What? You don’t have to be cold blooded to catch a disease and spread it to someone else. A brief bout of stupidity is all it takes.
And what about herpes or genital warts? Condoms do not fully protect against these diseases.
The thing is, none of us–possibily including her, for that matter–can make that kind of assumption about him. Plenty of guys don’t like condoms and are willing to chance it. As many men that are out there siring kids with women other than their wives (and yes, bringing home STDs), its unsafe to think that unprotected sex is something the OP’s friend need not worry about. This scenario is exactly why she should know the truth and not be left in the dark.
I once worked with two people who were married to each other and learned that the wife was sleeping with a third coworker. I was friends with the coworker and found evidence of their meetings at my house after I’d asked him to take care of my cat while I was out of town.
The husband was the brother of one of my BFFs. I was in a hella pickle, so (this was before I joined SD) I asked a fourth coworker what he would do if he had evidence of this thing going on. All advice was to stay the fuck out of it and MYOB. Turns out, coworker #4 blabbed that I knew something to the husband. So the husband called me up and said, “I totally don’t blame you if you know something and you don’t want to get involved or say anything, but I am building a case, so if you have evidence, I’d like to hear what it was.”
So I spilled it.
There was no fallout for me, directly, except that it was a nightmare to work with all these people playing this awful, horrible game with each other. I finally went to the boss and demanded that he do something about them all bringing their drama into work or else I would do something and that would be to walk out the door. At the time, I had the leverage (I was the only person who knew how to do what I was doing) to make such a demand. Things settled down at work shortly after that, because the boss split up the wife and her lover and put 'em on different shifts and then he assigned the husband to an offsite work location, so they were forced to carry on their private dramas at home so we didn’t have to watch it all.
My advice is to not say or do anything unless someone specifically asks you a direct question, or you feel close enough to one or the other to just blurt it out with the caveat that “if it was me, I’d want to know and I’d want you to tell me.”
I don’t think there’s any right or wrong answer except to say that the situation really isn’t any of your business and nobody is specifically trying to make it your business (by rendezvousing at your house for example).
You know, I originally posted here suggesting a kind of middle-of-the-road solution, because while I really do feel the cheated-on partner has the right to know, I also don’t want to judge people who have non-monogamous relationships, whether it’s explicitly agreed upon or just tacitly condoned. That’s entirely their business.
But I’ve decided that’s still no reason not to tell. I think you can tell and still be sensitive to the possibility that it’s accepted. I’d never go in guns-a-blazin’ and say, “Brace yourself: you’re getting a divorce!” I’d simply tell what I knew, with the understanding that their response might be anything from, “That’s it, I’m getting a divorce!” to “I was afraid of that, but that’s part of loving him/her”, to “Yeah, we’re swingers; I thought you knew!”
I do understand the idea of accepting that bad stuff happens, but not wanting to know about it. And yes, a spouse sleeping around might not actually be “bad stuff” in your relationship, but it’s still bad for lots of other people. Even if you set aside the emotional angle, there’s still STDs, unintended pregnancies, and general potential for people to do crazy shit, which are pretty universally bad. So you’re going to have people warning you. Say you have a weird-looking mole on the back of your neck. You’re going to have people suggesting you see a dermatologist. And it may get very annoying. But they can’t assume that a) you know about it, and b) it’s actually fine. In the same way, they can’t assume that about an affair.
That brings up a good point:
The difference, to me, is that having friendships outside of your relationship is a generally a good and healthy thing. People might point out a mole, but they’re not likely to worry about a cute little dimple. But what if the husband tells his friends that his wife seems cold and distant and he misses her, but she tells him he’s imagining things? Then yes, I’d think it would be nice of them to say, “You know, I think her attention might be elsewhere.”
The other thing is, as many have said here, you have to know your friend. If you know they’re the type of person who would want to know, obviously, tell. If you know for certain they wouldn’t want to, or that they already do, then don’t. But if you’re not sure, you can’t assume.
No. *Lots *of people don’t. The friend I mentioned above had no idea, and there was no earthly reason she would have suspected. Other people may feel that the relationship is “off” but have no idea how bad it is or what their partner is doing. Some may have even suspected, asked, and been lied to. They know something’s not right, but in the absence of evidence, they have to trust. People have a great capacity to believe what they want to believe, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually better off not knowing.
Definitely, but I have a feeling this will be less and less common as women become more autonomous and are able to both have children and work outside the home. Overlooking your husband’s ‘business trips’ is likely a lot more tempting when you’ve got a small child and no personal bank account.
If the OP knew less about the situation I’d also suggest that they could be in an open relationship – but then the guy wouldn’t be telling this woman he’s planning on leaving his wife.
You have to be cold blooded to sleep around on your wifeunprotected.
You don’t have to be cold blooded to catch a disease and spread it. Come on. I was crystal clear because I know I have to qualify everything around here. In order for a man to, in this age of fatal sexual diseases, to promise his wife to not ever lay with another, and then go and hit it raw and bring her home AIDS, that is some cold blooded spreader of killer disease shit. Period.
Herpes is not AIDS, and since Tru dropped the big A scare word, I responded to that.
Because, once we start the scare tactics, then here we go…
There are all kinds of diseases that one can catch in all kinds of ways. He can catch H1N1 by handing out hugs. Are the nosey busybodies going to come up with ways to keep a saintly wife from catching every little disease he may bring to her from herpes to flu? No. Just stop it. A busy body might drop the A word as a justification for gettin’ up in folks biz, but I wouldn’t buy it.
There is no reason to assume that just because someone cheats they are the kind of monster that would sleep around unprotected in the age of AIDS and not tell the wife that he is bringing home a death sentence to.
Why would they use protection? They’re in love. What better way to show their love than to have unprotected sex? Go read the infidelity forums on the marriage sites and you’ll find endless stories of unintended pregnancies and STDs.
You’ll also find even more tales of the betrayed spouse wishing those who knew would have told sooner. I don’t recall ever seeing a post from someone who said that they wished people had kept it from them.
I don’t think that those forums are representative of people who’ve experienced infidelity. They’re representative of people who can’t think about anything else other than that they’ve experienced infidelity, and how very wronged they are. As such, I don’t think you’ll find a whole lot of people there who are inclined to see it as something that was no one else’s business.
IMO the subset of married people who actually cheat is likely to veer into the more selfish and thouhtless types. Are there circumstances that fall out of that realm? Of course. But on a majority basis, you are not talking about the more thoughtful, careful, risk-averse people here.
The wife may even have been someone who slept around a bit before she was married. She may have been quite careful and used condoms responsibly during that time period. But if she believes she is in a monogamous relationship, she is not thinking that she needs a condom right now. She’s not being given the information she needs, in order to make the decision to protect herself.