Good confessions are short: what happened, what it affected, what you’re doing now. Skip the drama.

Admitting something is a transfer of information, and extra material gets in the way of it. The long version, with the build-up and the feelings and the history, pulls attention towards how hard this is for you and away from what the other person needs to know. Three plain parts cover everything that matters.

Before you tell somebody, write the three sentences out and cut the rest. What you did, what it affected, what happens now. Say them in that order and then stop talking, which is the hard part, because the silence is where their reaction gets to exist.