telling someone their long term partner cheated years ago

[StepsNotMiles]

If you knew that someone had been emotionally or romantically involved with another person years ago while also being in a long term relationship, do you think there is ever a kind or appropriate way for that information to be shared with their actual partner? Especially now that they are engaged.

I am not talking about revenge, drama, or public exposure, and I am not angry or jealous. More a values question. If the roles were reversed, I think I would want to know before committing to marriage, but I also recognise that outside involvement can cause harm and may not be welcome.

Interested in views on whether honesty always outweighs potential damage, or whether it is better left alone once time has passed.

Well most cheated on men do wade straight in Without any regard for the wife.
Women tend to be more mindful of the fallout.
I think everyone deserves to know the truth. There are so many dishonest people around.

It was you wasn't it, and now he's about to marry her. It will.never not look like jealousy

Depends on the situation, cheating years ago before marriage or the relationship being serious, perhaps after a bust up no if the relationship is now on a firm footing and no more indiscretions. Frequently cheating once living together quite different

Why would you want to tell? We do silly things sometimes, it’s not your problem and they’ve grown up and moved on now

What a horrible situation to be in. I don't envy you at all, and I certainly won't criticise your choice not to tell. I'm in a similar situation, from an entirely different angle: my wife had an affair a good while ago - I know about this from cast-iron evidence - and I suspect she may have had another before this, but the evidence for a previous affair is circumstantial. In my case, I really want to know whether she did have an affair previous to the one I know about though, if I'm absolutely honest, I don't know what I'd do with the information if I got it: the affair I know about was well over a decade ago, and the one I suspect is even further in the past: there's no chance I'll get even the flimsiest of hard evidence, and no way I'll be able to prove it, one way or the other. Schrödinger's Affair.

I would not get involved some tings are best not said and this is best well left alone.

It is none of your business. Keep it to yourself.

No. None of your business. The person might already know, and if in the past and not a recurring thing then what benefit would there be? And do you know for absolutely certain that this happened?
I would but thank you if you told this to me. For one thing it is a very private matter, I would not want to think it was known by someone outside the relationship.

If you just found out, yes.

If you have known all this time it's going to look like your motivation is to sabotage the wedding and i can imagine you being accused of being jealous/wanting the groom for yourself (I'm not saying you do, that just where people's head go). If you have a reason for holding onto the info until now,.you'd need to include that because it doesn't look good.

He will deny it and she will believe him and you will come across as a jealous troublemaker.

I think it would depend on the context - a huge part of that would be, is this person about to destroy their life by marrying this absolute knob who is going to cheat on them again, manipulate them, abuse them, generally treat them like crap? Or are they about to marry a generally decent person who may have made a mistake that they have done their best to make amends for?

I know a few (generally quite lovely) people who cheated on a long term partner before marriage and have gone on to have long happy fulfilling marriages.

One of them, it was mostly because he was like 20 and a twat back then, but got his life together and from what I can see has been a model husband supporting his wife through long term infertility for 20 years now. The other is a woman whose only partner was her now husband. She was struggling after like 10 years together to know if getting married was the right thing or if she should live a bit, date other people, experience sex with someone else. She cheated and it made her realise she really wanted to be with her now husband. They got married and have been together probably 20-25 years now.

I don’t think either of these would have had a better life had they had that bomb dropped on them before the wedding.

But I’d feel differently if I felt I needed to protect a friend from signing up to a lifetime of infidelity and mistreatment.

I'd stay out of it.
If my DH cheated before we were married I'd rather not know. The past is best left in the past.

They may already know.

FFS, why would you want to interfere in other people's lives?
OP, just stay out of it - whatever has happened has nothing to do with you.

None of your business.

How many years ago?
Do you know for certain/how long have you known?
How soon into the relationship did this happen?

Whats the context? How many years ago and what exactly happened? Sex/emotional affair??

Stay well out of it. It’s absolutely none of your business. For all you know they might know already and be busy trying to rebuild their relationship.

What's your personal motive? Don't say you don't have one. You would keep out of it otherwise.

How many years ago did this emotional/romantic involvement end?
Was it a physical affair or purely emotional, and was it conducted in person or over messages/phone calls/online?
Did he end it, or did she? Why?
Has he been totally faithful since then?
Has she ever had any suspicions, and are you 100% certain she doesn’t already know?
If she definitely doesn’t know, is there any chance of his fiance finding out at some point in the future if you don’t tell her?
Who is she to you? How well do you know her, and can you be relatively confident you know whether she’d want to be told?

(Not making any assumptions: just using ‘he’ for the cheater to make life easier)