How to tell the wife

[curiousabout]

One of my colleagues is cheating on his wife who I really like and I think she deserves to know. Only problem is he's technically my boss so I don't want him to know it came from me.

Ideas on how to tell her anonymously??

OP I'm very shocked to read all these responses trying to protect the boss and the wife (or their marriage). I find them deep down quite rooted in misoginy. Posters have no idea how your boss is treating you, or how you maybe getting super tired of being bossed around by a privileged jerk who's having his cake and eating it too. Why should you keep quiet about it? because nice girls should never ruffle the feathers? Why should you tell the wife openly and risk loosing your job? That's just nuts. If you have enough reasons to tell this woman go and do it but don't put yourself in an incredibly vulnerable position by identifying yourself. Unless of course you want to loose your job and not get hired ever again.

My opinion is, if you make it your business to get involved, you have to follow through and support the person you are telling (the wife). Why should she believe what could well be a malicious anonymous message?

Many moons ago, before social media and smart phones, when I was engaged to DH#1 I received an anonymous letter addressed to me at work saying he was playing away. We worked in different departments at the same small company employing mainly people in their 20s-30s and were the latest in a flurry of engagement/wedding/new baby announcements. I immediately showed him the letter and we put it down to someone being jealous. A couple of months later, he got a letter, this time accusing me of playing away - as he'd seen the first letter he of course knew his letter was malicious. The address on our letters was ever so slightly wrong as if the sender was trying to pretend they didn't know the correct name of the company. We showed the letters to HR, who took the issue fairly seriously. Then a third letter arrived for DH#1, now saying I was cheating with an unnamed married man in the company. I assume the sender was hoping that we wouldn't have told each other about our letters and so would both be stewing away with suspicion. By this point, HR was taking it very seriously. Unfortunately, I LOVE a bit of detective malarkey, and had been studying the limited evidence on the letters to come up with some suspects. Unfortunately again, one of these suspects matched an employee that HR considered a bit of an irritation. A while later the company made some redundancies and this person was on the list. There were no more letters. I'll never know who actually sent them.

It really bothers me when posters make comments about wives probably knowing what's going on, or when they ask how wives cannot possibly have suspicions, or when comments are made about wives wanting to maintain lifestyles.
That is not my first thought.
In these scenarios I imagine a woman going about her life, doing all the life-stuff that comes from being married, totally unaware of what her husband is actually doing. I then imagine the devastation if she were then to find out.
It's all on the cheating spouse. Someone needs to explain to cheaters exactly what's at stake (and I don't mean from a financial perspective).

You have two choices: either woman up and tell her directly or keep out of it.

An anonymous tipoff is a coward's way out and would be cruel to his wife.

Posters have no idea how your boss is treating you, or how you maybe getting super tired of being bossed around by a privileged jerk

Yet more invention!

But what on earth has that got to do with it?

If OP is being mistreated at work, she needs to raise a grievance. What's it got to do with anything else?

But she’s not actually dictating anything, is she? It’s a strongly worded opinion.

I have worked in two places where it was a really nice atmosphere which become miserable when the male boss starts an affair with a younger woman. It ends with the younger woman either leaving or the people who know the wife as they can’t stand it. There is the inconvenience and cost of finding a new job for them. I have never known the boss to leave.

The ‘implying’ bit is wrong in my previous message but maybe rephrase to say ‘I cannot work here in good faith knowing whats going on and your wife. Therefore I want to leave with a good reference and get paid until this date/ for my inconvenience of finding a new job. This has been distressing as I really enjoyed this job but the atmosphere is bad and I do not want to continue’. But you need to get advice beforehand as I also know someone who was suddenly ‘made redundant’ when they gave that speech and they were told if they ‘rocked the boat’ they would get a bad reference. Which is blackmail but ironically the boss could argue business was indeed bad and they needed to make someone redundant as the affair had affected the team’s productivity.

Just my thoughts on the situation. I have seen workplaces become toxic due to the OPs situation. There’s never an easy solution.

The main thing OP is to get some employment advice on this because, as you say, you are worried about dismissal. Your boss knows your discomfort at the situation.

If you want to leave your job, you don't need to bring the boss' affair into it to get your salary until you leave, or a reference if you were a good employee.

Why should you be compensated for the "inconvenience" of changing jobs? We've all left jobs because we hated the atmosphere, are we all entitled to extra money when we leave?

Don’t be so ridiculous.

If you decide to leave your job, you decide to leave your job.

The minute you hint at ‘pay me until this date or I will tell your wife’ it’s blackmail and illegal.

And no, you don’t get a pay off because you don’t like something that’s going off in the bosses marriage.

Fair dos. But also, in real life, the scenario has been that the women showing discomfort at the boss’ situation have been made redundant. Or been told to shut up or they won’t get a good reference. Also not on.
Thats why the OP should get advice.

You may. Everything else you’ve said is wrong. Not to mention underhand and cowardly.

Yes, nothing like loosing your job and references in the sake of transparency because some asshole with little integrity is having his cake and eating it too.

If you don’t want to lose your job/reference, keep your gob shut. Simple.

Hmmm....you know there is a place in hell reserved for anonymous letter writers, don't you? The Vichy regime spawned lots of anonymous denunciations of neighbours to the Nazis - it's an especial feature of France's shame at their behaviour under occupation that millions of anonymous letters were found after liberation. Spying and shopping people to the Stasi in East Germany, and during Stalin's years and beyond. Is this the company you want to keep?

Marriages are private, including the painful bits. If you were a friend of this woman's, and she confided in you that she thought her husband might be cheating, and what did you know that could help her, that would be different. You're proposing just lobbing a hand-grenade into her life, and you don't want to own it because it would make life tricky for you. Keep out of it.

Christ, bit of a stretch comparing this to that!
Obviously the marriage isn't so private if the affair is so public colleagues are noticing. The only people who lobbed a grenade into the poor wife's life is the husband and other woman. Op would be doing the wife a great favour.

It’s all academic anyway as OP has already made clear to the boss that she knows and doesn’t approve, so he’ll suspect her even if she does it anonymously.

I agree, everyone is saying “don’t get involved it’s private” but his affair isn't private so I think she deserves to know.

Also agree doing it anonymously wouldn’t be fair and if you are going to tell her she needs to be able to ask you questions.

So if he had been entirely discreet about it and OP found out by, say, snooping in his emails...you'd be on the side of staying out of it?

Anyone showing signs or talking about disliking their boss or their bosses behaviour, is at risk though, if their boss is shitty boss.

Besides which, op hasn’t suggested he is a shitty boss. Or that he is that senior he could actually make her redundant. Op hasn’t actually said she has any proof of an affair and did avoid answering wether she knows they are as a fact. Rather than just seen some flirting.

OP might want to check out Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

Quite aside from being a cowardly act, writing poison pen letters is a punishable criminal offence. Does the OP have irrefutable proof of the veracity of her allegation? Does she have evidence that her motives in disclosing that allegation are altruistic? Would she be leaving herself open to counter allegations of mischief-making and harassment?

If the answer to any of the above questions is 'no', she'd be well-advised to tread very carefully and perhaps restrain her curiosity to matters which directly concern her.

It would also be worth bearing in mind that old maxim about shooting the messenger. Bearers of bad news are very rarely thanked for it.

On your head be it, OP.

Nope… I still think she should tell her although that would be more tricky to explain in that scenario.

We aren’t going to agree because I’m coming at this from the point I would like to be told if my partner was cheating on me and you wouldn’t want to know.

Then let's not have the "it's ok because it's public" excuse if you would still do it when it's private.

I said that because a lot of people on this thread was saying a marriage is private and I said his affair isn’t. Obviously we don’t know all the details but it could be that a few worked know of his affair we don’t know.

I'm not sure why you are trying to catch me out, as I said we will not agree as we have different personal opinions on this.

I'm not trying to catch you out. I'm saying that "it's ok to tell because it's public" isn't an excuse if you don't actually care about that and would still tell if it had been kept very discreet.

If others are saying it's private and that's immaterial to you because you'd do it anyway, you need a different excuse for your potentially very harmful meddling in things that have nothing to do with you.

Additionally, private doesn't necessarily mean secret, it just means none of your business.