Oh no. What if anything do I do?

[Wouldntgooutinthatdress]

There will be those of you who will say mind your own bloody business and believe me, I have considered that.

I'm friend A, there's friend B and MF, for married friend.

Friend B and I have known each other since Uni. I went to my home Uni and MC is also my cousin, similar to me in age and lives locally.

MC met friend B when MC & me were at Uni together, B came out with us sometimes. There is a wider group of us, all Uni friends who stay in touch, most of them stayed locally, we all got married and had DCs at a similar time.

MC split from her H in 2017. The man she married was a wideboy and a nasty piece of work, his business practices were often illegal he boasted about it . Then towards the end of their marriage he became very violent. Their DCs spent a lot of time staying with us. MC would have been welcome too but she wanted to stay at home. In the end, it was only a GP reporting their suspicions to the Police that meant they spoke to him and he left her alone.

Although they split I know that they aren't divorced, at least as far as MC knows.

Here's the thing: friend B has heard that MC's ex, remember MC thinks they are still married, and his new girlfriend are getting married before Christmas. She's heard this via a relative of MC's H new gf, so it's a reliable source.

Then friend B did some Facebook digging and it certainly looks like he is getting married.

As I've said, he's not unused to behaving illegally, he does have a criminal record and I wouldn't be surprised if he were to marry someone bigamously. He really does seem to think that the rules are for other people.

I was chatting to MC today and without asking outright I'm sure that she doesn't know that her H is about to marry someone else.

Do we - shut up and say nothing, then wait for him to do it and tell the authorities?
We are sure MC won't tell the Police herself because she is still terrified of him.
Is there a way to find out that someone has registered a marriage before they get married in the UK?

Even if he is getting married bigamously we are tempted to let it go ahead because it could shore up MC's position in any divorce.

Wtf do we do here minding our own business is an option but I love MC & their DCs very much and don't want to see them hurt even more-

I'd definitely let him get married and then inform the authorities afterwards. X

If you like drama, you could get a copy of MC's marriage certificate and then attend the ceremony and when they say "If anyone here present..." Stand up waving the certificate and give all the guests a story they can dine out on for the next few decades.

(Don't really do this, get the details of MC's marriage and pass them on to the registrars that may register the marriage).

I usually ask myself ‘who is it hurting?’ and ‘will I prevent more hurt- long term- by getting involved?’

It’s served me well.

Presumably it’ll all come out at some point- after the fact? His kids will figure it out soon enough?

Some random bit of paperwork will likely trip him up.

Will anyone (bar the bride to be) be MORE hurt if it is uncovered down the track? An anonymous tip-off to her parents would be my way forward, if I’d convinced myself it was truly for the best. Presumably that drama would happen away from MC & her kids, so less harm to them?

Tricky. But I’d figure it out and act on it in a couple of hours. I wouldn’t be wringing my hands over it. I’d keep what I’d done entirely quiet, forever, by the way.

Turn the situation around just for a minute . Do you honestly believe your long term friendship will last . If she finds out you knew all about this before hand and said nothing !

@wildraisins

I'm pretty sure when you get married they check if you're already married to someone else...

They don't in the USA. My ex, and I will NEVER tack a "d" onto the front of that, married his newest wife the DAY that he signed our divorce papers. And told my solicitor that he was headed to the courthouse to get married. AND was told that he would not be legally divorced. AND DID IT ANYWAY!

@wildraisins

I'm pretty sure when you get married they check if you're already married to someone else...

No, they don't. They just ask you, and ask you again on the day.

The issue for me wouldn’t be to interfere with whatever the nasty ex is doing now but to think about how my cousin might feel if she found out we knew and didn’t tell her. So I might gently ask her if she wanted to know something you’d heard about the ex but give her a chance to say no, not interested before telling her. If it is a bigamous marriage it only affects her if it goes to court and she is forced to be involved.

I generally don’t like keeping things from people I care about which may affect them unless telling them really would cause a lot more harm than good.

Sorry - something I’d heard not you’d heard.

I think you should report him to the registrars and tell your friend, not least because if he has managed to divorce in her absence somehow (& if he’s that dodgy I wouldn’t t put it past him to forge signatures) then a subsequent marriage will impact any financial settlement MC might be able to get, so she needs to act quickly to preserve her own position.

Let him marry bigamously. Then report it.

I've been out today so just caught up.
To clear up a few things some of which may be outing:

In my OP I was originally going to call MC (married cousin) MF (married friend) but decided against it because MF sounds like Mother Fucker she definitely is not. Whereas, MC emphasises the fact that she is my cousin, as in first cousin one each of our parents are siblings. Another consideration in all of this is the fact that if I told my parents because MC is their niece they would go apeshit. If the parents find out that I knew and said nothing then well...I'm not going to be popular either.

The problem is and again, I wasn't very clear friend B knows the new gf because they are colleagues. Friend B is senior. The office is huge. They don't work in the same department and, with things as they are, they are mostly WFH. The chances of both of them being in the office at the same time before the wedding are slim.

MC definitely doesn't think she is divorced and I don't know how to gently ask without giving the full story away.

Jurisdictions; if you imagine a series of Venn diagrams for this because some of them cross over each other.
I live near to 4 different jurisdictions.
Friend B lives near to another handful.
Friend B's place of work is near yet others.
Some of the above cross over. Z
MC's ex new gf could live anywhere within a 20 mile radius of her work her Facebook doesn't say exactly where. She is also originally from another area entirely e.g The Midlands but her family could have moved to another area e.g. the South East.
MC's ex could live, frankly anywhere.

So it's not as simple as saying there are 4 registrar locations to check, there are potentially dozens and we don't even know where some of them are.

MC's ex could have used false name documents to gain either a divorce or a new marriage certificate. Although the divorce is unlikely because he married MC under a certain name.

As for people saying stay out of it yes, that's an option too. However my lovely, intelligent and brilliant cousin has been hurt enough by this shithead. That's before I even get to her beautiful children and their potential to be hurt by this.

All in all it's a bloody mess. Selfishly, I wish I didn't know. Friend B and I are trying not to do anything underhand like befriend the new gf just to get information out of her because 2 wrongs don't make a right OTOH we could be saving her from the mistake of her life.

I'm conflicted about the ex H. On the one hand I think yes, let him go to prison. On the other hand, I think of their DCs and I don't want that for them.

This is before I've even got into the fact that some of these places are tier 2 and some are tier 3, which adds a further complication to everything.

Well that was an unnecessarily complicated post. . To paraphrase:

Your cousin’s “ex” is getting married again but you think he is still married to your cousin. Should you say something to her?

@Aprilx

Well that was an unnecessarily complicated post. . To paraphrase:

Your cousin’s “ex” is getting married again but you think he is still married to your cousin. Should you say something to her?

Oh thank god - is this explanation right OP? My brain has been hurting trying to figure it out!

If he "married" someone new MC could easily divorce him for adultery I think? More easy to prove than DV maybe? Especially with a new bigamous marriage certificate.

Apologies for over-complicating it. I know that for strangers on t'internet it all seems very straightforward but for me, potentially for my cousin and friend B it is complicated.

We're trying to work out the ramifications of every course of action (including no action) from every angle.

MC can prove DV, the Police and GP have reports. She is reticent because he is also her DCs Dad and she doesn't want them to think ill of either of them in years to come. I think she was hoping for the dust to settle then to divorce quietly and without blame, just x no. of years separation.

You are all definitely definitely over complicating it.

B knows the new GF. By far the easiest thing is for her to drop her a PM via Facebook and say "Hi, I heard that you were engaged. I just wanted to drop a private line to say that I have known his ex for many years. She is 100% unaware of your announcement and whilst separated for years, has never been divorced. I just wanted you to know as there may be a discrepancy in his marital status. Apologies for the disruption this may cause."

Blimey OP your posts are so hard to read with so much unnecessary detail. Surely if B knows the new fiancé then she should tell her that she thought he was still married. Not really nice to let her enter into a bigamous marriage unknowingly

A few things! 1) bigamy is a criminal offence. He will know he is still married and obviously doesn’t care 2) if he gets sent to prison for knowingly marrying his girlfriend when still married to MC then that’s his choice. Your MC doesn’t need to worry about his relationship with his children if that’s the sort of person he is (I know it’s easy to say, but it’s not her responsibility. If he’s old enough to break the law he’s old enough to deal with the consequences of his actions. If that means his relationship with his children is damaged by him being locked up then he is chiding to do break that relationship) 3) his GF may not know just how much of sh*t he is. How often do you read on here about partners who were fine until they got married/pregnant? She might be unaware of what he’s like. No matter how perfect and how much I loved my partner, if I found he hadn’t got divorced there is no way I would crack on and get married. That’s a massive breach of trust and he wouldn’t be someone I would want to be married to 4) GF has a right to know so she can decide to chuck him or to wait until he’s divorced then get married. Can’t remember if she’s got a child with him, but if she goes ahead with it she’ll face having her world destroyed a few years down the line. She’ll be living assuming she’s married to find out she has no married rights to anything. If he dies, MC gets everything and GF/DC get kicked out on the street. She will have no wife rights 5) there’s a reason there’s the “Does anyone know of any just reason why these two people...” but in marriage ceremonies! You’re not meant to marry someone when you’re already married! 6) your MC can and should start divorce proceedings.

Friend B can't tell new gf because they are colleagues. If new gf swallows Stbh's bull she may well complain.

To answer you Lolapusht 1) yes, that's him. 2) No, it's not her responsibility but her children are children and they deserve better. 3) I'm absolutely sure his new gf doesn't know how much of a shit he is. 4) gf has no DCs at all. She does deserve to know but how to tell her? Most women shoot the messenger. 5) Only a handful of people can be at the ceremony at the moment, which significantly diminishes the chance of anyone objecting. 6) Yes. She knows that more, she's been too afraid of him until now.

I don't even understand how it's possible to get married without being divorced. We had to get a marriage licence which involved a search to see if we'd bee married before!

How about get someone to message her anonymously.... just to say they have reason to believe her fiancé is still married and she may want to check that out ... up to her if she follows it up or not

Or - what would be so wrong about sharing what you know with MC? She could ask her ex if they are divorced or she could keep quiet and see if he goes through with it anyway? She’s not still in love with him so am not sure how it would hurt her

I've already asked MC whether she thinks she is divorced and she is absolutely sure that she is not. In fact, she says she has recently spoken to a solicitor via Teams to consider her first steps.

It would hurt her Savoretti because her mind is mushed after everything he has done and all of the lies he has told.

She could ask him, yes but the chances are that he will simply lie however it suits him to. Which is the crux of the problem.

As non essential movement is restricted is there any way that we can find out whether he's divorced or whether his potential marriage has been announced by doing an online search?

I don’t agree with everyone saying let him get married then arrested for bigamy. The poor bride to be may have no idea he’s still married and it would be really unfair to fuck her up in the process of seeking revenge. If there is a firm date, speak to the police and give them the details.