Inserted how, Diana? By answering one’s own phone? This cheating woman then is then holding me hostage in my own home, afraid to answer the phone, afraid it will be her husband and then what will I say?
I agree with those who are saying it’s her situation that she has created. No matter what I say, it’s a problem because of what she is doing. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t go out and find the husband on my own and consider it my duty to inform him, but I would not lie when confronted. Again, she is the one that created the situation, not me.
“Well, I won’t volunteer the info, but I’ll tell him if he asks” is a stance every bit as cowardly and geared toward your own convenience as anything else proposed here.
As mentioned, a lie of omission is still a lie. If you know, and you don’t tell unless asked, you ARE feigning ignorance and participating in the deception.
You either think that he should know and it’s your business to tell him, or you don’t. Man up, pick one, and stick with it.
Ellen, join us in the 21st century, and enjoy the Caller ID.
An advantage of the “If he calls and asks, I’ll tell” method gives her a chance, should she choose to take it, of taking responsibility for her actions and coming clean with her husband - or, of never doing anything again that will lead him to call around and ask where she might be. That way she can salvage her relationship in one way or another and the person in the position of being an alibi doesn’t have to be in the position of the meddler.
OK, thinking again. How much I see the husband and how close we are makes a difference. If I see him every day and say nothing, well, I must agree with you in it being a lie of omission. If he is equally friends with me as I am with the wife, then again, I agree.
However, if he’s someone I rarely see and barely know, then yes I would be meddling in their affairs. As Ferrett Herder says, keeping my mouth shut allows the cheating wife time to come clean with no one’s interference.
It’s a horrible place to be forced into. I get sick to my stomach just thinking about what I’d do if someone placed me into this situation. You have my sympathy, Hampshire.
I’m with Stranger. I’ve been cheated on. Friends knew about it, and they covered for him. I found out when I went to the ER with abdominal pains and learned I had a brand new STD (trichomoniasis) that caused PID. PID causes scar tissue. That scar tissue can cause infertility and even strangle the intestines.
The stakes are far higher than most people are willing to acknowledge. Infidelity exposes the faithful partner to a danger they didn’t consent to. Even if condoms are used, STDs can still be transmitted.
Not only should the OP refuse to lie for her, they should contact the husband and let him know what’s going on.
You seem to be tripping over your own toes here to justify your position, to wit, that one shouldn’t get involved, and concocting the false dichotomy that the only way not to be involved is to actively shun the husband in question; that any other act, including not acting, is a lie or “meddling”, or both.
The problem with this position is that the o.p. and his wife are involved, however involuntarily, by the woman presuming their agreement to reinforce her alibi. There is no way, including shunning the husband as you suggest, for them to say that they did not have active knowledge of the adulterous behavior and attempts to conceal it. By telling the wife that she needs to come clean to the husband as the alibi she is clearly relying on won’t hold water, the burden for honesty is being placed back upon her.
All of this assumes that the o.p. and his wife know the husband in only a passing social context, and don’t have any relationship with the husband aside from swapping anecdotes about the kids and work. (The o.p. says, “We both have kids so we have been to each others places for birthdays and cookouts…we don’t see them that much.”) If he actually has a personal or business relationship with the husband, I’d argue that it would be wise (if not obligatory) for him to inform the husband, not because he should meddle in the internal conduct of their marriage, but to keep himself clean of the appearance of complicity and deceit. Again, it isn’t his fault that the wife elected (without prior agreement) to use them as part of her scheme to conceal her affairs, and to explicitly inform them of what she was doing, and the only legitimate thing to do in this case to protect any exterior relationship would be for the o.p. to be forthright about his knowledge.
Maybe it’s just me, but I place a high premium on personal integrity in my friends. I wouldn’t expect a near-stranger to tell me of my spouse’s misdeeds, but I’d be pretty wary of anyone pretending to be concerned about my well-being who didn’t inform me of such a situation. The wife could be having unprotected sex, engaging recreational drug use, leaving the kids unattended while partaking in her affairs, or any other of a number of situations that I would feel obligated to inform a friend or close associate of.
No, the cheating wife has already inserted them by deciding they’d be her alibi, with or without their consent.
And if he decides to call from a work phone or cell phone number that they’re not familiar with? Should they just avoid answering the phone for every number they don’t immediately recognize? That also strikes me as a “prisoner in my own home” kind of situation.
I agree with this, mostly; that is, the course of action, though not necessarily the reasoning. If I am friends with someone, part and parcel of a friendship relationship is that there is mutual loyalty, support, and looking out for each other. If the husband is a friend – someone with whom I have much more than a passing relationship with – then I owe him the truth, as a friend, not to keep my own reputation untarnished, but because I am not a friend if I don’t demonstrate that loyalty and looking out for him. IF I am friends with the husband, the wife would get one phone call from me: “You have 48 hours to tell him, or I will.”
If the husband is a passing acquaintance and we do not have an agreed-upon reciprocal loyalty aspect to our relationship, I’d not seek him out, but I would respond truthfully to any direct question he cares to ask. If I wish to avoid getting stuck in the middle completely, in addition to letting the wife know I’m not going to lie, if he asks “Do you know where she was/with whom?” my response would be along the lines of “Dude, your wife already tried to drag me into this, and I’m so not going there. You two can talk to each other, or not, but neither of you get to talk about this with me.”
Because honestly – if he didn’t suspect, he wouldn’t be asking, so my refusal to answer the question wouldn’t be any more suspicious than the fact that he felt a need to ask it in the first place.
It’s not just you… and I’d want that integrity even if the potential consequences weren’t serious. Honesty is valuable unto itself. If someone lies about little things, I tend to suspect they lie about big ones too, and that’s just nothing I want around me.
Years ago, a (grown) niece of mine (on my husband’s side) tried to drag me into something like this. She called me one night and told me “If Ron calls you, do me a favor, and tell him I was out with you tonight”.
She and I had enjoyed a somewhat close relationship prior to that (and, amazingly enough, after that). But I told her flat out “I won’t lie for you; I’m not comfortable with the fact that you asked me to lie for you; I won’t go out of my way to tell him the truth (he and I had no personal relationship to speak of), but if he calls me, I will tell him that you were not with me, I was working that night”.
On short notice, it was the best I could do.
Should I have called him and told him the truth? I dunno. Maybe. But I did the best I knew under the circumstances, and I knew I wouldn’t lie for her.
What I’d do is simple: tell her I won’t lie for her. If the husband asks, I’d respond the same way I would if she hadn’t told me. Which would be something alont the lines of “Didn’t she tell you? You didn’t believe her? Well, that sounds like a marital problem, and I don’t get in the middle of those. Sounds like you guys need to talk.”
Merely omitting details is not lying. It’s only when you leave things out in order to try and deceive the other person that you are doing something wrong.
If the shoe was on the other foot, most people would appreciate mutual friends giving a “head’s up” that an affair is going on. Certainly appreciate that more than a lie of omission.
Dunno, in my experience, a marriage that has problems is not aided by one spouse sneaking around having an affair.
This is a great idea. Let the husband hear her words directly, and he can do with it as he pleases.
Also, you wife is a good lady for not wanting to “abandon” someone who was there for her in the past, but keep in mind that sometimes relatively small acts of kindness received in an emotionally stressful situation are assigned a far greater significance than truly warranted. Also, sometimes people “help” others not out of altruism, but as a way of proving they are better than the one being helped - essentially, a sugar-coated act of dominance. I don’t know if these comments are applicable to your situation, but it might be something to think about.
