Should I speak to the wife 6 years later?

[Anon31483]

I 37F was with someone 39M for 3 months when I found out he was married with a kid on the way. I found out it wasn't the first time he cheated during their relationship either. He cheated also before they got married. The guy is a compulsive liar. The reason I didn't speak then was that his wife was pregnant with their kid and I didn't want to cause any harm. Now I found out they had a second kid who is one. I myself moved on of course and my own kid.

However my conscience has been eating me up all these years. Should I speak up anonymously?

Well I've been thinking about it on and off. Obviously I was living my life in the meantime and I was debating with myself if I should say anything.

For 6 years!

It's in the past. The time to say something was then.
If it wasn't right then because his wife was pregnant, how on earth can it be right now when they have two children?

You do understand that you're only one of many women (presumably) who were lied to?

And that some have already used their 'right' to tell her?

It doesn't make you a better person to tell her.

Just imagine you met her and told her to her face.
What if she laughed at you and said she knew, it was all water under the bridge and they'd moved on?

Because you don't know for certain that isn't what's happened.

You can't rely on what other people say to you. Some of them might be trying to protect you or even feed your need to tell her. Your friends, or whoever is helping your investigations are not neutral in any of this.

As a PP said, you can only see this from your perspective.
You aren't willing to consider either outcome - his wife knowing and laughing at you now, after 6 years, or the devastation you'd bring to her life.

You aren't choosing not to tell because of the 'risk' to your own family (that's a red herring) you're choosing the same thing you chose 6 years ago.

You need to work on accepting your own behaviour. If it was a bad decision then, own it and move on.

@DelythBeautyQueen · Today 00:19

We aren't missing the point. Most people have sussed out exactly why you want to destroy this young family. It's nothing to do with doing the right thing and everything to do with your obsession with a man who you can't bear to see with someone else. You are bent on revenge and it's not pretty.

Don't bother "explaining" again. We hear what you are saying and most of us don't believe you. Leave him and his family alone.

Exactly this I don't know why anybody is wasting their time responding to this OP, (or why she put this on AIBU.) She is not taking ANY criticism. All she wants to hear is 'yes OP! Go and fuck up that man's life! He deserves it, the bastard!'

People have given a lot of advice and yes, constructive criticism and tough love, and no-one has been 'nasty.' Yet the OP is calling people ridiculous and insane, and has just resorted to insults and out and out rudeness, towards people who are really just telling it like it is, and speaking the truth.

She is obsessed with this man. She hasn't got over him. It was 6 years ago. It was a 13 week fling 6 years ago and she clearly hasn't got over him. It's bizarre and it's ridiculous. And I find it really worrying that the OP can't see this. And each one of her posts gets more bizarre as she goes on. And as for 'investigating' to find out if the wife knows! OMG! Obsessed much!!! As I said though - I bet the wife won't believe her anyway.

About 20 years ago, I had a friend at that time (ex work colleague,) who's son was in his early 20s - and at the time had a girlfriend. She was 20 when he started dating her and they dated for 5 months. So yes, a little bit longer than the OP but not much. She actually became besotted and obsessed with him quite quickly to the point of being really OTT.

So he asked her to calm down and said he can't see her every single day and talk to her every single day, and they were only 20 and 23 and she was trying to move things too fast. She stopped the pill to try and get pregnant! (and didn't tell him.) But she did tell her friend who reported it back to the boyfriend (my friend's son.)

He instantly dumped her. They'd been together five months. This young woman stayed obsessed with him ... She would ring up and ask if she could pop to see her (my friend,) because she thought of her as a friend - and his sister as a friend. (Even though they didn't think of her as one!) And they had to say 'sorry but you and he are not together now, it's best you don't come around.' (He still lived there.)

She would follow him around, and keep ringing to speak to him. Even ringing around his friends to try to find him. She would sit in her car and just stare at his house. After a few times of doing this, he came out and told her to fuck off! He hadn't been nasty up to that point, but he had had enough. (This was 3-4 months after they finished.)

She ended up ringing taxis and pizzas and takeaways for him, and even called the Gas Board saying there was a gas leak, and phoned 999 to send fire engines and ambulances around. They told them they thought it was her, but at the time it was hard to prove. (It was around 2003 by now.)

And she followed him home from work too, and after about 8 months, she discovered he was dating another girl, and she started ringing HER up and saying 'I am fucking your boyfriend,' and then she would ring again and say 'you're a fucking slag!' And she started ringing her workplace telling them she had been stealing from them, and she rang HIS workplace and said he is shagging the boss's wife.. Again, nothing was done as there was no actual proof it was her. (They knew it WAS her, but proving it was something else!)

She became absolutely obsessed. In the end, after about a year, the police caught up with her, as they had some proof of something she had done. (After some investigations, CCTV caught her at a phone box calling an ambulance to his house in for him.) She got a Police Caution, and the shit she was doing stopped.

But even 2-3 years later, she was still stopping his sister and his mum in the street, asking how he was, and wanting to know where he is now and where he works. (He moved 15 miles away not long after the police got her, and he changed jobs.) They just told her to go away. This went on for several more years, (her stopping people he knows and asking about him.) Yep, even 5-6 years later, she was obsessed. No idea what happened to her as I left the area soon after and lost touch with this friend.

I don't know how old the OP is, but she sounds scarily like this young woman that dated my friend's son. Same pattern of obsession and hell bent on revenge.

Get help @Anon31483

The truth always sets you free.

The truth is that:

a) you don't know the truth. You do not know what this woman knows or doesn't know and you don't know whether she'd want you to tell her.

b) people are allowed to make personal life decisions that you disagree with

c) this family is nothing to do with you and it's not your place to step in and disrupt it.

From the way you react to being told the above, it's plain that you wouldn't respect this woman's decision if you told her and she decided to stay anyway. That alone undermines the supposed reason for telling her - because you don't want her to do what's best for her, you want her to do what would satisfy you.

@SabreIsMyFave She gave her age in the first line of the first post.

37 F (female, not bra size.)

Oh yeah sorry... Thank you. Hmmm, pretty close to the age that my friend's son's girlfriend would be. 🤔

It would be interesting if the OP could reframe this and post in Relationships in a different way.

'I need support. Six years ago I had a brief fling with a man who turned out to be married. I wish now I'd said something at the time when I found out but I didn't as I cared about his wife who was pregnant. Now, I find myself thinking about it all and wish I'd said something and indeed keep imagining I ought to.
I've been stalking him/ her and finding out about their lives all this time. How can I stop?'

FWIW OP, I have been in your situation. It was a longer relationship of a year. Long distance. I began to have my doubts- too many meetings cancelled last minute etc - and decided to go and see him where he lived 'alone' in his flat.

Yes, you've guessed. His wife was there. We had a discussion- the 3 of us. She said she had suspicions.
She said he had to choose. He chose her. That was 30 years ago and I know they are still together with grown up kids.

If I'd not dropped in on him would I have told her 6 years later when I discovered the truth?

No.

You have NO IDEA what the woman knows. People tend not to publicly broadcast their marriage troubles. There are issues in my marriage that my closest friends don't know about because it's none of their business, and the more people who know the more difficult it becomes to work out our issues between the two of us without other (well meaning) people interfering.

YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY KNOW THAT SHE DOESN'T ALREADY KNOW.

She may be telling people that her marriage is happy. It may not be. But she doesn't owe anyone any information on her private life. Most external people don't care and are only looking for a bit of titillating gossip.

Pop up 6 years later and you are going to look like the unhinged obsessed jealous ex.

It's very interesting to read the thread the OP wrote at the time (2018) where she calls the wife a "back-up plan". And reading that thread, it's clear how distressed she was then.

Not to mention the other thread where she talks about spying on an ex from behind a tree.

Oh my goodness.

You wrote about this 6 years ago here , asking the same question, and referred to his 'leverage' (meaning he had a back-up ) if you and him went wrong. That's not what leverage means but anyway.....

You found this out on Twitter where his cousin mentioned the baby on the way. But then it was brushed aside as a joke and you said you didn't even know if there was a baby after all.

And you were angry with him because he lied also about his star sign. WTF?

So even 3 months in, you thought you and him were 'it' and his wife was his back up incase it didn't work out between you.

And 6 years on you're still stuck.

And that's not even mentioning that 3 years later you were asking if it was okay to spy on a new guy were you were dating, from behind a bush outside his house.

Is this the man you're with now and have a child with?

In your original thread you also said you want to tell her because you think what happened to you was very unfair.

So you're not telling her because you think she deserves to know. You want to tell her purely for revenge. Not a good look @Anon31483 .

She already knows. I'd bet my house on it. You figured him out in a few weeks. Why do you think you had more of an insight than the person who lives 24/7 with him?

OMG yeah! A.S. is an eye opener! The OP is obsessed and has never got over this man! It was a 12 week fling, 6 years ago, and she was posting about it in 2018 when it happened. And she is still utterly obsessed!

As many posters have said @Anon31483 Get help. Your level of obsession over this man is unhealthy, and very weird, and actually quite dangerous. You're clearly extremely angry and bitter and you need some counselling.

@Anon31483 I do believe this has deeply affected you. More than you are willing to admit to yourself. I remember watching the lovely Denise Robertson on This Morning one day and someday had written in asking about getting revenge on their ex. She gave the sagest advice I'd ever heard. She said it is difficult when you are upset to not react. But by reacting all your are showing them is they still matter in your life. They still mean something to you. They still have an affect on you.

6 years later you will simply be showing this fella that he still means something in your life. I can guarantee he is not thinking about you today. He hasn't thought about you for years. He didn't care back then and he doesn't care now. Please don't drag yourself back to that horrible place where you are giving him the chance to once again reject you. And not only him reject you, but his wife too.

You have a different life now. You have your own family. Don't ruin it for something that will almost certainly not pan out like you imagine it will.

And do think about counselling. This is not normal. Fleeting thoughts of him, maybe. But you admit this is something you have been thinking about for a while. Doing this will not give you the freedom you think. It will simply drag you into a messy situation where you will come out the least favourable.

Leave him to the universe.

No. Just leave it.

Excellent post @TellMeWhoTheVillainsAre 👏

Tbh I think you should even later on if you didn't have anyone else that could potentially be impacted like a child and a partner. As I said I decided not to do it at the end because of that

And by that logic, there's even less reason to do it now there's a second child involved.

Because he was lying to her non stop and claiming he was working late. Its not difficult. I'm not gonna reply to this thread now at all. Thanks to everyone

If I was by myself I may have sent something anonymously. Anyway case closed.

It affected me at the time yes as it was a big shock. I explained already I couldn't speak there and then for a few reasons.

That would have been such a nasty, horrible thing to do. Drop a bomb but giving her no way to check the source, deciding it's your business enough to get involved and drop that bomb, but not enough to take any consequences yourself- only you deserve protection.

So horrible. If someone did that to me I think I'd think worse of them than the affair. If it's not worth you paying any price for it, why would you think it's that important?

The fact that it happened 6 years ago doesn't minimise anything at all. The way it happened it had significant impact on me on many areas of my life

Petty vendetta bullshit. Get a grip on yourself.

Sorry OP but you have not given any justifiable reasons for not speaking at the time. You have hinted vaguely at "safety" and when pushed into a corner by posters you claim that you were concerned about his wife receiving the information whilst pregnant. But it turns out you posted here soon after tge baby was born so the first "reason" is debunked.

The "safety" aspect is so vague and dramatic it's very hard to accept. But if we do accept he was a dangerous man 6 years ago, then you have to accept that you left a woman and newborn in far greater danger.

Well, I'm not you and no I wouldn't have. It was their problem to work through and you see, she did have suspicions.

And as a PP says, your logic is all over the place.
You don't care now that they have children!

The 'reason' you gave for not telling her now after 6 years is supposedly to save your own skin! And it not affect your current relationship. You've never once said that her children or the family were the reason for not telling her now.

Reading your history here on this and your other 'relationship' where you had suspicions shows you are possibly having issues to work through.

I mean, snooping around the next man you dated, spying on him etc, because of what happened in your very short affair with the other man, shows you have issues with trust and also perhaps self-esteem.

If you thought you'd found a partner for life after dating him for 3 months AND knowing he was married (she was his 'back up' you believed ) that's a bit worrying. Getting so 'head over heels' in 3 months and then stalking him- wow- he must be really something this guy!

The fact that it happened 6 years ago doesn't minimise anything at all. The way it happened it had significant impact on me on many areas of my life
What we are trying to get you to see is that an emotionally and mentally healthy person would not be still affected 6 years down the line.

You obviously care about your current relationship and child. So you owe it to them to speak to a professional about how you manage your emotional responses to difficult situations.
Your own words on your own threads demonstrate that you are not doing this healthily or successfully.

Leave these people alone.
It’s 6 years on.
Let it go.