You’ve an obligation to friends to call them on their bullshit. You’ve halepd him break an oath that he swore in front of God and everybody.
Chastise yourself and your friend in whatever manner you feel appropriate if you have the urge, but leave the rest of the world, (the wife, the girl, teh girl’s parents etc), out of it.
FWIW, I don’t think that sex w/ 17 yr olds is illegal in most of the US. The age of consent is generally lower than that, IIRC.
Tell your friend you love him but you do not approve of what he’s doing (unless you actually DO approve…). Tell him you won’t lie for him, so if he continues to hang out with this little kid, he will have to do it without involving you. Tell him if his wife asks you a point-blank question you will have to be honest with her. Ask him what is wrong in his relationship that he is wandering. He may have some major thing going on that he needs to address.
I’ve lied for a “friend” before and I would never, ever, not in a million years do it again. It turned out ugly.
The wife called me at my office and point blank asked me if I had any knowledge of what was going on with her husband and this woman. I basically responded, “You know him better than I do…what do you think?” She then started crying and telling me that she knew everything and she couldn’t believe I knew and hadn’t told her.
After this I tried to stay out of it. I told her I couldn’t involve myself more than I already was and that I really hoped they could work it out.
Long story, short. He ended up convincing her that he had never cheated on her. She took him back. None of us are friends any longer and as far as I know he is still cheating on her.
Run away from this situation as fast as you possibly can.
I got into many bars before I was 21. A lot of places do not check id’s. I grew up in a small town, population under 500, I was drinking in the bar there when I was 17. Yes, it is illegal, but it happens.
It’s a tough decision to make, tell the wife or not tell the wife. Personally, I wouldn’t do it.
If your friend is unhappy in his relationship with his wife, he needs to work things through before begining a relationship with anyone else. ( weather it be the 17 yr old or not )
Whoa there…you’re letting emotions cloud the issue. The decision whether to tell the wife should be made rationally, weighing the pros and cons of keeping this guy’s friendship, and the damage that this revelation could do to his family, and whether or not the OP can somehow use this moral quagmire to his advantage (i.e. free beer for life). :rolleyes:
To the OP- you are not just a bastard, you are a goddamn fucking bastard for helping your worthless, piece of shit friend do this to his family. i don’t give a shit about the moral dilemma that he’s placed you in- you have an obligation to act for the benefit of his family. What happens from there is not your call, but at this point, but letting us know that you’re torn over this in no way absolves you.
The wife will be mad at you. That’s just a fact. But you need to get over yourself and do what’s right.
All you need to ask yourself is whether you’d want someone to tell you if they had absolute proof that your SO was cheating. That should end the moral quandary pretty quick.
I’m going to go against popular opinion and say you sound like a total jerk. You were hanging out with them, yucking it up and having a real time of it - all the while knowing that he’s married and he’s cheating, and you’re sitting there having drinks with them.
Right. Today you just feel guilty about your actions. I’d forget about him and take a hard look at yourself.
I’ll chime in with tell the wife, and if you know the 17-year old’s parents, tell them too. Your “friend” is hurting his wife and child, and I think you have a moral obligation to help them, not him.
You need to get out of the situation. Tell him flat out: “NO, I WILL NOT LIE FOR YOU”, and that he needs to stop or you will tell his wife. With a deadline.
With Indygrrl on this one. No need to go run to tell the wife, BUT as a minimum you MUST bail out on aiding and abetting the cover-up. Tell him he CANNOT count on you to cover for him anymore. At all.
Oh, yeah – although you do not need to turn Junior Narc, you have ALREADY placed yourself in a position where if/when directly and explicitly confronted, you’ll have no choice but to tell the truth about that which you know for a fact, and take your lumps. Notice the qualifier: if in the situation you are questioned about you just “suppose” or “suspect” something, you do have the excuse of “I did not know for a fact and would have been talking w/o proof” (e.g. the “no questions asked, if anyone asks” scenario). But if you do know for a fact, you’re screwed.
Not only should you not be helping your friend cheat on his wife, you shouldn’t be hanging out with your “friend” and his girlfriend. How can you look his wife in the face? It’s one thing knowing - it’s another to make the whole thing seem acceptable. Especially to a 17-year-old girl, who is probably bragging to her crowd about how she’s snagged a man whose stupid dumpy wife obviously can’t keep him happy at home and furthermore, her boyfriend’s friends “all” support the idea and think she’s great. (Funny the stories people make up in their minds and are convinced they are true.)
Thanks everybody for your replies. For those that think that yes, I am a bastard, I understand and kind of agree. On the other hand, I don’t know what to do. I’d feel horrible if I told her and they go divorced, or even if they didn’t, I’d be impossible to be around either of them after the revelation.
And kind of along the lines of what JRDelirious is saying, I don’t know exactly what’s going on. For all I know they could just be making out* or being intimate on some level, not the whole deal. Unlikely, yes, but plausable. He swears this is the case but of course, his word is obviously not iron clad.
This isn’t some random girl. There was a party last Saturday night at a mutual friends house and the girl and her mother were there. Her mother is the one that usually brings her to the Pub. (I’ve called the mother on this before, i.e. ‘Why are you bringing your 17 year old daughter here?’ to which she got upset and told me she prefered that to having her ‘out with her loser friends smoking pot’.) This girl has also crashed at a mutual friend’s house, so for the three of us to be at the Pub is not that clandestine.
If you were sitting having drinks with your friend and this girl and you knew that there is something inapproriate going on - hot monkey sex, making out, whatever - between them, then I stand by my comments.
So, if you were sitting there enjoying a beverage knowing something was up and being cool enough with it to continue sitting there and enjoying the company, then you are a primo jerk to go to his wife. Talk about two faced. Geesh.
If you really are looking for the “right” thing to do, I’d say let him know that you won’t be doing any more lying for him and stay out of it completely - including not hanging with both of them at the pub.
I think that the obligations is to protect and promote the family involved here. Revealing this situation, (that assumedly will end posthaste), will damage the integrity of that family with no discernable practical benefit.
However, if the affair is not to end immediately, things can change in that he *will/i] be found out eventually. Then BD shoud be the one to break the news.