Some women have even come on here and said that they only found out because they were told, and then found out everyone else knew about it. That's even more damaging really, knowing that everyone has known about it behind your back.
Yes, SOME women only find out about their husband’s infidelity because the other woman told them, but you’ll find that it’s a small minority. Women aren’t stupid, as a rule: they work out that something isn’t right.
If we’re confining it to occasions when the wife is told by somebody then the OP taking it upon herself to break the news is different to the woman’s actual friends or family telling her: they are part of her life, the OP isn’t. They want the best for her, the OP doesn’t care. They know her intimately: the OP does not. She has introduced herself to this woman’s life - a complete stranger - because she wanted to meet her own needs: revenge on the man who strung her along.
It was retribution from op, but even so, should she not have told the wife just because she wanted him exposed?
If I’ve understood this sentence correctly, you are saying, “the OP wanted this man to be exposed so why shouldn’t she tell the wife?”. Well, there are all kinds of reasons why not, which have been covered elsewhere on the thread. You don’t get to meet your own needs - revenge, exposure - with no regard for the potential impact on other people.
I’m interested to know whether the posters cheering on the OP would be OK with strangers contacting them with any kind of information “for your own good, to help you make an informed choice”. I think not. How about this:
“I saw your husband parking across two spaces at Tesco, meaning that I couldn’t get parked, and I tracked him down. I thought you should know that his behaviour is, in my opinion, reprehensible and I’ve CCd in his manager and your family. At least they now have the information to make an informed choice about whether to continue employing him, or spending time with him”
Of course parking badly isn’t as reprehensible as the idiotic behaviour of the man the OP was involved with, but as a thought experiment it’s not a million miles away: the person doing the contacting is offended, wants justice and has decided that it’s their job to deliver what they see as a just punishment. Would you be OK with that? I think not.
Her reasons for doing it dont matter here, if she had done it while sober to let the wife know her husband is a jackass, people would have still jumped on her for doing it. The person who should be being slammed is the cheater.
Nobody is ‘slamming’ the OP. That is tabloid language. She asked for opinions on her behaviour, which she herself regretted, and she got them. Her motives matter: she acted as she did for selfish reasons, and she admits it. Anything you do for those reasons is likely to damage somebody and it can’t be passed off as concern.
It is possible to disapprove of the actions of both the man and the OP in this situation, you know. It’s not like a story where there has to be a single baddie and everyone else is a goodie.