WHY shoot the messenger?

[Mytwopenceworth]

Been reading a few threads recently on the sad topic of affairs. General consensus seems to be to not tell the betrayed party. To not get involved, or you will end up being the baddy. Why? If my dh was having an affair I would want to know. It would be so humiliating to go around and everyone knows he's playing away and I don't. Imagine finding out months or even years later that everyone around you knew and you were there playing happy families in front of them with them thinking Ha, yeah, I know something you don't!

If a friend came to me and said your h is having an affair with X, or your h slept with X, why would I blame them for telling me? I'd blame HIM for doing it! (Wouldn't even blame the other woman - I'm not married to HER!!)

I can't understand it.

I dont get that either, but in RL it usually is the person thats told that ends up the Bad One. Not the person thats had the affair.
Dunno....like I said I dont get it either.

i think its just societys way of behaving in general, dont say anything , leave it for someone else to deal with and one has enough on thier own plates to deal with why getinvolved with other peoples woes.

The problem is that if you tell you are poking your nose into other peoples' business, big time. For all you know the wronged person might be fully aware of what is happening but is dealing with it in their own way and doesn't want to be forced into a confrontation.

And in a lot of cases the partners patch things up, leaving the messenger out in the cold.

Yeah, maybe the cheated party already knows, or suspects, but an outsider saying something about it means they sort of HAVE to acknowledge it, or do something about it.
An anonomous note pointing them in the right direction might do the trick better than a face to face thing.

This actually happened to some friends of mine and they were deeply resentful that someone had poked their nose in and upset the delicate structure they were living by. The husband knew but dealt with it his own way until this busybody forced him into such an embarrassing position.

An anonymous letter is easy to ignore. I recently did a messenger thing on something completely different, as a result my mother made me a nasty phone call and will probably never be in touch again, but it was something the whole family knew about but no-one had the guts to actually say "This is out of order!". So I did and now I am definitely the bad guy! But you know what you are doing and you are prepared for the results. I know I did right and I stand by that, my conscience is clear, whereas if I had done nothing I would forever be thinking "If only I had said something at the time!"