Put me on the record as one who would rather not be told if I was being cheated on. I kind of expect that cheating will happen at some point in many relationships, and that nothing will be served by me spending all day thinking “Is she prettier than me?”
I agree. (Verify this behavior) and tell him just the facts: it seems weird that the friend parks a half a block away & walks over to the house. Don’t imply anything about cheating; that gets you into a position of having to argue something that you don’t know factually.
On a slightly related note, a friend married a woman who seemed to insult him way too often, in public, without apparent humorous intent. I said nothing. After the marriage crashed-and-burned, he expressed anger that another friend said he’d thought the marriage was doomed from the start, but only told him after the marriage failed. I still haven’t told him that I held the same opinion. That’s a sticky situation, and I don’t know what I’d do if I saw another proto-marriage embarking on the Titanic, because I don’t know what will or would happen in the future.
So, in other words, ignorance is bliss? You have no problem being cheated on behind your back and not knowing, and going on like everything is hunky-dory? (While in the meantime your partner is boinking other people and possibly spreading diseases to you…)
Maybe they are getting together to plan a surprise party for your friend.
If you told him now, you can be pretty sure that your friend would be upset with you for not telling him before the marriage. You can be just as sure that if you had told him before the marriage, he would have been upset with you, possibly cutting off contact. I don’t think there’s any way to win in this type of situation other what you have been doing - keep your mouth shut before, during, and after the marriage.
Now, if someone has married disastrously before and appears to be headed there again, I think you can gently observe that Mary seems a lot like Sue, in the hope that your friend may give some thought to being caught in a bad pattern. It would need to be done quite carefully though, for there’s a risk of alienating someone who perceives that his judgment is being denigrated.
For all we know, the guy is parking up the street so he can sneak over to the house, peek in the windows, and spank it behind the roses.
I would go (and have gone) one step beyond this, which is to present myself as so stupid / clueless I don’t really get the importance of what I’m saying:
“This is so weird! You know the red '67 Mustang Joe drives? My sister keeps seeing a guy with almost the identical car! You know, my sister who lives four doors down from you? Yeah, some guy keeps parking his red Mustang in front of her house. It was there all weekend last weekend. It’s kinda pissing her off, having some stranger park overnight in front of her house so often. Anyway, how was Boise [where you were, all last weekend]?”
Sometimes it is worthwhile to be thick as two bricks, is all I’m saying. (“Who was that blonde Steve was out with last night? Was it his cousin or something? She seemed so friendly!”) You convey the facts, but you draw no conclusions. None. It must be a coincidence! That way, you don’t embarrass your friend; you tell him what you know; and his wife can’t be pissed that you butted into her business because, huh!, you didn’t know it had anything to do with her. I am generally no fan of people playing dumb, but if I can convey an unpleasant message through benign, blundering stupidity while keeping myself out of the situation, I will do so. And I recommend it.
Ugh, I caught a guy in this situation before. My girlfriend at the time’s sister’s husband would park half a mile from the house, and look in the curtains. I thought they were crazy when they brought it up, laughing it off. Until I was at a friends house studying for a calculus final, and took the back road home through the ditch, because it was much closer from his house. I saw his Bronco parked, and thought, “Oh, No!”
I told my buddy to wait by the Bronco, and not let anybody leave. I started walking towards the house, and saw him walking back towards his vehicle. “What are you doing?” I asked him. “Out for a run,” he said. “What the hell? You’ve got sandals on?!”
Turns out there were footprints in the back, and those sandals mysteriously disappeared from his wardrobe after that. Weird.
I like it–and the rest of your post. But I especially like it in this case because there is a part of me which strongly suspects that the husband knows about the visits and doesn’t mind–but doesn’t neccessarily want to explain the situation to anyone else. So playing dumb like this gives you and the husband some plausible deniability “Wow! There’s two people in the neighborhood with red mustangs!” while also pointing out that um, if parking down the street is an attempt to be discreet, it’s not working so well.
Overnight, and leaving in the morning?
Let me tell you something…My last boyfriend cheated on me, not for long even, before he broke up with me SHE insisted (how nice). A couple of months later I finally went to a doctor to find out what the hell was wrong with me. Herpes.
It was almost five years ago. I haven’t dated anyone since. I probably never will. I already was fucked up, this was the last straw for me. I’m now just … living.
If you love your friend, verify the facts of the situation (is it THAT car?)
and then help your friend.
I’m crying now wishing I could have been spared this, if I would have known he was fucking someone else I wouldn’t have gotten this.
I don’t quite follow this; who was doing what at whose window?
I think he meant that the husband of his girlfriend’s sister would come over to the girlfriend’s (and Santo’s) house and whack off while peeping at her.
It could be that your best friend has asked this other bloke to stay over when hes away because his wife doesn’t feel safe on her own.
I say this because in the past several of my best mates have actually asked me to do this and I most definitely didn’t sleep with their other halves but I still got plenty of attention from the neighbourhood curtain twitchers in the mornings as I left.
Ask the family friend casually if he knows one of the neighbours down the street as your sister might know them so if he IS doing the dirty it’ll warn him off.
Otherwise stay out of it,if it turns out that theres nothing going on but you’ve put distrust into your friends mind it could destroy the marriage anyway.
I understand how the poster who’s partner was being unfaithful and friends in the know didn’t tell them feels angry and bitter but all too often the people who actually KNEW about the affair in reality probably only had clues and suspicions up until the thing went public and then its a case of "I KNEW all of the time something was going on "
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
If everytime people suspected infedelity in a persons spouse they went up to the partner with their suspicions"They never came into work yesterday,they keep talking to one particular member of the O.S.,they’ve started paying more attention to their appearance etc" the spouse would get pretty fed up with what were probably a number of false alarms.
Only the people who are actually in the marriage know what is really going on in their relationship no matter how good your intentions are.
I think that this is totally unrealistic and needlessly antagonistic towards the OP. Actually, he said that the boyfriend has a distinct car, and the sister said what happened. There is no reason to be so insulting. You have no reason to doubt any of this…the OP is certainly bright enough to be able to sort out what is and what isn’t fact. You are being unfair to the sister, and you have no right to be so snotty about what she does with her time.
To the OP:
To tell the friend the facts is incumbent on a friend. It may be difficult, but if somebody ends up hating your guts, you are well rid of them. What, should one want to be friends with a woman that cuckolds her own husband (YOUR GOOD FRIEND)!!! If your friend takes offense, and turns on you, think how little the cost was to flush this weak twerp out of your life!
If your friend is unaware, then you will have done him a great service. His embarrassment won’t be one millionth of the utter shame and pain that a later revelation will yield. His life may well be at risk. If they do patch up the marriage, and totally dis you, you have done a good deed, and they would show themselves to be ingrates, which you don’t need in your life.
Please be sure, OP, to let us know the end result.
Again, if this is a REAL friend, you will be sorry if you don’t give him the heads up.
Where did you park?
Where I live there is so much on road parking that you grab any space that is remotely close to where your going,on some occasions this means that you might just as well walk to your destination as your parking spot is the same distance further past where you’re going as it is from your house.
Curious that this issue only comes up when the husband is out of town, because it was stated in the OP that this guy parks right in front of the house whenever he visits both of them.
I agree; it’s the parking down the street that makes this look much more suspicious. He’s acting furtive; that makes it look like he’s hiding something.
Lust4Life, people around your area actually ask men to stay over with their wives when they’re out of town because they’re afraid? What war zone do you people live in? This is completely outside of my experience. If my husband asked a buddy to come stay with me because he was out of town, I would be completely floored by such a bizarre request.
Not people around my area but very good mates/colleagues who would literally trust me with their lives and vice versa.
Now you mention it there was no real threat,at the times I just assumed that their missuses felt nervous though one of them got me to paint their garage roof something my mate had been using stalling tactics on doing for about six months.
Maybe I was there to PREVENT a backdoor man coming to visit,until your post I’d never thought about it!