Would you tell?

[WouldYouTell]

If you know a man is cheating on his partner of 10+years. You know its been going on for about a year. You don't know his partner but you can get her email/phone number. Would you tell her? If you were the partner would you want someone to tell you?

At the risk of a huge flaming for 'outing' someone cheating I can confirm it never works out in your favour. I alerted a good friend that his wife may have been 'indiscreet' with a couple of people (had concrete knowledge having walked in on her actually en-flagrente with one of them at a house party) but he chose to accept it and give her the benefit of the doubt. I lost a friend. I admit to being angry at her for treating him like a fool and in hindsight should have been calmer before deciding to out her, but it had been going on for so long and I felt compliant.
Still, I probably wouldn't do it again and would have to just sit and watch it come out in the wash. Some people can forgive and forget though, so it may not affect anyone anyway.

chocolate yea I though email because I could think about how to word what I wanted to say as I'm rubbish with phone calls, not that I will do either now.
Unfortunately no I don't know any of her friends.

*thought

No, if you're not prepared to put your name to this and give the woman the news personally, don't do it.

I am in favour in many scenarios of telling

but not this one

you are not personally involved

there was a thread the other day about a woman who found out she was the OW...I advocate telling in that instance

not this one though...purely from a self preservation POV, tbh

I wish that someone had told me about my DXP and the OW; would have saved me from 7 years of misery! In a nutshell, changed my image completely to make myself more desirable to him (didn't work!), thought that he was depressed because our business was slow and I bent over backwards to cheer him up (made a fuss of him, cooked all his favourite meals, etc., etc) and, all the time, he was screwing another woman! The most hurtful thing is that mutual friends KNEW and covered up for him!!! Can't say any more, my DXP and OW are fairly famous and have already tried to shut me up using law pertaining to harassment! I'm the injured party, FFS!

ATouch Thanks for sharing your story, i'll stay out of it. But still hope that if it ever happened to me again someone will tell me (fingers crossed it won't.)

Any children? How old?

badinage would not be prepared to do that, unless I waited untill after I left to tell her then I would.

I suppose at least I can't be accused of covering up for her, but I doubt he will ever leave her as she is younger than him and he is happy otherwise. For me it is a deal breaker, but for others clearly not.
Shooting the messanger to me is just hiding it under the carpet. You surely have to concede that watching a friend being duped and knowing isn't a healthy 'friendly' situation to be in. I certainly couldn't handle it. But each to their own.

jynier Really sorry to hear that. Hope things are going better for you now you're rid of him.

Slower No children

As you don't know the wife, or the situation with her, I'd say do not tell. If you knew a good friend of hers, I'd tell the friend and let him/her decide. But you don't, so.... keep it to yourself.

In some scenarios I would tell. If the wife was a close friend of mine, for example.
But I have experienced the 'shot messenger' syndrome previously, so I'd have to be prepared for that.
In this scenario definitely wouldn't tell. It's none of your business, and it's potentially very messy because of the work connection.

ATouch you did what you thought was right, at least he knows and he can do what he wants with your information, in this case choose to ignore it. Yes deal breaker for me too.

If you do decide to tell, set up a fake webmail address and send the email from an internet cafe nowhere near your work or home. Not that I'm saying you should tell.

game and Sue Thanks both for your advice.

game yeah if i decided to tell via email would need a new email as he knows both my email addresses so would know if it came from me.

Then best not to. If I heard something like this from a stranger in an unsolicited e mail, once I'd got over the shock I'm sure what I'd want to do most is speak to the person and ask them a bit more about their evidence, how they knew, who else knew, whether they had a personal axe to grind etc. I'd resent not being able to do that and I would think that some women in her situation wouldn't have the initial clarity (or MN!!) to box clever and do a bit of digging before confronting their husbands. Allegations in an anonymous e mail are sometimes easily explained away by manipulative characters and in fact it might prompt them to get a bit cleverer and cover up their actions even more.

There's also the remote possibility that this bloke's got an open relationship of course and as you don't know him and his wife on a personal basis, you wouldn't be privy to that info whereas with a friend you might.

I always think in these situations you've got to consider what a bomb you're detonating in someone's life when you've got no idea about their state of mind. The shock of getting an anonymous and unsolicited communication would be bad enough for most people, but if someone's got mental health issues or alternatively they are violent and abusive, it's a very cowardly and potentially dangerous action.

Completely different if you're friends with someone and are prepared to sit with them before and after.

WYT - I never wanted to get rid of him!!! If someone had told me (and found out later that several people knew), I would have confronted them! Instead, I was treated like an idiot with an overactive imagination! Hurts so much!

I echo what badinage said. You cant possibly know what is or indeed, ISNT going on in a persons marriage.
Someone having an affair might be in an open marriage or have a spouse who hasnt touched them for years.
I used to think everything was either black or white good or evil when i was younger.
It wasnt until i got into my thirties that i realised life isnt that simple.

If you know then other people surely know and it's about to implode anyway? She could know and be busy collating evidence. Or they could have an open relationship.

Does he know you know?

Personally I would like to be told, in an anonymous email or whatever with details and evidence. I wouldn't care who told me tbh as long as I knew.

It depends.

If you know (and I mean really know) and you stay quiet, you are colluding in the secrecy and betrayal of an affair. And the secrecy/betrayal can be the hardest part for the betrayed partner to deal with; and the feeling that loads of people know whilst you were left in ignorance makes you question everything.

Any damage is done by the affair, not the discovery of it.

The thing is, everyone says they'd want to be told (God knows I would), but oddly, when people are told, they almost always shoot the messenger.

The 'in theory' scenario is the exact opposite of the 'in practice' scenario because basically, you can't know until you're in the position.

Obviously this isn't cast-iron - there are enough people on here saying they wish someone had told them. But then again, how would they have actually dealt with the info, if they'd been told? Maybe very badly if they'd been told before they were ready to hear it. It's 'easy' to say you wish you'd been told - with the benefit of hindsight, when the relationship has totally gone down the shitter and absolutely is history. But at the time? When you're completely blindsided and wondering if there's something salvageable between the two of you? Who knows...

For this reason, it probably is best to beak out of it, as tempting as it really, really is to out an arsehole, as it were.

I'm surprised by how vehemently people are against the idea of telling the wife.

If she has an open relationship then she won't be bothered anyway will she? & there's no guarantee she'd take it any better even if the OP was a good friend. And perhaps she will choose to forgive and forget anyway, but that's her choice.

If you're willing to take the consequences of what might come back from it OP then it's your choice to tell. Obviously tread carefully wrt work, perhaps waiting til you've actually left that place first. Do what your gut tells you is right.