I think you need to look at who you call a friend.
Friends ‘use’ each other, but real friends know when to stop ‘using’ when it turns into ‘abuse’.
It’s only my opinion, but your friend is abusing you.
Do you honestly believe all they have done is played kissy-face?
Personally, if my husband was playing kissy face with a 17 year old girl then I would want to know. I would at least want to have the opportunity to decide for myself if that is someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Like I said earlier, run away as fast as you can. Whether you choose to tell the wife or not is your deal, but get away from Humbert and his “friend”.
You may have a point there but I’m not sure it’d be a useful tactic to pursue. I’ve seen plenty of small town watering holes that are basically the only place to hang out. They serve pub grub but are just long rooms with the bar running along one side. There really isn’t a demarcation for a restaurant vs. food areas. I dunno if Bruce’s pub is like that but it’s worth considering.
Since Lolita’s mother brings her in there betcha dollars to doughnuts a legal stink would just drag the bar owners and everyone else in town into the mess. Massive overkill that would pretty effectively poison the local hangout for everyone, doncha know. I doubt it would do anything beyond pissing off a lot of people and blowing the tawdry affair into a big open scandal. That wouldn’t serve the wife or child well at all, much less anyone else.
Just a thought.
What you’ve accomplished is, you’ve let her make her decision with full information. She’s got a right to that information, and her husband is hurting her by denying her that right. While I understand how awful your position is, by keeping mum, you’re complicit in denying her that right. Certainly you’re not acting as her friend.
Daniel
As someone else pointed out, playing “kissy-face” with someone other than your spouse is still cheating. And obviously this guy knows it would upset his wife, or else he wouldn’t be asking you to lie about it.
I don’t envy your position and I can see that you want to do the right thing. By telling his wife what you know, you may risk losing this guy’s friendship, and you may be setting up his wife for a lot of pain. In the long run, however, she’s probably better off without him–and so are you. Good luck, whatever you decide.
**
They don’t care. They gamble in there, serve on Sundays, all of which is against the law. The reason I asked her mother why she brought her there is because it’s a freaking dive. The reason we go is it’s the closest bar to our houses, they have karaoke but with all the <insert lower class southerner euphemism> in there it’s hard to be embarassed. (On preview noticing Veb’s post) It isn’t worth pursuing. I think the cops would laugh if they were called about the Pub.
That’s the other bad thing I may not have mentioned. Everybody is wink-wink nudge-nudge about those two, the only one who apparently doesn’t have a clue is Mrs. Humpert. 
Tonight and tomorrow should be interesting. I don’t really want to go to the Pub but I’ll be hanging out with these people. I’ll be talking to Humpert more to figure out if he’s got his damn head on straight yet.
Bruce; I can understand your hesitation a bit; no one wants to be involved in a situation like this. Your “friend” shouldn’t have gotten you involved, nor asked you to lie for him.
That being said, let’s look at the situation.
We’ve already been over the fact that even if he & Lo haven’t had intercourse (I’ll try not to snicker at that), they have something going on - the knowledge of which he is seeking to keep from his wife.
The thing is, you’ve been keeping silent. Some would say that you’re lying for him, really.
“But wait!”, you say. “I’ve never lied for him; no one’s ever asked me if he’s cheating!”.
True enough. What you’re doing by not informing (or at least hinting to) his wife that something is seriously amiss is what some would call a lie of omission (particularly if the wife is a friend of yours, I would say). That is, by withholding information, you are allowing her to (presumably) believe something that you know isn’t so.
Sure, you could say, “Well, I don’t know that she doesn’t know already!”. True enough, I suppose. But do most wives expect that their husbands will remain faithful? I suspect so. Would he ask you to cover for him if he thought his wife already knew? i suspect not.
Are you as much of an…um…unfortunate soul, shall we say, as he is? IMO, no. Are you pure as newly-fallen snow? Surely not.
Although I don’t think I’m defecating on Bruce, I do not get the impression that he’s all that morally upset here. I think he’s aware that he should feel badly, but I keep getting the impression that he’s more concerned with screwing up his drinking situation than he is about the wife. If it’s that obvious to everyone else, then I would encourage Bruce to get one of the wive’s friends to say something to her, write it in the sky, send an anonymous note, whatever.
Bruce, have you interacted with the wife since finding out? If you have, and if you’ve acted like nothing is amiss, then you’re certainly deceiving her. You’re not treating her with dignity or respect, much less friendship, if you keep this secret from her.
Daniel
That’s just what I was thinking. Does this girl think they’re in love? Has your friend ever told her he’s going to dump his wife and marry her? I know I’m making wild-assed assumptions here, but teenaged girls can be rather flighty. She could try to force his hand by “accidentally” getting pregnant, so he “has” to marry her.
tell the lowlife scumlicking bottomfeeder, that unless you get a shoy at the 17year old,your gonna show his wife, and her paw the VIDEO !!!.. HEH, HEH, HEH…
But my boyfriend told me I couldn’t get pregnant if we did it that way!
My impression is that he wants it all to go away, and everything back to normal. Which is not an unreasonable thing to want (although it is highly unlikely to be something he will get). Reluctantly, he is being forced by his concience and by circumstances into realizing that something must be done about the situation, but is unsure as to what.
I don’t know what to say to that. I care about her, I care about their kid, and yeah, I care about him too. Malthus is doing much better in his assesment than you.
I know this guy is scum, I get it. Even if it is “just” kissing or whatever. But put yourself in my shoes. Think of someone you’ve know for 10 years. Someone you went to college with. Someone you’ve spent countless summer afternoons grilling out with his family, or playing volleyball, or hanging out at the pool or going on skiing vacations. You know where I was last Christmas Eve, well early Christmas morning around 1 am in the freezing rain? I was at his house assembling a trampoline for his daughter. For you guys, it’s just some dude in South Carolina. For me, it’s extended family.
Is he screwing up his life on his own if he continues this behavior? Of course he is, and it may already be permanently damaged. I just don’t know if I can be the one that pops the zit.
This is bumming me out. I’ll check back in tomorrow if anything happens tonight. Thanks for the responses, even if you think I’m a bastard.
Gold!!
I think Malthus is doing a better job of telling you what you are more comfortable hearing.
I don’t know why you think posters don’t understand he’s a close friend of yours - I think we all got that.
You don’t seem to understand that especially because he is like family to you the LAST thing you should be doing is overlooking this. It seems difficult for you to get that you should not be socializing with him during this time because it will mess up your drinking buddy situation at your favorite dive. You keep doing the “even though” and “but…” thing. What is so hard to understand: Anything other than freezing him out or extricating yourself from his presence is condoning his behavior.
Finally, if you have that type of relationship with him, why aren’t you having a heart to heart about what the heck he’s doing (complete with a reference that you feel obligated to tell her, if you really do).
Sat, I think he is trying to explain why this situation is difficult for him. Your characterization makes it sound like he is acting (or, not acting) out of pure selfishness. I don’t see it that way at all. If that was his motive, he wouldn’t be posting about it here and we would not be discussing it.
I think he is just very reluctant to do anything, because the consequences for everyone concerned are very serious. Unfortunately, there comes a time when “not acting” is the same thing as making a decision - and I agree that it is the wrong one. I think he understands this, and is, very reluctantly, beginning to face up to it.
It is not going to be easy.
Good luck, Bruce_Daddy.
You didn’t cause this ugly mess and you can’t solve it. You’re just caught as a concerned bystander.
FWIW, bastards carelessly blow off stuff like this. You’re anything but.
Veb
How many people in this country cheat?
How many more play “kissy face” with someone other than their spouse?
How many more know about it, but don’t tell?
Based on statistics I’d guess that more than half of the people in this country have fallen into one of those categories. Probably closer to 75% or more. And that includes women cheating, kissing, and not telling on their friends. Chances are, some of the people deriding Bruce_Daddy have fallen into one of these categories, although they probably won’t admit it here. So let’s not go overboard.
The fact is, it is very hard to tell a friend’s spouse your friend cheated on them. The examples I’ve been seeing in this thread are of women telling their girlfriends that their husband cheated - well guess what, that is not the same situation.
A comparable situation would be if you told your girlfriend’s husband that she was cheating. And you didn’t know for sure she was doing anything more than kissing. And they had a kid. That is the type of situation Bruce_Daddy is in. A little harder, huh?
Anyone done that?
Having said all that - if you think that your “friend” is still having sex with this girl, then I think you should tell the wife. Ideally, you should find out for sure what your friend is up to before telling, because there is a very real possibility that if you tell he will try to turn this whole thing against you.
My advice: find our for sure if he is still having sex with the girl, and if he is you have to tell the wife, because at the least she is in danger of getting a disease from him.
It won’t be easy if you have to do it. And you’re not a “bastard” because it isn’t easy. Your friend put you in a horrible situation, and unfair as it is you may have to do something very difficult, but morally right.
Here’s a hypothetical question that you should think about, Bruce_Daddy. Your truthful answer will tell you what to do about this situation.
What if this situation was happening to your family, and you were the cheated on spouse? What if your wife was “making out” with a seventeen year old boy and confided in Malthus’ wife to keep her secret? Would you want to be kept in the dark and possibly catch something from your wife and her boy-toy?
I hope you take the good advice that a majority of posters have already chimed in with.