Thank you for the backup. I’m just going to let that one go.
Cool, sounds good. Me too. But, I got your back.
Good luck with your situation - that’s a wild one; can’t say I’ve heard of that one before!
I’m not having a bad day, and I’m not taking anything out on the OP. I’m explaining why dismissing Seanette’s criticisms of his actions as her responding before she’s read the thread is just plain bullshit.
If he’d started a thread outlining the situation and asking if banning the dude from his house and getting rid of the underwear in question was sufficient, that would be one thing. Or if he’d started the thread he did and responded positively to the pretty much unanimous verdict that he should both tell the wife and ban this dude from his house. But neither of those things is what happened, are they?
What happened is that he responded to that verdict with arguments about how negatively this would affect the pervert in question. One of the arguments he put forth was that this guy is mentally unstable, the type they used to joke about shooting up a school, and the social repercussions might drive the dude over the edge.
And even at that, I just rolled my eyes and snorted, “Oh, that’s exactly the kind of guy I hope my husband invites to our house and doesn’t tell me is sniffing my panties.” But when he trotted out the wide-eyed, wounded fawn “How have I not protected my wife?” bit…I’m sorry, that’s a steaming pile. When people have had to argue down your rationalizations about why it’s best to protect the pervert, you don’t get to then act like you’ve always had her best interests at the top of your priority list.
The conversation I would have had with my husband;
“Remember when I threw those panties of yours out and wouldn’t tell you why?”
“Yes.”
“Well, my creepy friend Jack Hoff used them to masturbate with. That’s why I threw them out, and I didn’t want to upset you, so I didn’t tell you why.”
“You didn’t tell me that a creep was in my own house, using my underwear to jack off with? You let me go on thinking that he was just kind of creepy, instead of somewhere on the sexual predator spectrum? He stayed over at Jill’s house, you know - how could you not have told me? How could you withhold information like that from me? You know I’m an adult, and I can handle bad news, and I get to make my own decisions about things that affect me, right?”
One woman’s perspective. 
Yeah, I got a whiff of that, too, but he has told her now. I suspect that as a man, he truly doesn’t get why it wasn’t protecting her not to tell her.
Apparently, he’s more reluctant to “hurt” a friend by imposing reasonable consequences for that friend’s bad (and possibly symptomatic of something dangerous) behavior than he is to endanger his wife by allowing Freako anywhere near her.
Tells me he’s putting Freako first, BEFORE his wife.
But the magnitude of the consequences for his wife are nothing like the magntitude of the consequences for his friend (indeed, it seems that in the short term, although obviously there are meta issues that make it positive over all).
I assume no one here argues that if the two things they could do that day were:
a) to buy a strawberry because the spouse wants a spare stawberry, as there aer ony 69 in the fridge, he or she like to have 50 in reserve at all times, and he or she wants to eat twenty strawberries today or
b) to save the lives of one million people (make up your own hypothetical)
then (a) is the one to choose, just because “the spouse comes first”. Sorry good sirs and ladies, but I deny that a spare strawberry for ones spouse is worth the lives of a million people.
P.s. if the above sounds ridiculous, then good, because it is. But I hope some ridiculous black and white thinking serves to explain why black and white thinking is usually a terrible idea, and saying the spouse always comes first is black and white thinking. End of.
Sorry to say, but your post is a steaming pile. Take it to the pit if you want to act so full of righteous indignation. In the end I did what the majority of the board thought was right; I apologize that YOU weren’t happy with how we got to that end. Your post just drips with such self importance and vitriol it is hard to even read without getting annoyed.
It isn’t my wife who is going to feel humiliated every time she interacts with someone who knows about the situation; she has moved on and has accepted it. HE has to deal with it and eventually will.
Also, the thread was started to solicit solid advice on how to address the situation. You never really provided much insight other than to act outraged over it all. Many other posts provided quite a bit of helpful tips, but I must have missed yours.
I for one wouldn’t have wanted to know. I would expect my husband to handle it and distance himself from said friend.
It doesn’t sound ridiculous. It sounds completely fucking retarded.
On purpose, or the most epic typo I’ve seen in a long time?
Yes, thanks for posting that - exactly what I was thinking of from the first post in this thread! After reading those columns, I will never hear, “but otherwise he’s a great guy” in the same light again. :eek:
I have to admit I find it a little weird that there was a question of what to do in this situation, but I suppose I’m more comfortable than average with both telling friends hard truths that might end the friendship, and letting people I was close with cease to be part of my life. I’m glad in the end you told your wife!
Some of the posters in this thread should dial back the outrage a bit.
Remember there is a forum that exists if you want to take the gloves off and this isn’t it.
I spent my first 39 years in towns where 1200 was the top population. Grew up outside of one that was 250. It doesn’t change a transgressive act into a non-transgressive act.
Wives come and go. Friends you’ve known your whole life? Not as much. I can see why the OP was concerned about humiliating his friend. I, personally, would tell my wife, if such a thing happened. However, that’s not because I don’t care about my longtime friends. It’s because it’s important that they face up to their behavior, before it potentially gets worse. Embarrassment is not nearly as bad as prison time.
What? This is a joke, right?
No, I’m dead serious. I have friends I’ve known since kindergarten, one of whom I still keep in close touch with. Even if he did something like this, I’m not tossing him overboard. I’d tell my wife, talk to him about it, and force him to confront the issue. He’s my friend. He and I have both been divorced once, and if he died in 5 years, I doubt his ex would be at the funeral. I would be, though, pretty much no matter what.
Pretty much the same goes for a couple of my other close friends from growing up. I CARE about these guys. For most other people, I’d drop them like a bad habit, unless there were some kind of extenuating circumstance.
MrsTango is like that, too. That’s why I wouldn’t tell her. There are women who can handle a truth such as this and not get creeped out about it and would want to know. If I were married to such a lady then I’d know that, and I’d tell her.
There’s no “one size fits all” solution here.
[QUOTE=Crime Scene]
My wife and I have been together since junior high. We stayed together through highschool and only had one extended break-up during college. The guy in question we both grew up with; his mom was my wife’s baby sitter. It isn’t like this is a new friend or someone we’ve just cultivated a relationship with. He is someone who has been around our entire life.
[/QUOTE]
Sounds to me like his wife is also a friend he’s known his entire life. The friend who shares his life and warms his bed. Not the friend who lives far away, occasionally visits and who he has conflicted feelings about anyway due to the one-sided nature of the friendship.
So yeah, I’d be siding with my life-long friend too - the one I’d married.
It DOES make it more difficult to drop someone from one’s social group - let alone, as will be the case with creepo - causing the entire community to shun him.
I’m the first to call for his complete and utter exclusion from OP’s life and home - but he is catching way too much heat for not doing so as quickly and easily as large city types could/would with someone at the fringe of a social group. The tightness of community bonds are difficult to break. His devotion to wife is being attacked because he felt the bonds typical of small towns.
So goddess - how many folks you spent every day with from kindergarten through High School, who’s mom baby-sat you, you played with at least weekly - you know the small town community - did you kick out of your life, knowing it would lead to her/his becoming a pariah in the entire town? How eager were you to make sure he/she would not again be invited to be a Groomsman/Maid in that town?
My point it that OP’s reluctance to do something which would destroy creepo’s social standing is quite understandable - indeed, had he brought the the wretch’s social standing to complete bottom (where it definitely belongs) with great joy and celebration, I’d be wondering which one I would want at my back.