To wonder if I should say something now

[Perhapsishould]

This is a bit of a strange one but it keeps popping into my mind.

I was at university with someone who had an older boyfriend. I can now see through adult eyes that he was very controlling and was really a very sinister character but he actually appeared very nice on the surface, had a professional and well respected role.

I recently found out he has died, which had me thinking about some things. It was ages ago, over twenty years, but he told me some things which now I’m a but horrified by though I didn’t really take them in at the time.

Is it worth telling her? We aren’t close but she’s on my social media.

You actually don’t know how you would feel if the man you had been with your entire adult life died. You have no idea what it would feel like for your husband of decades dies, but was an awful person.

You don’t know how you would feel if your husband of decades died and was wonderful, though he did some weird shit at the beginning.

You don’t know how you would feel if you had been in an abusive marriage and he does and you feel conflicted. You feel free but also have some grief and have to help your kids with their grief while feeling free.

You don’t know how you would feel if a someone you knew decade ago turned up to tell you that they knew he was an abusive creep and decided not to tell you. But wants you to know now.

You can guess how you would feel. But you don’t actually know. You assume if an abusive partner dies, it’s easy to get over. It’s not. It’s complicated and Grief is complicated without abuse.

Equally, neither do you.

That’s not meant to sound like an arse. None of us know. That’s just how it is.

@Perhapsishould how many conversations did you have with him where he told you how abusive he was being?

Just the one but it was a long one (several hours.)

There were several hints but that was when he explicitly admitted what he’d done.

Sorry there will be people on this thread who've had this happen to them.

No, it's too late.

But it's not you. It's her, and she might not feel the same way. In that sense it is selfish because you're only looking at this from what you would want and not what she would want. Honestly, just leave it be, the time to do this is long gone.

Different people will experience the same things and have different reactions though.

Great. So blow her world apart and there's nothing she can do with the information because he's dead so she'll spend the rest of her life burdened with an inner conflict she can never resolve because the person she would need truth and justice from can never give her that. Yeah, great idea. Go for it...

Why the sarcasm when I’ve accepted that it’s not something I’ll be doing?

Christ, ask yourself why, what is it about you that makes you want to turn the death of this poor woman's husband into an 'all about you' thing?

Have a word with yourself.

And what is wrong with you that you would a) post that and b) think that I’m making it all about me

The only thing it has to do with me is that I happened to me the one who was told. And that was only because my mum had just died. It has nothing to do with me whatsoever and I’ll happily step away and have nothing further to do with any of it.

I think you’re coming from a good place op, though I agree it’s not a good idea.
It’s unlikely that a man would behave this way in the beginning, and go on to put on a mask of a loving partner for 20 years. Without this info, your friend will know what kind of man he was. Leave her to grieve and deal with whatever conflicting emotions she will have to work through. Your information won’t change anything, other than add to her likely very full plate x

Thank you @nadine90 . I’m honestly a bit baffled that I’m the selfish one - I have literally done nothing. My only crime if you like was not telling her at the time but I’m going back to the year 2000 here and I was a very different person!

Her husband and kids father has died and you want to stick the knife in
WOW
get a grip
the ship has long sailed for telling her if at all

FGS of course I don’t want to do that. How can you have read what I’ve put and concluded that my aim is to hurt and harm?

OP I take it you're not going to say anything?

I think people were calling you selfish because you were thinking of saying something that could make a widow's grief and suffering even worse
but if you have taken on board the comments I think that's fair enough!

I’m going back to the year 2000 here and I was a very different person!

And her husband was probably a very different person back then, you had a drunken conversation with him at 19 years old, he might have been chatting shit and you might have misremembered as you were drunk, it certainly wouldn’t stand up under scrutiny.

He was still a man in his thirties who terrified a young girl to make her move in with him.

I don’t buy that he magically changed, to be honest.

Its been over 20 years!! You're sounding scary yourself now!

There would be something torturous about being told something awful about someone you likely loved, and to never be able to talk to them about it.

Based on this, no way would I tell her. The likely main outcome will be anger directed at you for having not done the right thing years ago and telling her then

Honestly, you think I’m the scary one?

@webster1987 its true I should have said something then. I’m not sure she’d have accepted it.

@Perhapsishould you do sound a bit main character about this, holding on to this single conversation for 20 years...

Try to think objectively about this.

The extent of their relationship with its ups and downs, marriage, children, his early death...

Versus a single conversation you had with him...

How that would prompt you to even think about acting now, I really don't know.

You really know nothing about their lives together. Whether he continued to be an abusive dick, or whether he ever admitted doing something very misguided and they moved on from it. Whatever the reality is, you have no part of it and no role in it.

How have you worked that out though @Aspergallus ? It’s only come to light because she contacted me on social media literally two days ago. It isn’t as if I’ve been walking around chewing it over since the turn of the century!

It may have been a single conversation but given that he revealed in that conversation some very sinister things I don’t think I’m exaggerating. That combined with some other things I understand with the benefit of hindsight does make me wonder.