Friend had affair and husband has just found out.

[blueselephant]

My friend has been having an affair and her husband had just found all the evidence of it.

Her DH is close friends with mine and has been confiding in him, they are both shocked as no one suspected, the thing is she told me about it and I've kept it secret.

I'm so lost as to what to do, should I tell my DH that I knew? He will be devastated that I kept it from him, and I'm not sure what will happen between us, we are working different shifts this weekend so I can't come clean until we get chance to sit down and talk about it.

My friend has been having a crisis for a while now, drinking way too much, being very chaotic and I just wanted to support her, I've always said that she needs to finish the affair and sort her marriage out but she was adamant that she was happy.

There is so much anger with her DH and they have a DS and a DD who want to stay with Dad and don't want to talk to their Mum, which is totally understandable.

I don't know any details about the man she's had the affair with so don't know if they'll get together now, what a mess, I wish I'd said something so many times and now it's too late but should I come clean that I knew or just keep quiet?

In the end we each have a responsibility to do what we, as individuals consider to be morally right. I can't go through life making my choices on the basis of what my husband might think about any given situation - I have to do what I think is fair and right. Too many posters are overly focussed imo on what the OP's dh might think, at the expense of what she concluded was the right course of action at the time.
OP hasn't broken any promises to her husband. She simply made her own decision as an individual, to not blab info that her friend had shared in confidence, which is her prerogative. Imo her dh has no right to get pissy about that.
Obviously the dh of the friend has every right to hate everyone who knew and didn't say, but thanks to OP, his own friend wasn't one of thrm and can continue to support.

But this is why affairs are so awful - they ruin all kinds of relationships.

I have been in this position and i didn't tell my partner until it all came out. My partner turned on me and the fall out well it was awful. Ultimately i wish i had kept it to myself that i knew. I'd keep it to youself that you knew. Stay well out of it.

The problem is ladies she doesn't tell DH and her friend blabs it out, but then again she tells DH and he feels she is the same type of woman as her friend who would go behind his back and have an affair. Due to the fact that she knew and was protecting the friend.

i do not know it does not look good either way.

How, Beaverhausen? I don't have a husband who thinks that anything my friends do would 'rub off' on me. Because I have independent thought from them - as I do from him. He likes me that way.

If I were the OP, I would say nothing at all. I would do exactly as Maisy said in her post yesterday at 1739:

"A friend was in a similar situation with someone I don't know. Friend was aware of cheating (didn't know the DP). Her approach was 'I don't agree with you friend. You are making bad choices. I will not cover you. I will not sit and listen to you pine after your married man. I will be your friend and WHEN this inevitably goes up in flames i will continue to be your friend'.
Once it all came out, she had said (without disclosing details) that ultimately she was being a friend and sometimes people make shit decisions."

That's what I'd tell my husband that my stance if my friend would tell me of an affair she was having. He would respect me and respect my judgement.

I can't imagine what sort of husbands and relationships other people seemingly have but, I wouldn't want them.

This really is a case of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don't honestly think there is a right or wrong answer on this one, and it was really unfair of your friend to put you in this position, OP. You should tell the truth now, though, just say what you've put on here, that you tried to get your friend to do the right thing.

If you'd told your DH and he'd told his friend, I suspect there's a good chance your friend would have lied and told her DH that you were causing trouble, and in that case he would probably have believed her over you.

OP hasn't broken any promises to her husband. She simply made her own decision as an individual, to not blab info that her friend had shared in confidence, which is her prerogative. Imo her dh has no right to get pissy about that.
Obviously the dh of the friend has every right to hate everyone who knew and didn't say, but thanks to OP, his own friend wasn't one of thrm and can continue to support.
That's a very good point actually.
The betrayed spouse has every right to be pissed off at the OP, but his main friend (her DH) hadn't betrayed him.

beaver I think she has to admit now that she knew, explain her reasons and trust that her DH knows she is a separate person to her friend.

But this is why affairs are so awful - they ruin all kinds of relationships.
This. It affects more than the 2 people having an affair.
Telling other people about an affair is quite a selfish thing to do in my opinion. I wonder if they do it in order to try and lift some of the weight of their actions. It places a burden on others than is not theirs to carry.

It wasn't a rumour Maisie that that's the point, OP was told directly by her friend that she was cheating. You seem very confused about rumour and hearsay tbh.

Witch

No, Shambu, if you can't keep your mouth shut then don't set yourself up as a friend, somebody to confide in.

It's absurd to try and tell me how to live my life from the POV of your dodgy ethics. There's no chance of your ever being an acquaintance of mine - not intelligent enough and apparently prize self-interest over ethics - so why bother? My friends know perfectly well adultery is a dealbreaker for me as it would be for them.

and hope that your standpoint doesn't bite you in the arse later on when your husband - who keeps secrets from you - leaves you for somebody else/has an affair at the least.

If you want to expose your own dysfunction that's up to you.

I don't tell my husband my friends' confidences, why would I? Nothing to do with him

I don't tell my partner my friends' confidences, he would have no interest in them anyway. But if my friend was cheating on his friend, that is a different matter. But the DH is a red herring in that I would be more likely, after giving my friend a timeframe to come clean, to tell her husband myself, rather than involve my partner, whom it doesn't directly involve. I know how people drive themselves mad suspecting someone is cheating but not knowing for sure and I will not collude in that suffering, even if you would.

If my best friend found out that her husband had been having an affair and I found out that my DP knew and had been supporting him and keeping his secret I would be fuming.

In fact, if someone posted here that they’d found out their best friend’s DH was having an affair and their DH knew and chose to withhold that information until the inevitable fallout in which children etc were involved people would support the OP and not the DH.

Because the truth here is that withholding that information means that you have created a division. So the DH is (rightly) supporting his friend. And what of the OP? She’s been supporting her friend through having an affair until when? Until now when she’s going to deny all knowledge in order to protect her own marriage? What’s she going to do now? Say “oh sorry, none of my business, I’m going to stay out of it altogether because I had no idea what was going on?”

The truth is that the OP can’t tell her dh now without his (rightly) being angry because then she has to admit that she’s been supporting his best friend’s wife through having an affair.

The only way the OP was at any point in the right was if she’d said to the friend “you have to stop the affair now and I want nothing more to do with it,” but it’s clear that she didn’t do that. By listening to the friend’s unhappyness and admissions about the OM and her saying how happy she was with him she was supporting her friend’s decision to cheat on her husband. And now she wants to deny that because of how that will make her look.

Right Shambu so, if your friends ever did have an affair, they would know not to mention it to you. Good for all parties then.

You're no arbiter of intelligence or ethics but I'll hand it to you that you know when another poster has little respect for you and your smug nonsensical posturing. I'm quite happy with my moral compass and where it's set and interfering and blackmailing somebody doesn't feature for me.

Knowing about something is not the same as supporting it.

However the OP deals with this, someone is going to think she did the wrong thing. If she admits to her DH that she knew about the affair, he might be upset with her for not telling him. He would be unreasonable if he did, as he really ought to see that she was placed in an impossible position. If she doesn't tell him, she's taking a risk, as her friend might give away the fact that she did know. So on balance, she should tell him.

Her knowing or not knowing shouldn't be a major issue, as this isn't really about them, it's about their friends' relationship. I expect they'll have bigger things to deal with than whether the OP knew or not. It's not as if she colluded by letting her friend use her as an alibi.

Confidences aren’t meant to be shared once the cat is out of the bag.
It’s out now regardless of who knew before her DH did. He has a right to be angry but you don’t need to share your knowlege of this with your DH. You were told something in confidence and you should keep it that way.
It doesn’t mean you agreed with or encouraged your friends actions. Stay out of it. It’s between your friend and her DH.

Your DH will be 'devastated'? Really? It's not you who had the affair.
Sounds like you want to get in on the act of marital misery to me.

I’m not sure I would have told her secret either. You didn’t give any alibis etc and told her she should stop, you did enough really. If you told your husband and he told his friend then all of shit would come back on you. The cheater is the one in the wrong but as evidenced by this thread people are quick to have a go at ones who know about it too. However, now that the cat is out of the bag so to speak I’d probably te him you knew but were asked to keep it secret so you did. Unless someone is going to be attacked or killed then I’d probably keep the secret. If my partner didn’t know the person involved then I’d tell him.

Say nothing x

If my best friend found out that her husband had been having an affair and I found out that my DP knew and had been supporting him and keeping his secret I would be fuming

In fact, if someone posted here that they’d found out their best friend’s DH was having an affair and their DH knew and chose to withhold that information until the inevitable fallout in which children etc were involved people would support the OP and not the DH

Excellent post Ruby, I’ve quoted this bit for truth.

I have seen that scenario on here, and posters were quick to condemn the DH for condoning cheating. Points were made about laddish bro code - supporting mates with scant regard for anyone else.

It will be very difficult for OP to confess to her DH, but it will be even worse for her if he finds out she knew from someone else. Ime people who’ve been cheated on generally find out who knew and who didn’t.

I dont really understand why people are so shocked and appalled that friends sometimes cheat on their partners.
People breaking up doesnt have to rock other peoples worlds.

Id be really weirded out if other friends became so over invested in MY problems

She made her bed, and now she can deal with the fallout. The fact that you knew and kept it quiet, is not anyone elses business. She hasnt killed anyone. I dont see why its a big deal for you and your dh.

I've no doubt you're comfortable with your compass witch there are many people on here with low standards. You and Maisie seem as silly as each other.

I dont really understand why people are so shocked and appalled that friends sometimes cheat on their partners

Well because they have friends who wouldn’t behave like that. None of my close friends have cheated on any of their partners, altho they might get cheated on. I think the thread divides into people who think cheating’s acceptable and ok, and would cover up for it, and people who don’t.

The OP’s scenario is two couples who are close friends and thus already invested in each other’s lives. If you want to be free to cheat where people don’t care what you do, you have to find a bunch of people who don’t know either of you well enough to care, or who don’t have any integrity.

From what youv said in your OP, you don't sound like you approved of your friend's affair and were hiding the story to help her, but because you were worried about her mental health.

Personally I'd tell your husband, I couldn't live with having to keep lying now it was all out. (Personally I'd have told him at the time, but can understand your reasons for not doing, I might feel differently if in the situation you were - a bloody tough one and not of your making). Your husband may be cross initially, but anyone reasonable should understand your point of view, surely?

Tatiana, with respect, you have no idea what goes on in other people's marriages other than what those parties choose to share with you. Nobody goes into marriage expecting to cheat and yet there are many broken marriages out there for that reason.

I haven't read a single post on this thread from anybody on this thread - or even on this whole board - who says that cheating is acceptable so I don't know where you're getting that impression from. It's not ok. It's never ok.

You and Maisie seem as silly as each other.
Any sensible discussion ends once someone resorts to insulting other posters who have a different view.

I haven't read a single post on this thread from anybody on this thread - or even on this whole board - who says that cheating is acceptable
Me neither.
But it would seem that the correct thing to do (for some) in any circumstance to wade into other people's relationships, detonate and bomb and walk off. Anything that doesn't involve doing this gets you dubbed as 'silly' or somehow encouraging cheating.

Some of us don't accept cheating as acceptable, but understand that human relationships are complicated, people can be selfish and affairs can strain more relationships than just the romantic relationships of those in the affair. In some situations, someone with information is in a no win sitiation (like the OP who was placed there by her friend) and they try to make what they felt was the right call at the time based on their knowledge of those involved.

You see lots of threads on relationships where people have askes whether to be involved or reveal information they have on affairs and the advice is often 'I would want to know, but people tend to shoot the messenger' / 'without concrete evidence, the cheater will probably deny and become better at hiding it' / 'there's every chance that however well intentioned your actions, you'll be viewed as stirring'.

The OP seems to be getting a pasting but she didn't cheat, she didn't act as an alibi, she has condemned her friend's actions & she has spared her DH the burden of knowing something about his friend that puts him in a worse position than she is. Whether or not people think they would have done things differently, it's fairly clear the OP was trying to navigate a tough situation with the best of intentions.

Hi, sorry I've not been back on to check here but I really appreciate all the comments that you've all made, it's given me a lot to think about.

I will be telling my DH but I can't do that until Monday because of our work schedules. I feel that I can't go forward holding onto this secret, I really don't approve of what's gone on and have tried to get my friend to end things with this other man and work on her marriage, but I was truly worried for her mental health and for how much she was drinking and the crazy behaviour whilst drunk.

I know it's easy to say now but I was thinking of telling her DH what was going on but another friend has got there first, it turns out that a lot of people knew and knew a lot more details too.

Classic ethical dilemma. Notwithstanding what some PPs said, I don't think you have done anything wrong because I don't think there was or is a single right answer (tell DH or don't tell DH). To be a loyal friend you are required NOT to tell DH, but keeping that secret from him could feel threatening to DH.

Clearly now you do feel the need to tell him that you knew (and frankly I don't blame you). I can try to put myself in your DH's shoes (it's difficult without knowing him, but maybe the fact that I'm male can help a little bit), thinking about how I might feel, in case that helps you to then decide how best to tell him that you knew.

I might feel afraid that you think cheating is OK or you would not have hidden it.
I might feel ashamed at not having known, and worried that my friend will be angry at me.
I might feel angry at you for having put me in a difficult position by not telling me before [regardless of the fact that telling me before would have put me in an even more difficult position -- but feelings aren't rational, and we men have feelings even if we're supposed to be bad at admitting that to ourselves or to others]

What might then make it easier for your DH to accept would be a message including the following, assuming these are all true:
-You felt angry at your friend when you learned about the affair, because you feel that is wrong, and so you urged your friend to do the right thing
-While it would have been easier for you to tell your DH straight away rather than keeping it to yourself as you did, after thinking about it, you decided not to place upon your DH the burden of knowing but having to decide whether to tell his friend or not: you know that the bearer of bad news often ends up facing a "shoot the messenger" type of reaction - so you decided you'd rather be the "bad guy" yourself (for DHs friend) instead of putting your DH in that position with his friend.
-You also felt that this secret was really between DHs friend and DHs friend's wife to resolve, so it was not your right to interfere directly in their relationship; you only had the right to tell your friend to put things right, which is what you did.
-Now that this has come out, you are angry at your friend for creating a situation that may well upset your DH and put some strain on your relationship with him. You realise again how the most important thing for you is to have a close and trusting relationship with your own DH, whom you love, and you hope he will be able to foregive and understand how you decided you needed to behave.

Then, if your DH is angry, or sad, or whatever, assuming he's not abusive, you try to listen and to be patient, and hopefully this will pass.

Not sure if the above is any good, but it's the best I can come up with.