Should I tell her?

[Pollypocket89]

I probably am being unreasonable but I'm exhausted and angry

My lovely friend found out she was the other woman last night after being very much in love for 13 months. Obviously that's over and she's devastated. She's promised him she won't tell his girlfriend as he threatened to harm himself

I've been cheated on and I'm furious on both their behalf. I don't want to cause trouble and I'll probably be told its not my business but I would want to know myself
Do I tell her?

"What if he did?" and misplaced sense of guilt and responsibility are exactly what allows abusive manipulators to use the, "if you do X, I will kill myself and it will be all your fault," with such success.

Again, purely for the sake of illustration of a point, if a paedophile said that to you that they would kill themselves if you revealed their disgusting behaviour, would you think, "oo, what if he did? Better not say anything"?

I take the liberty of answering for you that of course you wouldn't, because you would recognise a much higher moral duty to protect that child, and children in general, and consider that any consequences of his horrendous actions and your bringing them into the light - including any further decision by him to harm himself - would be his own doing. Perhaps if you are a particularly nice person, you would think that particular consequential action would be unfortunate, but I doubt you'd second-guess whether your actions in exposing his actions in the shadows were justified.

So it's a bit of a red herring and we're back to what you think of the underlying deed, whether you think you owe any moral obligation owed to the injured party and weighing those two things up.

@ByWayOf

5128gap Certainly not. Doing nothing (as a concept) is often very far from a neutral act and it certainly does have consequences.

Clearly, I am not making this comparison to put it on a par with cheating, but to illustrate the point: If you see someone drowning in a body of water and there is a lifebelt at the side, you can choose to throw it to them and call emergency services with the potential consequence of saving their life, or you can take the "neutral" position of doing nothing. That is up to you. But choosing the "neutral" position of absence of action has certainly increased the risk they will die.

I agree that the cheater's actions are their own, but by the same token it cannot be right to have a person who merely informed you of the truth share in the blame either.

I agree entirely there are situations where doing nothing is not a neutral act. I am referring to the specific situation in this post. If OP does nothing it will have no impact on the people concerned.

I disagree and have explained why in my response to Blossom below.

You lose any credibility as soon as you start comparing a cheating partner to a paedophile.

@AlternativePerspective

You lose any credibility as soon as you start comparing a cheating partner to a paedophile.

Beat me to it.

That was an absolutely ridiculous comparison.

You'll notice that I prefaced it with "purely for the sake of illustrating the point". I was explicitly not comparing cheating to paedophilia.

I was examining and testing Alternative's premise as to whether or not the threat to kill oneself in response to someone suggesting they may make your immoral actions known is the relevant consideration in making a decision as to whether or not one speaks up, and whether one bears any moral culpability if that threat is carried through. I don't agree that it is or that you do.

I think whether or not you act actually all comes back again to what you think of the underlying action and consequences for the victim of saying nothing.

I don't think that speaking the truth about a lie you believe will harm someone else makes you responsible for the deceiver's subsequent actions.

In an extremely immoral situation, nor do you. So again, we come back to whether or not you're particularly bothered by the underlying action and deceit.

It's not a complicated point, but it is of course much easier to respond to with, "oh my god, you're comparing cheating to paedophilia!" than to engage with what was actually said.

That was an absolutely ridiculous comparison

It was, as was the drowning person analogy. All those posts are just full of excuses to play God with other people’s lives through sheer arrogance.

"Clearly, I am not making this comparison to put it on a par with cheating"

Just repeating that one for you, Blossom.

By all means if you feel the need to pretend I've suggested that non-disclosure of cheating is on the same level as standing by and watching someone drown or concealing paedophilia, go right ahead, but I think it's very silly and speaks to you having no sensible response to the points actually made.

Yes, you absolutely are making a comparison between cheating and paedophilia.

You asked if a paedophile threatened to kill himself would it be ok to withhold information about his crimes in order to illustrate how a man cheating on his wife should be treated the same.

Reality is that very few people would care if a paedophile killed himself. In fact if I knew who he was I’d want to kill the fucker myself.

So you absolutely cannot use this as an illustration. If you want to be taken seriously here you’re going to have to come up with something more intelligent than that I’m afraid, because right now you’re looking like a thick twat.

it's very silly and speaks to you having no sensible response to the points actually made

You’ve had responses which you disagree with. Your arrogance and complete inability to even consider that there’s any merit in any view that doesn’t correspond with yours shines out of every post.

But let’s look at your comparison here in the way you seem to think we should all understand.

The crimes of a paedophile are worse than his killing himself.

A man cheating on his partner is not.

I care about whether a paedophile abuses children more than I would care if he killed himself if found out.

By comparison, if a cheating partner were to kill themselves, then I actually don’t care if he’s cheating on his partner if the alternative is that he ends his life.

Theres also the concept of least harm. Most people would agree that an action that may result in a peadophile taking his own life should be taken regardless of the risk to the paedophile, in order to prevent a child being abused, as in this case the action is less harmful than inaction.
In the case of disclosing cheating this is not necessarily so.

Alternative it was not to illustrate that a cheater should be treated the same way as a paedophile. It was to illustrate that your, "but what if he did?" is, by itself, a poor argument that speaks more to your view of the seriousness of the underlying offence than an serious consideration in its own right (as well as, in my opinion, a misconceived shouldering of responsibility for someone else's potential actions).

And you've all gone on to illustrate my point perfectly.

Because you don't think cheating on a partner is that big a deal in the scheme of things, you are perfectly willing to be manipulated by any cheater who trots out the threat that he will kill himself if you simply tell the truth.

Because to you the consequence of a cheated on spouse being lied to for a chunk of their life and making important and sometimes irreversible life decisions on the back of less and deceit by the person who is supposed to love them most in the world doesn't really rank.

Because you would (erroneously, I feel) feel personally guilty if someone caught in this particular lie decided to actually follow through with their threat as though exposing long-term, self-serving deceit to the victim therefore becomes a morally bad thing for you to have done in retrospect.

I disagree.

Incidentally, I also think such reasoning opens the door to giving many known liars and manipulators, in many given scenarios (including this one), the ultimate power over your moral choices on the strength of their very dubious word (threat). Anything immoral ranking less than a human life should be covered up on behalf of the perpetrator as soon as they threaten to kill themselves? Frankly, I think that's nuts.

Alternative Fortunately I have no particular desire to be taken seriously by someone whose level of engagement is to call someone who disagrees with them, and has explained why in considerable detail, a "thick twat". It doesn't really matter.

Blossom I am perfectly willing to understand other points of view and indeed have expressed as much in previous posts. Respecting and understanding your position doesn't mean I have to agree with it and I've already said that I don't expect we're changing any minds, here.

I think I'm entitled in the course of discussion to point out and question what I think are flaws in people's reasoning, though I appreciate it's a very personal subject which can bit very close to home.

You act according to your conscience and I'll act according to mine, and sleep well.

And you seriously think that someone wouldn’t be affected by someone committing suicide off the back of something they’d done? Get real.

It’s very easy to sit here and say that the person isn’t responsible, but when someone has threatened that, and then follows through, of course they’re going to feel responsible, even if they aren’t.

years ago I knew someone whose boyfriend threatened suicide when she wanted to end the relationship. She went along with the notion that it wasn’t her responsibility and ended the relationship anyway. She was right to do that for herself. However, he then went on to commit suicide, and she lived with the guilt of that for several years worth of therapy.

You might act in a way which benefits you if the threat was there. But in truth nobody owes anything to the girlfriend. The friend was the OW anyway, so telling her could well just come across as spite because she didn’t get her man, and it’s none of the OP’s business.

And in the scheme of things, no, cheating isn’t that big a deal when compared with child abuse.

Things have gone way off tangent on this thread.

Ah yes, there's the other point in which we disagree - "nobody owes anything to the girlfriend".

It's another moral chasm between us, I'm afraid. I don't subscribe to the, "fuck her, let her take her chances, she's nothing to me" school of thought.

I'm sure that plenty of people would feel guilty if someone who said, "if you tell the truth / leave me, I'll kill myself" actually followed through. I truly sympathise but think it's utterly misconceived (though very conditioned into women in particular) to take this upon yourself and to think that the morally correct course of action is to cover up for a liar to the detriment of the wronged party, or not to leave a relationship (as you acknowledge), because the perpetrator threatens this.

I don't say that you must tell the wronged party even if you think it would seriously affect you if the cheater killed themselves afterwards, but if you feel it's the morally correct thing to do and could live with it if the cheater took it upon themselves to kill themselves after being exposed, taking the view that it isn't your responsibility to collude with them to prevent it (like me), it's absolutely not an action to be condemned in my book.

Whether the perpetrator follows through or not, it's a manipulative tactic to try to cover up their own wrongdoing or get their own way at other people's expense. No thanks.

Wallace yes, you're right! Apologies, I got sucked into an interesting side discussion. Back to the OP.

Hope you're ok, whatever you've decided, OP.

I would tell her and I would want to know. Follow your gut op

YES, be the better person

@pinkflamingo21

YES, be the better person

I don't think it would make the OP a better person.

You don't go sticking your nose into people's relationships when you don't really know the couple and you aren't even the one who was the accidental 'OW'.

People always come onto these threads and talk about the sisterhood, how they would be saving someone from a life of deceit etc. In reality it is more about their need to see someone pay for their actions.

It is very rarely due to genuinely caring about a woman they have never met or know nothing about. No one owns up to that though. They wrap it up in a pretty bow and claim that they are being caring and responsible individuals.

If I was going to tell someone that news it would be because I know the person and will be there to help them deal with the fall out, and answer any questions they may have. Dropping a bombshell on someone then being able to walk away from it is not a caring action.

@pinkflamingo21

YES, be the better person

The better person than whom?

People always come onto these threads and talk about the sisterhood, how they would be saving someone from a life of deceit etc. In reality it is more about their need to see someone pay for their actions.

It is very rarely due to genuinely caring about a woman they have never met or know nothing about. No one owns up to that though. They wrap it up in a pretty bow and claim that they are being caring and responsible individuals.

If I was going to tell someone that news it would be because I know the person and will be there to help them deal with the fall out, and answer any questions they may have. Dropping a bombshell on someone then being able to walk away from it is not a caring action

I couldn't agree more. Perfectly put. And that last bit is crucial.

@saraclara

People always come onto these threads and talk about the sisterhood, how they would be saving someone from a life of deceit etc. In reality it is more about their need to see someone pay for their actions.

It is very rarely due to genuinely caring about a woman they have never met or know nothing about. No one owns up to that though. They wrap it up in a pretty bow and claim that they are being caring and responsible individuals.

If I was going to tell someone that news it would be because I know the person and will be there to help them deal with the fall out, and answer any questions they may have. Dropping a bombshell on someone then being able to walk away from it is not a caring action

I couldn't agree more. Perfectly put. And that last bit is crucial.

Quite.

And that's why in some ways, it can be worse than an affair. A person who decides to tell when they have no connection to the situation is gratifying their own desires every bit as much as a cheater.

But cheaters at least don't usually intend to cause pain (if they want to, they'll out themselves to their partner)...sometimes they even don't cause any. And they are at least vulnerable to consequences. Tellers who are strangers know full well they're going to cause pain and usually even intend it; they just think it's worth it to satisfy their misplaced vengeance. And they know there will be no impact on them.

It is so, so, so arrogant, self serving, dangerous and presumptuous to assume that you know better than a total stranger what is best for them, and to make irreversible, life changing decisions for them when you aren't in any way a part of their lives and will suffer no consequence. If you don't know them, if you aren't connected, if you don't know the situation, butt out.

It is so, so, so arrogant, self serving, dangerous and presumptuous to assume that you know better than a total stranger what is best for them, and to make irreversible, life changing decisions for them when you aren't in any way a part of their lives and will suffer no consequence. If you don't know them, if you aren't connected, if you don't know the situation, butt out.

Amen.