see your guy hurt, if not, devastated. I told everything gradually but he hated that. I should've told the whole truth from the start. Maybe you should. "What do you want to do now?" was at the ending of my explanation.

Our relationship is still alive and kicking. We talk about our futures now. We're serious about each other and we love each other like never before. I hope all the best to happen to you too whatever your decision!

I know you've told him already and well done for that. Try to talk to him about it properly if you can, but if whatever happens to your relationship is his choice now. If he wants to break up with you, you just have to be graceful and accept that you probably deserve it, but use this as a lesson for next time. If you care about someone that much, you won't cheat on them again; it's really not something you want to make a habit of.

Tell him. Deal with the consequences.
For that matter, if you have this much difficulty dealing with a long-distance relationship, then maybe the right thing to do is just to break up with him. It's not fair to you or your boyfriend to cling onto a relationship that can't keep you satisfied. And you know if it doesn't, that's fine. There's no shame in being the sort of person who needs to have your lover in person--it's only wrong if you string somebody along because you can't be honest about what you need in a relationship.