Volunteering got complicated …..

[MellowTiger]

I didn’t really know how to title this post. My DH & I volunteer for the same charity. He became involved with volunteer (female) -unknown to me this has been off and on for 6 years. It’s mainly s/text and phone/video call but it’s been very explicit & talk of moving in together. I found out & when challenged he ended it.
OW then started to be awkward with me in online meetings etc (we rarely meet F2F). It got to the point where other people commented on it. We were due to meet F2F as a group so I messaged OW saying requesting she didn’t attend (I have to go she doesn’t). I also said that if she continued being the way she was I would take it further in the organisation and that she couldn’t deny the relationship because I have photos of their conversations.
She put in a complaint saying I had threatened her, which has now been upheld and I now have to be interviewed to be sanctioned.
I feel this is really unfair AIBU? This is a personal matter, I was polite and although I see there was 100 ways to word it, I don’t think saying I’ll take it further (meaning a formal complaint) is really a threat. We ended up cancelling the F2F cos I said I wouldn’t go and without me it can’t take place.
Regardless of the sanction outcome I want to stop volunteering, but this could lead to the charity closure, so my DH says I should carry on. I don’t know what to do.

OP you've been very patient with posters blaming you for your DH/OW behaviour- they must be very strange IRL to think it's your fault or maybe they are cheaters themselves.

I’m absolutely on your side about what’s happening with the ow, but I do think you’re coming across as totally blaming her and not your dh. Speaking from experience if he’s done it once he will do it again, especially when he’s been able to carry on an affair for so long without you knowing and right under your nose.

If you don't want to carry on volunteering, why are you even thinking about putting your side to the panel rather than just resign & walk away?

This.

I mean if you want to be sure not to be blamed you have option of announce the affair in leaving letter/e-mail along line of clearly my DH 6 year affair with x and x subsquent behavior towards me upon my finding out and DH leaving her has led to an unpleasant work atmosphere that I can no longer cope with and will be leaving with immediate affect.

You throw them under the bus and don't have to see anyone again or explain anything further to anyone - you did nothing wrong so don't cover for them.

Or resign and not bother with any of them - and find something else to do with your valuable time and effort.

I think you should work out what's best for you to do and not jump though other people's rings.

I can sort of see the point. I think I'd go to their ridiculous hearing and read out a statement where I point out that (a) having a hearing after a grossly unfair procedure at which you were given no chance to put your case is a highly improper way of going about things; (b) you were simply trying to sort out the OW's objectionable behaviour without dragging the whole club into it, but giving her due warning (as is your right) that if she didn't respond you would be left with no choice; (c) you are so disappointed with their response that you don't want to work with them any more, take this as your resignation both as a trustee and a volunteer. Send a copy round to the volunteers and trustees as your final valedictory act.

I messaged OW saying requesting she didn’t attend (I have to go she doesn’t). I also said that if she continued being the way she was I would take it further in the organisation and that she couldn’t deny the relationship because I have photos of their conversations.

She put in a complaint saying I had threatened her, which has now been upheld and I now have to be interviewed to be sanctioned.

I feel this is really unfair AIBU?

The bastard and the bitch have been betraying you for years. Your rage and sadness is absolutely understandable. I'd hate to have to work with anyone who'd done that to me. (And no, I have zero respect for women who do that). YANBU there.

You asked her not to go to the thing, and to change her unacceptable behaviour towards you. YANBU there either.

However.

The moment you threatened both to take it further AND to reveal the photographs of their affair comms was the moment you skidded into blackmail. YABU there and I'm not surprised they're calling you out.

Personally I'd look for another organisation to work for, leave her in the dust - and bin the bastard off too.

If I started posting about my DH and what’s going on there I feel it would detract from my reason for posting. But I don’t think I’ve said I blame her for the affair at all, what I do blame her for is bitching at me in meetings etc.

The way I read what you wrote was that if she didn’t fall into line, then you would show everyone the evidence of the affair (the texts etc, not sure if that may include photos but she might be concerned about that). Basically, it read like you blackmailed her. It’s probably how she’s taken it, even if it was not your intention.

That was cruel.

Because you made an incredibly snotty comment which strongly implied that you are friends with a better class of woman because none of them sleep with married men, while conveniently forgetting that it was your husband, and not the other woman, who betrayed your marriage vows. Your comment also implied it is the woman who is responsible for the infidelity, even when she is single and it is the man she's sleeping with who is married. Which is an incredibly sexist view.

Don't get me wrong, sleeping with a married person is a shitty thing to do, but not half as shitty as cheating on your spouse when YOU are the married one.

So is placing the blame of affairs on single women and not the married men they are having affairs with.

I don’t agree with that. OP doesn’t seem that perturbed by the OW in general other than the issue of her verbal attacks that other volunteers have noticed.

That is the basis of this whole issue.

THIS⬆️
I didn’t want this thread to be about my relationship with DH, the affair or the aftermath of this.

Why don’t you understand that you have threatened her? If you’d called her out about the way she is behaving at work, you’d have had the moral high ground, but, you threatened to expose an affair she had had. That is personal and nothing to do with her work, you strayed into an unprofessional area that was her private life. I don’t see how they can do anything other than find in her favour, maybe you should have taken this to the trustees a good while ago, explained the situation and how difficult you were finding it working together because of her attitude towards you. They would have put a stop to it, she’d have been in the wrong and win win for you.

Funnily enough, whenever a woman comes on here and even says they’ve considered an affair they get ripped to pieces.

I think OP’s thread is about her difficult interaction with this woman who she actually has to work with though (obviously). Rather than anyone solely putting the blame on the woman. I do have a tip though, if I don’t want to be blamed for having an affair with a married man, I generally find it best to just not have an affair with one. Just me though, maybe?

I mean… asking the woman who had an affair with your husband at work to maybe stop giving you such a hard time in meetings and to not attend them if they don’t need to, otherwise you’ll escalate, kind of comes across as pretty reasonable to me. I’m not sure why we expect this perfection in professional behaviour from one of them, but not the other.

Funnily enough, whenever a woman comes on here and even says they’ve considered an affair they get ripped to pieces.

Well, yes. You've just proved my point that women are judged more harshly for affairs than men are, regardless of whether or not they themselves are betraying their spouse or partner.

As someone who's married, it's my responsibility not to cheat on my wife.

I understand the OP's thread isn't about this, but the comment of hers that I was replying to was.

Maybe it does to you and yes, if that’s what she’d said it would have been acceptable. But to ‘threaten’ to expose an affair to get what she wanted is not! It’s straying into the murky area of cyber crime. We all sympathise with what has happened to OP she should have taken this higher herself, instead she’s now on the back foot.
her employers now have to deal with this, not on an emotional level but in line with employment law etc. I dont understand why it’s so hard for people to accept that threatening to expose private messages and photographs in a professional setting, is unacceptable!

This sounds like a script from the detectorists.

If this thread is not about your DH’s affair, which is incredibly difficult to decouple by the way, the facts are you are volunteering at a place that allows toxic people and has a nonsense process for complaints.

So why are you still doing it?

Do you think this situation will magically resolve itself, you will be upheld as the upstanding member and she will be found out to be a witch woman everyone ostracises? The whole thing sounds toxic and childish. Add in you are both continuing to socialise with the OW and DH has turned on you.

Woman up and leave them all to it.

How is that identifiable information to talk in general terms about the governance structure of a charity. Nonsense.

It could be argued that the threat was a form of blackmail. Stop behaving like this and do not go to the event - or I'll release the info and the photos which may damage your reputation and career.

'Reasonable grounds' and 'proper means of reinforcing' would be open to interpretation, and using a personal matter to control a professional matter as revenge may not be enough.

I honestly think op that they have no alternative but to take this further, and you might be wise to get legal advice. You don't know what she might do to retaliate.

(1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—

(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and

(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.

The rest: www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/21

I don’t think there’s any bullying from OP, and it would be useful to stop and think how you might feel in OP’s shoes. It’s perfectly understandable that she doesn’t want to be in a meeting with OW. As for you saying it’s DH’s fault, it’s equally OW’s fault, it takes two to tango… you are so biased to the OW it makes me wonder if you have been an OW or currently are one!

You’re taking a comment on one thing and applying it across the board. I would be equally disgusted in a friend, male or female, married or single, to engage in a relationship where the other party is attached.
Your use of the word ‘class’ is completely out of context and irrelevant. Should you say moral code then yes, I would say not engaging in any sort of affair demonstrates high personal standards of conduct. I also disagree that women are blamed for affairs when men aren’t, in fact I would say the opposite.
But as I say, none of this has anything to do with my OP.

You disagree that you don’t think women are blamed more for affairs and yet you don’t want to work with this woman, but you’re still with your husband and taking his advice about where you should and shouldn’t volunteer. Did he want you to carry on so that he wasn’t embarrassed by having to explain why you were leaving.

he cheated on you for so long and yet it appears he’s got away with it and she is having to go and discus her private life at work. I do hope this reflects badly in your DH because he’s the one with the most blame attached!

She doesn’t want to be around the woman because she keeps verbally attacking her to the point other people have noticed. That’s perfectly reasonable.

The only innocent party in the affair was OP yet she is going to have to go to panel to explain her private life.