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??

I'd also say that the people blowing up the marriage is the cheat and affair partner! 🙄

Thank god there are decent people like you out there OP. Having been in this situation I would damn well want to know I was being made a fool of.

You want validation for doing it, you’re a coward. Do it, don’t do it. It’s your choice alone.

In these specific circumstances you are in a lose/lose situation

Stay out of it

Stay out of it. This has the potential to blow up everyones lives and cause massive trauma - yes, caused by him, but if you get involved, you take a small piece of responsibility too. You also sound like you have some unresolved issues and pain that are colouring your perceptions and emotions - that all makes it extra messy. And finally, for your own sake - if you need your job, dont meddle in your bosses private life. You can disapprove or disagree, but keep it professional in the workplace.

Take the emotion out of your decision and think with your logical brain, it's not gonna help you in any way. You can be disgusted with them but stay professional.

She’s just the boss’s wife who you have met a few times, stay out of it. If she was your friend it would be different.

I'd also say that the people blowing up the marriage is the cheat and affair partner! 🙄 except sending little anonymous notes isn’t just blowing up a marriage is it? It’s blowing up someone’s life. It’s making them look around them, wondering who it might have been. Was it someone malicious, was a it a friend, was it someone they trusted who didn’t want to tell them. It’s making someone question their every decision and wonder who they can trust and who they can’t.

Telling someone in person is one thing. At least that person then has a source. Telling someone anonymously is just gutless and makes you no better than the people who are cheating, because you are equally happy to destroy someone’s life, way beyond why an affair might. That person may move on from their marriage and could potentially find someone else. But the anonymous note could stick with them forever. They will forever wonder which of their friends didn’t have the nerve to tell them.

If you’re going to play judge and jury over someone’s life then you do it in your own name or you stay out of it.

As you've mentioned yourself, you could lose your job over this.

While it's understandable that the wife has a right to know, and by telling her you'd be doing the right thing, these situations rarely pan out the way we would like.

In an ideal world, you'd tell her, she leaves, divorces him and moves on to lead a better life without a cheat in her life.

In reality, you tell her and one of two more likely scenarios may happen:

1. She already knows and you've burst their bubble. We don't know what goes on in every marriage, and I think this is where many of the 'stay out of it' and MYOB replies are coming from above.

1. She is overwhelmed by shock, hurt, anger, betrayal and everything else that comes with hearing such news that she confronts him immediately. He reacts by denying everything and possibly gaslighting her. All this approach achieves is notifying the cheat that his wife knows something, but doesn't have unequivocal proof that he is cheating. All this does is alert him to increasing his level of deception so the status quo prevails. In the midst of it all, the big, fat finger will be pointed right at you, i.e. other people's negative feelings will all be your fault. Just be mindful that you may lose your job over this.

I hope it all ends well whichever decision you make. It could also work out positively. I think one thing to look into is the personality of the wife which will tell you how this thing is likely to pan out. As she's an acquaintance of yours, I personally would not get involved. If she were a friend then I would spend more time thinking it through.

Do you actually have proof he's cheating? Cold hard truth? Or is it just that he flirts or is friendly with this woman? Even then he's your boss not a friend so I would say stay out of it.

You either tell her yourself and give her the proof she needs, or you stay out of it. An anonymous call would create doubt, paranoia, even fear and isn't fair.

I think you need to be practical here…how would you pay the bills if you lost your job? What kind of reputation would follow you around? Is it a small industry or town where you live where this is likely to follow you? The busy body who blew up her own career prospects. I know you think you’re doing something good but I’m not so sure this is a gamble that I’d want to take for someone I don’t know. In my organisation if it was discovered that you’d done something like that a significant number of people would give you a wide birth . And that may be all shades of wrong but that would be the reality.

Can you persuade one of your colleagues to tell her? Someone who isn't the cheater's subordinate and has nothing to lose by telling her?

Write a letter to the wife as though it’s come from the woman he’s having an affair with. That’ll stitch both of them up, him with his wife and the affair partner with your boss.

I can't believe some comments here.

Tell her anonymously. What she does with the info is up to her. If you noticed them getting close at work then it must have been obvious to others, too and is likely once the wife has the head's up about this she will find evidence easily as he doesn't sound particularly careful. Probably very arrogant, thinks he can get away with it due to previous 'successful' affairs. It's the best way to protect you but also tell her.
Make sure he calls from a throw away pay as you go sim used only for this purpose otherwise she might snoop on social media with that number and find him and then find you are connected to him, since many social media allows you to find others by number.

I don't agree with persuading a colleague to tell her. I don't think they'll want anything to do with it and they might not share Op's moral compass or view on this and then she would have made things awkward with a colleague who is likely to gossip about this to other colleagues. Get a male friend out of work to tell her from a throw away sim. That's the best way. She will look into it if she wants and it doesn't sound like it will be hard to find 'incriminating evidence' judging by their lax conduct.

Cunning! Superb suggestion!! This is an excellent idea.

Id definitely tell her. I can never understand the people that look the other way when they know something wrong is happening.

My friend was being cheated on and it turned out her ex was hiv positive and deliberately exposing her. Thankfully shes fine but it could have been very different the longer it went on.

That's great, spread the gossip even further, get even more people involved and try to get them to risk their jobs instead.

This….

(A) yeah, you’re probably gonna lose your job

(B) other posters may be loving the drama, but she likely won’t. She may not want to know. Why do you get to decide for her?

Quite apart from the creepy level of malice and planning, it'll be the easiest thing in the world to deny. You can't fake her handwriting and her denial will be convincing because it'll be genuine.

Herejustforthisone
Write a letter to the wife as though it’s come from the woman he’s having an affair with. That’ll stitch both of them up, him with his wife and the affair partner with your boss.

@Herejustforthisone this is absurd and quite disturbing. They may just be friends, I know many male females at work that get along very well and spend hours together, doesn't mean they are shagging.

And why does the wife not get to decide whether to kick her cheat of a husband to the kerb?

The people who'd rather live in blissful ignorance because they're doing a pick me dance and not knowing it, and because they're terrified of "losing" someone not worth having, is astonishing.

You don't think people having affairs are busy with "malice and planning"?

Type it up? Who hand writes anymore lol.

Me thinks many of this thread's nay-sayers are cheaters themselves!