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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

How to tell the wife

284 replies

curiousabout · 23/11/2022 23:21

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 posts:
Blossomtoes · 24/11/2022 23:04

ImJustMadAboutSaffron · 24/11/2022 23:00

Anyway, has the OP been back to tell us if they are going to tell the wife, keep their 'beak' out, or what? People are never going to agree about this one.

Still havering, apparently.

ReneBumsWombats · 24/11/2022 23:08

ImJustMadAboutSaffron · 24/11/2022 23:00

Anyway, has the OP been back to tell us if they are going to tell the wife, keep their 'beak' out, or what? People are never going to agree about this one.

I don't usually call for updates, as OPs don't owe us content, but OP, if you're happy to tell the wife, surely you're happy to tell us too? C'mon, everyone's got the right to anonymity on here!

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 25/11/2022 10:00

A poison pen letter is "an anonymous letter that is libellous, abusive, or malicious."

Yes.

I don't think it is libellous if it is true.

But OP doesn't have irrefutable evidence that it is true.

It is not abusive if it gives facts.

Precisely which facts? Might be nothing more than an office flirtation for all anyone knows.

It is not malicious if it is intended to give agency to the receiver.

Intention can easily be misconstrued. 'Let him have it?'

An anonymous letter someone is afraid to put their name to, with this as its content, looks very like malice and mischief-making to the detached bystander. Of course, OP would have to be proven as the sender, but if the boss suspects her, its origins wouldn't be that difficult to disprove. How would she defend the position that her motives were altruistic? I wouldn't fancy my chances with that.

Updates from OP, however, suggests she's beginning to see sense even if some of her respondents are not. Benefits vs. risks. It's a no-brainer.

WomanStanleyWoman2 · 25/11/2022 12:21

These threads come up every so often and are always ridiculous - and this is one of the worst yet. Half-cracked nonsense about ‘burner phones’, drafting in male friends to make anonymous calls and demanding pay-offs in return for silence… you’ve all been watching too many ITV dramas. And drama is the key word here. How many posters here think this would genuinely be a good thing for the boss’s wife, rather than just enjoying the idea of something so juicy going on in their workplace?

Even if you leave the supposed moral dilemma aside for the moment, there are practical considerations here. What happens if the wife gets a call where ‘unknown number’ or a number she doesn’t recognise flashes up and she rolls her eyes, thinks ‘bloody cold callers’ and presses cancel? Or if the email goes to spam and is never seen? You can’t be sure she’ll ever even get this anonymous message.

Even if she does, unless she already suspects her husband, her first thought is likely to prank/poison pen. Wouldn’t you think that if you trusted your partner? She might not even confront her husband - and even if she does, if he’s lied well enough so far to cover up an affair, he’s hardly likely to crumble under the pressure now. Even if the wife doesn’t assume it’s malicious, he’ll soon try to convince her it is - and again, unless there’s already a lack of trust, she’s likely to believe him over an anonymous letter or call.

All those crying ‘But she deserves to know!!!’ seem to assume the OP will be believed. Why? Would you? Even if the OP didn’t go down the anonymous route, the wife’s options are believe her own husband, or a woman he works with who she barely knows. And what can the OP tell her? Someone else saw them in ‘a passionate embrace’ - pretty easy for the boss to call bullshit on that, or at least claim it was misinterpreted. The OP actually has zero in the way of hard evidence.

In a nutshell, the OP has two choices. One is to go to great lengths to anonymously inform a woman she barely knows of a suspicion she harbours (and it IS on a suspicion, even if it’s likely to be a correct one), with no way of knowing if the message will even reach her, if it will be even vaguely taken seriously if it does, and which could still be traced back to her given that she’s already quizzed the boss about it. Two is to, as the very first response in the thread said, keep her beak out.

I know which I’d pick.

curiousabout · 28/11/2022 12:30

For those asking, I haven't told the wife. Although this morning I saw that she posted on social media an anniversary post gushing about her husband and what a fantastic husband and father he is. That made me feel a bit sick that so many people know what he's really like and she's so blissfully unaware. He's really making a fool out of her sadly.

Goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you see on SM!

Anyway, cowardly as it may seem, I'm not willing to do it face to face as I don't know her that well and like most of you have said, she will find out eventually anyway.

OP posts:
Christmastamsin · 28/11/2022 12:39

She may never find out if the affair just fizzles out.

I find it concerning that so many people know what's going on. She might have found herself in situations where people have acted oddly around her and wondered if there is something wrong with her. A happily married woman won't automatically jump to wondering if her husband is being unfaithful.

As for his excuse about working late - this is a perfectly believable excuse. I don't know why you think she's being naive @curiousabout ?!

That is a truly awful situation. Please be a good person and find a way of helping her, at least.

Christmastamsin · 28/11/2022 12:42

I also disagree @curiousabout that he is making a fool of her. Nobody (except you, seemingly) would ever think a woman posting on SM about her marriage is a fool. If they know that he is cheating, they might feel sorry for her, but not think that she is a fool. I would think she sounds like a devoted wife and mother.

ReneBumsWombats · 28/11/2022 12:45

curiousabout · 28/11/2022 12:30

For those asking, I haven't told the wife. Although this morning I saw that she posted on social media an anniversary post gushing about her husband and what a fantastic husband and father he is. That made me feel a bit sick that so many people know what he's really like and she's so blissfully unaware. He's really making a fool out of her sadly.

Goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you see on SM!

Anyway, cowardly as it may seem, I'm not willing to do it face to face as I don't know her that well and like most of you have said, she will find out eventually anyway.

According to MN, that's the surest sign that they're in the toilet and about to split up...

Quiegal · 28/11/2022 12:52

It really is best to mind your own business.

Let her think she got the best husband going.

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