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Relationships

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Original poster

Do I tell his partner?

79 replies

Conversation16 · 23/02/2016 05:25

I have recently come out of a 9 month long affair with a man who was living with another woman. It ended with her telephoning me, telling me that she knew I was phoning him, that they were planning to get married and I should leave him alone.
In fact, we had been talking daily, and had met up, and slept together, several times.
On the phone I acknowledged that I had been phoning him, but nothing more. The relationship with him has ended.
I am now (and I realise that it's 9 months too late) wondering what the 'right' or 'best' thing to do is in relation to telling his partner. Is it helpful/ hurtful for her to know that he had been sleeping with me, and intensely involved with me, in light of their marriage plans (which I knew nothing about)? Is the least harm I can do just to back right away?
Not expecting any understanding for the relationship, and prepared (I think) for anything thrown at me, but also genuinely want to know if people think I should tell this women an important part of her partners very recent past.

OP posts:

Binders1 · 23/02/2016 10:45

I think she probably knows/believes there was more to it or maybe she has caught him cheating before? You don't know her and you don't really know him. I don't think it's common for a woman to suddenly ring another woman just because she's noticed she is ringing her DP and that's it - that's all she's got - unless she doesn't trust him anyway.

choceclair123 · 23/02/2016 11:27

I would tell her. I'd want to know.

APlaceOnTheCouch · 23/02/2016 11:34

Tell her.

I don't care what your motivation is - whether it's to get back at him or hurt her because you blame her for your relationship ending. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is that she is about to marry someone who has cheated on her and who has managed to emotionally manipulate her to a place where she believes you were hounding him and he was an innocent party.

Don't expect thanks. Don't expect anything positive to come back to you. But at least give her the information she needs to make an informed decision about who she is marrying.

Of course, she'll probably think you're lying and trying to split them up but if she has any doubts about him then it may make her think twice about what she is getting into.

she'll probably hang up if you call her so it might be better to write - give dates, locations and times so she can investigate from her end if she wants to

MatrixReloaded · 23/02/2016 13:03

I personally wouldn't. She already knows he's cheated. The details of the cheating are irrelevant really. What I would also do is stop focusing on them and have some counselling to work out why you chose to have an affair.

OurBlanche · 23/02/2016 13:08

Or maybe he is good at The Script and she has believed him

Also, counselling for an affair? Are you serious? People shag because they want to. Unless OP is serially latching on to men who should be unavailable, she just made a poor choice.

Counselling! Pah! It is not an easily available panacea!

APlaceOnTheCouch · 23/02/2016 13:24

She already knows he's cheated.
It doesn't say that in the OP. It says the gf contacted the OP because the gf thought the OP was chasing her bf and calling him all the time.

TheyCallMeBell · 23/02/2016 13:30

Yes, tell her. I am another who doesn't care what your motivation is. I'd want to know if it were me.

Fidelia · 23/02/2016 14:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Treetop12 · 23/02/2016 14:41

I had a friend in pretty much the exact situation, and my advice at the time was to leave it, as I thought she was just being bitter, as he chose his partner over my friend, so it felt like she just wanted to destroy lives, as she was hurting. but reading the other posts, I think I've changed my mind! this woman DOES deserve to know what happened, regardless of OPs motives - the woman should know the truth, and then she can ignore it, or continue to be in denial if she wants to.

iseenodust · 23/02/2016 14:42

Read the OP and it's all about her; "an important part of her partners past", "intensely involved with me".

OP acknowledged phoning him to the fiancee. Did she ask if it had been sex too? If she didn't then maybe she just doesn't want the tacky details?

Buzzardbird · 23/02/2016 14:52

You know he's only going to call you a 'bunny boiler' don't you?

He has got away with his lies and deceit so far.

Jackie0 · 23/02/2016 14:56

Leave the woman alone ffs.

OurBlanche · 23/02/2016 15:15

Why, Jackie0?

Serious question, I am not trying to be snide. I am curious.

My answer, tell her, is based on having a cousin whose wife was amazingly profligate with her affairs, he was devastated when he found that some good friends had always known and yet not said anything, for years. Also, I told a very good friend about the other women and children in her exes life. She cut me off for a year or so but, when she got rid of him, she called me and now we are good friends again.

So, you can see, I am biased because of my previous experience and am nosy enough to wonder why anyone would think differently.

LogicalThinking · 23/02/2016 15:22

Telling her would be entirely self-serving. A very selfish thing to do.
She either already knows or wouldn't believe you and would think that you were just trying to split them up.
There is no good that could come of telling her.

LogicalThinking · 23/02/2016 15:23

Just to add, if she had really wanted your account of what happened, she would have asked you when she spoke to you.

NerrSnerr · 23/02/2016 15:30

But she deserves to know he's been putting his dick in someone else so she can choose to get tested. Imagine finding out you've caught something when pregnant, or about to get married? For what it's worth the OP should probably get tested too as she may not be the only one he's been shagging.

Treetop12 · 23/02/2016 15:32

ok, so I do agree with Logicalthinking (im clearly a bit flaky when it comes to this subject)!

as I do think most woman are obsessed with detail, so would probe for every last fact out of the OW, but this woman hasn't - she has chosen to not ask for the details and she has chosen to stay with her man, knowing that she doesn't have all the info.

I would personally want to know everything, but we can't assume that everyone is the same.

I hate to sit on the fence, but im struggling to form a strong opinion either side!

Jackie0 · 23/02/2016 16:22

OurBlanche , because I don't think the Ops motivation is kindness or concern for the woman's emotional welfare or sexual health.
I think she would be twisting the knife.
It isn't her place to be imparting this information, if the injured party was asking her that would be different.
I think the op has behaved very badly and out of decency should not bother this woman.

IamlovedbyG · 23/02/2016 16:25

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

lunar1 · 23/02/2016 16:26

Your motives could be anything, but no matter what they are she deserves to know. I'd find a kind way to tell her and with proof if possible. She doesn't deserve what the two of you have done but she does deserve to make decisions on her life based on the truth.

HerRoyalNotness · 23/02/2016 16:39

I think you missed your window. When she called you, that's when you should have come clean about everything. If you make contact and now change your story, I'd doubt she'd believe you.

OurBlanche · 24/02/2016 09:14

Thanks Jackie. As I said, I am genuinely curious to see the differences:

I don't think the Ops motivation is kindness or concern for the woman's emotional welfare or sexual health. whereas I don't care about the OPs motivation. The soon to be wife's needs outweigh that.

I think she would be twisting the knife. Yes, the knife that a soon to be husband sank in in the first place.

It isn't her place to be imparting this information, if the injured party was asking her that would be different. There is no one else who can/will. And she is an injured party, he was the one having the affair, she just wasn't a totally innocent bystander

I think the op has behaved very badly and out of decency should not bother this woman. Yep. Op has behaved badly. But decency demands that she doesn't hide and ignore the fact that she knows another woman is about to marry a cheating scumbag.

We both have the soon to be wife's interests at heart, I think. But see the short term devastation quite differently, I think. As I said, having been the one to tell a friend about the antics of her long term partner, I know how devastating the news is. But I have also seen how much better her life became once she worked her way through it.

ILikeUranus · 24/02/2016 11:44

H had an affair last year. I needed to know everything before I could decide whether I even wanted to try to get over it. How can you move on if you don't know what you're moving on from? Their whole marriage will be based on deception if she doesn't know what happened. I would want to know. This woman could be wasting years of her life or having kids with this guy without knowing this, which might completely change her mind.

OP I think you should tell her absolutely everything. Write her a letter/email/PM or something, and say you're sorry (if you are), you realise now what you did was very wrong, and here's everything that happened in black and white, and you have no intentions to ever contact him again (if that's true). She's not going to especially thank you or want to be your friend, but at least you'll have told her the truth and she can make an informed choice about what she does with the rest of her life.

ILikeUranus · 24/02/2016 11:47

Also, please do mention if you used condoms or not (and why, if relevant, eg because I'm on the pill, or whatever). Going to the sexual health clinic the week before Christmas was not my favourite thing to do with my time, but it did give me peace of mind afterwards. "what you don't know can't hurt you" really isn't true in a lot of situations!

Scornedwoman67 · 24/02/2016 13:04

Another one here whose husband screwed a woman at work & I found out afterwards colleagues and even some family members knew. I wish they'd told me. He was a compulsive liar.

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