to tell/not tell a friend that their partner has a dating app?

[somegirlontheinter]

To make this super vague…I am in a close friendship group of about 8 people. Made up by couples mostly. We are each others closest/primary/best friends and meet up regularly, often meet or go on vacation together etc etc. None of us are married or have children yet.

Long story short, I’ve noticed that one of the female friends has been hyperfocused on her phone recently. We’ll (the girls) be out, having a chat and she’ll be very disinterested and swiping/typing on her phone every now and again. The kind of dedicated typing, where you’re waiting for a reply…not a mindless check or scroll. This has happened over the past 6+ months. While tipsy one night, I grabbed her phone and saw that she was on a dating app. She snatched her phone back and put it away. I laughed because I was tipsy but she was annoyed. I apologised for this of course.

She explained that her and her partner have both downloaded the app to see what kind of interest they’d get and she then referred to myself and my partner as we did this with another dating app for fun (…when we were 19, pls note that we’re fully grown 30 year olds now).

Some further context

• she’s been complaining over the past 2 years that her boyfriend hasn’t been paying enough attention to their relationship and seems disinterested
• this event happened weeks ago, she has now contacted to me to further justify the dating app even though I haven’t asked any further questions

I’ve asked her if she’s happy etc, she said things are okay. I’ve asked her if she’s looking for someone else and she maintains the “just for fun” story but to keep it to myself so that the others won’t judge them. I mean further detail is going to be limited here in the rare possibility that she decides to read mumsnet tonight.

I feel that I’m in a tricky situation now. I think I feel morally obliged to tell her partner? But they could’ve downloaded it together for fun, they might be looking for another partner for a three-or-more-some etc. What if it comes out that she is cheating on him and I knew (e.g if she dropped me in it)?

You don’t know what’s actually going on, stay out of it.

stay out of it

I would avoid this. To be honest, whatever she is hiding, let her hide it. Theres nowt so strange as folk, and you've had a sniff of something odd right? I'd leave it alone. Who knows what its about, and she wants it to be a secret. Let her keep it that way.

She didn't confide she was cheating. You snatched her phone and looked through it. Apologise for intruding on her privacy and move on.

I would be really furious with someone who snatched my phone off me. I wouldn't want to even have a conversation with them. You say you are 30 years old. Act like it.

If she has said they’ve both downloaded the app then I would take that at face value and say no more about it. Don’t do looking for trouble if you don’t have to.

Regarding the phone snatch. It was a rowdy night out, it’s not the worst that one of us has ever done. I can think of so many times that we’ve grabbed each other’s phones and looked through photos, taken silly photos. It’s not an issue here. We’re probably just a bit of wild group tbh.

It's still a boundary violation tho. Look what's happened ad a result. That's why doing it is a faux pas.

I think YABU. Snatched her phone to look at what she was doing, which is nothing to do with you, I am not sure why you're playing that off as a silly night out thing - my friends and I don't snatch each other's phones off eachother?? Why would I? Drunk or not.