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Original poster

I wish I hadn't seen this. WWYD?

287 replies

Bamboofordinneragain · 28/01/2017 17:43

A bit of background - we have a friendship group of five other couples, all late forties/early fifties, DC grown and gone in most cases. We have all been close for many years.
So, last week I had a meeting in a town some distance from home. Meeting over, I was having coffee in a cafe before heading back to work. The cafe was on the first floor, overlooking the market square. Giving me a birds eye view of two of our group, hand in hand, happy as Larry, walking through the market. You will guess the next bit...

Two of my oldest friends, not married to each other, out on an awayday. I felt sick. Still do. I had no idea either marriage was rocky, although her DH can be very difficult. I haven't told anybody about this, and my gut feeling is not to. My DH doesn't know, and I hate keeping stuff from him. The man involved is his closest friend in the group, so maybe he knows and hasn't told me?
But WWYD? I am very unwilling be the one who escalates this any further - things surely can't end well in any case, so what good would telling anybody do? But if it was my DH would I want to know? I just want to hibernate for a while...

OP posts:
MomOfTwins2 · 28/01/2017 20:29

Because you would hurt 4 people?

She isn't the guilty party. The cheating spouses are the ones who are hurting people. And the truth will out, it always does.

AnnieAnoniMouse · 28/01/2017 20:36

I'd tell DH first, then I would tell one person out of each marriage, the one out of each I was closest to.

I ended friendships when they knew & didnt tell me - that betrayal was as bad, if not worse, than the cheating.

TheFormidableMrsC · 28/01/2017 20:39

CaptainHammer, I have just read your post...same happened to me after my husband left following affair. He'd tried it on with my brother's girlfriend, and others...many described him as a "total creep". One particularly awful story was a very close friend of mine who was staying with us for the weekend with her partner...my husband went into their room and touched her in the middle of the night and tried to get her to go downstairs with him. She was naked, horrified, her partner asleep next to her. They left early the next morning and at the time I didn't understand why. It's all very well people coming out later and saying things...but if they had at the time, I would have taken action far far sooner. My ex was the stuff of nightmares it seems and I didn't know it...other stuff is too painful to share really. I wish somebody had told me.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 28/01/2017 20:45

her DH can be very difficult

Possibly easier to understand why this woman has ended up having an affair* but (to state the obvious) if life is intolerable with her husband her best course would have been to end the marriage. The OP says the other marriage seems fine from the outside, but of course nobody ever knows the full story except the two partners. Life is messy and sometimes people do stupid/wrong things and then have to work out a way of muddling through. In my view, honesty is a big help here. Lying rarely makes anything better.

In any case, I agree with those saying you have to do something. I would have to tell my husband and pretty much regardless of what he said I would speak to at least one of the two people you saw. After that I'd have to play it by ear, but please do think about what all the cheated-on parties who've posted here have said - not telling them what's happened is a betrayal in itself.

The friendship group is probably doomed in any case.

Scenario 1: the affair peters out and both marriages continue. Unless your friends are brilliant actors, it's hard to see how they are going to carry on as if nothing has ever happened between them. And anyway you will know (and possibly your husband) and that will also change the dynamic. So highly likely that in the end at least some of the group drift away.

Scenario 2: the affair leads to the end of at least one marriage. Not at all likely that you will all continue wanting to see each other as before.

Scenario 3: the affair comes to light and both marriages continue. Surely the only way that would have even the sightest chance of working out would be for the two couples to cease all contact.

*I'm amazed that people are saying a heterosexual man and woman, both married to other people, could be holding hands in a perfectly innocent way. Not in my world, and if the OP's friends were all very touchy feely with each other like this I think she'd have mentioned it.

ivykaty44 · 28/01/2017 20:46

Op only you know whether you can tell your friends or not

But don't play games or do it in public

Nobody should judge you whatever you decide to do, there isn't an easy answer

jcne · 28/01/2017 20:55

Ouchy. Regardless of what's wrong or right here I would probably tell my husb for my own tea sipping relief! Wouldn't wade in though!

underitoveritthroughit · 28/01/2017 20:56

My H cheated on me and left me for a girl we knew from a group not dissimilar to this. She is also married. They are now together.
I would be beyond devastated if I found out that one of our mutual friends knew and didn't tell me and/or her dh. And I'd feel betrayed by someone else who's supposed to care.
You should tell your dh and discuss the best way forward. And that should be telling their respective spouses. To do otherwise makes you complicit and I'd assume you were "on their side" if you kept it to yourself.

smileyhappypeople · 28/01/2017 21:03

I think you need to say something but I would avoid saying things like affair etc... just stick to the facts. It could (not likely) be innocent. I think I would speak to the 2 people you saw first but just catch them on the spot without being accusing etc and just say you had seen them... you will be able to tell by their faces/excuses how innocent it was!

HappyJanuary · 28/01/2017 21:11

'Because you would hurt 4 people'

The messenger isn't the one doing the hurting.

Tell them you know op. It's the best compromise. You do the right thing by taking action, but give them the opportunity to tell their spouses themselves.

Imagine being one of their spouses. How many more years of their one life will they waste on these unfaithful shits?

GlitteryFluff · 28/01/2017 21:15

I'd want to know.

Rednailsandnaeknickers · 28/01/2017 21:25

I tend to find people who haven't ever been a betrayed spouse are all for keeping it quiet.
Once you have been cheated on, you don't know how painful it is for others to have known and not told you.

Exactly. I think many, if not most, women who have been cheated on, wish they'd known earlier (to justify their suspicions when being gaslighted for example), to be able to make a choice. It's absolutely heart breaking to think that people you trusted, your good friends, were "gossiping" behind your back about your relationship/partner/you. It's humiliating and you never feel the same about them again. You actually lose some respect for them after you get over the initial shock and embarrassment. You realise they weren't as moral as you thought.

Please don't just ignore and keep this quiet. It's hideously unfair to their innocent spouses.

Thinkingofausername1 · 28/01/2017 21:51

I don't know I think you were there for a reason if it was that far away. Talk to your dh on the basis it stays within your four walls

TheFormidableMrsC · 28/01/2017 22:11

Thinkingofausername1 Yes it was work, as described in the OP.

Figure17a · 28/01/2017 22:13

I think Thinking meant it was "fate" that made sure OP saw what she saw Formidable

Velvian · 28/01/2017 22:16

Tell your DH then you can decide together what to do.

Puremince · 28/01/2017 22:46

I think you should tell your husband what you saw.

You don't know that they're having a full blown affair, though. They might be having an unwise friendship stopping short of actual sex. At the moment all you know is that they have met up and held hands. I don't think you should say anything. Definitely don't their partners that they're having an affair, because that might technically not be true.

seven201 · 28/01/2017 22:55

I think you should tell DH and you should then each tell your friends that you know and that they should come clean to their partners before you have to do it for them. I would be furious if my friends knew I was being cheated on. Your friend may find it hard to forgive you, even though you'll have done nothing wrong, but I think a marriage is more important. Just my view and I appreciate I'm in the minority on here.

springydaffs · 28/01/2017 23:32

People don't necessarily have affairs bcs they're unhappily married! People have affairs bcs they want to and they can a lot of the time. It puts them in a victim position to suggest they are 'unhappily married' the poor things Hmm

AcrossthePond55 · 28/01/2017 23:33

I would definitely talk it over with my husband. But I feel fairly confident that our joint decision would be to tell the people involved that we were 'closest' to. Meaning that DH would speak to the 'closest friend' and I would speak to whomever it was I was closest to, be it the cheating woman or the cheated upon spouse. It would be a matter of saying simply what I saw; "I saw Mary and John (or you and John) last week in Nextdoortown walking through the square holding hands". It's up to the person I told as far as what to do with that information.

I would always want to be told.

mathanxiety · 29/01/2017 00:45

Indeed Sprinydaffs.

Sometimes a marriage can be portrayed as miserable by the party having an affair in order to justify it in their own mind.

DragonitesRule · 29/01/2017 00:51

How did it go?

Charlie97 · 29/01/2017 00:52

Wow, tricky! I'd tell I think!

But I'm glad I'm not you.

Good luck OP.

user1484539497 · 29/01/2017 00:54

I wouldn't tell their partners but tell your friend you saw her. How is her husband difficult? Abusive?

MommaGee · 29/01/2017 00:59

Cannot believe how many people are saying keep quiet, and poster upthread saying tell them to be more discreet!! Why not just offer to cover for them??

I'd never forgive close friends for keeping something like this from me.

I'd tell DH.
I'd talk to the cheating woman and tell her I saw exactly what was going on.
As long as you're sure there's no chance you made a mistake in who you saw I'd tell the other partners, discreetly and privately.

user1477282676 · 29/01/2017 01:23

If they weren't so indiscreet you wouldn't be in this situation. Fancy walking around in the open like that! Even in a neighbouring town it was beyond stupid.