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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Relationships

Should I say something?

62 replies

concernedforher · 08/03/2017 20:12

A friend of mine has been with her partner for about 10 years. About 5 years ago she got engaged, splashed photos of the down-on-one-knee proposal all over social media. A week later it was all over- turns out he'd been shagging two of his exes for years. It was awful for her, although friends were thinking she'd dodged a bullet as he was rather arrogant and patronising to her.

Fast forward six months and the engagement is back on. She now checks his phone and emails, and he has ditched social media on her say so. Friends are surprised, but supportive, as it's obviously what she wants, and people don't listen to voices of doom do they?

Last week my husband asked me if my friend and partner were still together. Turns out that while away in Edinburgh on business (200 miles from home) he'd seen her partner in the hotel restaurant with another woman. He couldn't be sure, but he thought they were staying at the hotel, and they looked to be more than just friends. They didn't see him. Coincidentally, one of the women he cheated on my friend with is from Edinburgh.

It sounds to me like he's up to his old tricks. But do I tell her? She's a very anxious person, but I think I would want to know if it were me.

OP posts:

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ChicRock · 08/03/2017 20:17

I wouldn't bother. I doubt for a minute it'll make a difference.

She might make some noises about breaking up with him again but 6 months down the line it'll be the same old same old. Only you'll have lost a friend, because she'll shoot the messenger.

She's a mug, you just need to be there when she realises.

TokenGinger · 08/03/2017 20:18

It depends how close the friend is. If it's a close friend, no doubt in my mind I'd tell her. If it's a distant friend, I'd question if I want to be involved in that.

2cats2many · 08/03/2017 20:18

I would want to know. Tell her.

concernedforher · 08/03/2017 20:22

It's heartbreaking watching. The planned wedding has not happened - I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will. I'm not as close to her as I was, partly because I despise him, and he doesn't seem to like me very much. In fact I usually only see her without him.

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TheNaze73 · 08/03/2017 20:33

The messenger will get shot. I wouldn't bother

Mathena · 08/03/2017 20:36

She already knows what he's like.

ImperialBlether · 08/03/2017 20:36

I would definitely tell her. She needs to know.

user1487362239 · 08/03/2017 20:37

Would you want to be told? Tell her.

SandyY2K · 08/03/2017 20:41

I'd tell her if she was my friend. I hate to see marriages doomed to fail.

concernedforher · 08/03/2017 20:45

I suspect that I will lose a friend if I tell her, but feel as if I'm lying by omission if I don't! Apparently he was away on a "training course " last week

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ImNotWhoYouThinkIAmOhNo · 08/03/2017 20:49

Could you test the water by telling her about a 'colleague' of yours that this has happened to, and ask her advice: should you tell your colleague? (I wouldn't be able to carry it off, but you might!)

ChristinaParsons · 08/03/2017 20:51

Buy a cheap phone
Text her the info
Sign it off
From a concerned friend
Throw the phone away

merville · 08/03/2017 21:18

Good suggestion from Christina

concernedforher · 08/03/2017 21:27

Christina, I'm tempted to do just that! To be honest I feel like shaking her and telling her to not be so blind.

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abbsisspartacus · 08/03/2017 21:43

Just get a different SIM for your phone then remove it after

Emboo19 · 08/03/2017 21:47

Well if she was one of my friends I'd tell her.
I'd be prepared that she may not believe you, but I'd let her know I'd be there for her, when she finally sees sense.
You say you don't see her as much, because of him anyway. Can you really carry on meeting up with her, listening to her talk about him, knowing what you know?

Emboo19 · 08/03/2017 21:51

And I wouldn't text from a different number or anything. At some point she's really going to need her friends, friends who she can trust to be honest with her.

secretgardens · 08/03/2017 21:55

I don't understand the time line have they been engaged and she's checking his phone for 5 years?
Don't do it anonymously. It makes more sense to tell her your dh was in endinborough, I'm guessing she knows about this woman there? She will have more chance of putting the pieces together with all of the info.
I would want to know. And I would tell her.

ChristinaParsons · 08/03/2017 22:09

I'm glad someone told me

Dragonbait · 08/03/2017 22:17

Is there any possibility his work course was in Edinburgh and she was a colleague staying at the same hotel? Just worth asking your husband before you say anything?

Hassled · 08/03/2017 22:17

Tell her. She probably doesn't know - she's probably in a not very happy bubble of denial. And you see it again and again on MN and in RL - the realisation that you were the last to know, and how humiliating that felt (quite aside from the heartbreak etc). Just tell her.

Atlanticblue76 · 08/03/2017 22:23

If she's a good friend and you care about her, you should tell her. Unfortunately, knowing this makes you involved now, whether you like it or not.
If she decides to stay with him, that's fine but at least she'll be making that decision with all the information.
I would do it in person, an anonymous message is childish and she has every reason not to believe it. Just start the conversation by reminding her that you're her friend and you wouldn't deliberately do anything to jeopardise her happiness, but you have some information that she needs to know.

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concernedforher · 08/03/2017 23:39

Dragonbait his work is based in Cheshire and as far as I know all previous residential training has been in Manchester or Birmingham. I suppose that's not to say Edinburgh is impossible though.

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Paperdoll16 · 09/03/2017 06:08

I would tell her but as you know the name of the hotel you could get her to phone up the hotel to confirm he stayed there. If it was a double room, just phone asking if her earrings had been found under the room of his name on the night in question as you cant remember the room number that she and her dp stayed in (obviously pretending she was the second guest whose name won't be on the system anyway!).

I would want my friend to tell me if this situation.

concernedforher · 09/03/2017 07:22

My husband couldn't be sure if they were staying at the hotel but I suppose that's a possibility. I really feel for her, and hate to think of her being hurt, but she's already been hurt by him. She found out about the other women because one of them, who he'd obviously spun a line about having split with my friend, added her on Facebook under a fake account and then plastered evidence all over her wall, saying what a farce the engagement was. My friend then found after demanding to see his phone messages that this woman wasn't the only one.

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