AIBU to want to tell colleague’s wife about his workplace affair?

[Berrylipshade]

Name changed for this.
I’m watching an affair play out in work. Been going on for a long time. Everyone knows. Not at all discreet. Today it was bad, cuddling, neck stroking, hands in hair, in plain sight of a few of us, and leaving for “lunch” together.
He is a horrible arrogant man. His poor wife & young kids.
I hear him telling clients about his wife and comes across as so devoted. He’s a pig.
The one he’s shagging is single, but an obnoxious flirt. The whole thing just makes me so annoyed.
i wish I could not care.
but i keep plotting to leak this to his wife.
is that wrong?

My guess would be that she’s raised suspicions but the arrogant prick has gaslit her and made her feel like it’s all in her imagination!
when my ex cheated years ago I even found texts inviting him round, I called the bloody number and woman answered!… confronted him and he denied it, said I was nuts and that his mates wife must have answered his phone like I sometimes did hid if he was busy…. These men are master manipulators and great at making you feel crazy/paranoid… he had me questioning why I couldn’t trust… several months later I was talking to a friend about where he worked and she said ‘Oh… hate to tell you this but your John is shagging Nikki ! (She was stored as Nick in his phone!)… I was so grateful to be told this as I finally knew I wasn’t going nuts! Wasn’t just over jealous etc… the person who told me knew Nikki but hadn’t put two and two together that ‘the’ John she was shagging was my John…. Till I said where he worked and that he was acting strange… her face when the penny dropped and she just told me straight…. I actually felt relieved… could finally tell him I knew the truth and wasn’t just paranoid…. What a prick he was… he always turned it round and acted like he was so against cheating, he’d be last person to ever do it etc… these men are cretins.
In your shoes I would ALWAYS tell the woman!… I would take a discreet picture so he can’t gaslight her… but take it from the photo copier or something so he can’t work out it came from the direction of your desk.
I was wise and had a STD test after we split and the bastard had given me something that if undiscovered could have caused me lots of issues!! I never told him this though!!… and since we’d been tested a year earlier for IVF and were both clear I know he was source! Horrible man!

This

My friends husband was travelling up north to visit his son… she was home with their 2 infant children….his affair actually requested her as a friend on Facebook and when she clicked on the picture to see if she knew her the profile pic was of her kissing my friends husband!! Despicable!!

The reality here is that although 80% agree with letting the affair be known, I very much doubt they would, if in your position, tell her.
Maybe they would if they were a close friend or relative of the wife , but otherwise, no.
Nobody really would invite drama like this which could seriously backfire on them for a stranger's marriage. Sorry it's b. s. Don't be led by what I perceive to be bravado on the part of other posters.

The reality is that HR will not be standing there thinking, "let's deal with this nasty cheat" but, "oh ffs we all know they're shagging but since it's been brought it to our attention we'll have to have a word about PDA's not being encouraged. More bloody work."
Same goes for everybody senior to you in the workplace.
(Everybody at work probably knows, if they want to use it as leverage against him, they don't need your input.)

You will also be noted as a trouble maker, because, unless this is affecting their jobs or one of them is getting favourable treatment as a result of the affair, it's not the business of anyone else at work.

I would despise anyone who sent me 'your dh is cheating' message anonymously. Deeply embarrassing.
Most wives aren't stupid, they sense something's up when dh is cheating, last thing they need is someone doing this on top of everything else.
It would make me feel even worse and I'd hate you for it.
That's all I got to say. Choose wisely.

The question is how??

If you know where he lives, get a load of leaflets about STDs and send a set each to him and his wife. Get someone else to write the envelopes. It may make him realise what he's risking and that he's putting his wife at risk. Alternatively if you can do it (no cameras or anyone about, put them on his desk. Speaking as someone that's had this done across her, it's horrible knowing everyone else knew and you didn't. I was eventually told and caught him in the act. He's now my ex.

The messenger always gets burnt. MIL cheated on FIL for years with his best friend. FIL worked away a lot. They lived in a really small village so literally everyone knew about it… DH eventually found out when he got a bit older (he saw them kissing in the car one day) and so told FIL. MIL lied, said DH was a pothead who was bullshitting and FIL believed her.

There’s every chance his wife would buy his lies - he’d likely say you were jealous, fancied him or some other crap. It wouldn’t end well.

Your dh is blameless in all this as it's his mother, not a stranger, however, FIL and MIL may have had a 'don't ask, don't tell' thing going on and didn't want the arrangement broken so your MIL denies it and fill 'believes' her but not really.
It's somehow OK if it's not openly discussed.
That's how many couples operate.

It's a shame your dh got the flak all the same. Crappy parents to do that to their own son. A stranger or someone else I'd understand.

Omg, my sympathies! I'm so glad you found out though and managed to get out. I can totally relate - not that mine cheated (that I know of lol)....but I relate to the gaslighting and the master manipulation. Mine had me second guessing myself all the time and I ended up tying myself up in knots thinking that I was the nutty one - when in actual fact THEY'RE the crazy one!! Bastards

I do hope you do NOT tell the wife. Reporting to HR is the way to go, and should be the limit if your involvement.

I haven’t and will not tell her, I appreciate it’s cruel & cowardly and motivated by my own dislike of this “man” !! I am looking forward to him being found out, they are less and less discreet (this week has been awful) so only a matter of time.

I think the wife has a right to know tho.....I'd want to know......

Me too. Can’t believe the lack of girl code on mumsnet

Please, please, please tell the wife.
She absolutely deserves to know.
I wish with all my heart that somebody had told me years before I found out.
I am tortured by the reality of my life V my family memories for those long years.
Please tell her anonymously. It’s up to her then what she does with that information.
Knowing gives her choices which she is currently being robbed off.

Meh...there's women and men all over the world currently being cheated on and there will be till the end of time. I can't solve other people's problems and prefer to keep out of other peoples relationships entirely.

Same. I have zero desire to involve myself in other peoples private lives, and so I’m not going to. That isn’t something I signed up for by virtue of being born female.

Op telling could have very serious consequences for her, regarding not just this job but her career as a whole (and no, that isn’t something easily solved by ‘going to tribunal’, as if that’s some minor thing). If ‘girl code’ means that a woman should be happy to risk blowing up her an own life in the name of telling the wife, then I’ll continue to pass on it.

Well considering no one would know it was OP, I don’t think her job or anything else would be at risk.
Maybe when you’ve cheated on and kept in the dark about it or got an STD of him you’d feel differently.

Meh? Christ are you 12!

I have no interest nor do I care if a woman i don't know gets an std or not to be honest. I am not running a sexual health clinic.

Bold assumption that no one would know, or that it wouldn’t be easy enough to figure it out.

If she speaks to the manager, who thinks very well of both these senior colleagues, then she’ll be seen as the problem. If the wife then suddenly gets an anonymous message sent to her, it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out who sent it.

“Maybe when you’ve cheated on and kept in the dark about it or got an STD of him you’d feel differently.“

Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t 🤷🏻‍♀️

I can’t imagine thinking that his work colleagues were obliged to share that information, or had let me down by failing to do so. Even if I did unreasonably think that, however, it wouldn’t mean that they actually owed me.