It hadn’t occurred to me that the wives might be the ones asking for the company. (Get someone over to paint the garage roof? Brilliant! So, where exactly do you live, Lust4Life? 
)
Do NOT talk to the wife first. If she is cheating, and thinks you might spill the beans, she will likely start telling her husband about you showing an unusual interest in her, so any attempt by you to warm him will result in you looking like you are trying to ‘cover’ for yourself.
Half good advice. Don’t talk to the husband, either. No matter how much the other wanna-be private eyes here stroke your fanny, this still won’t be your business.
Seriously, Scumpup, your position here is entirely irrational. You’ve been asked once before what exactly is your personal experience that is behind this position. Give it up (meaning, clue us in). Otherwise you just sound like the back door man who wants the world to help him do his nasty.
Nobody is saying the OP should go to the friend and say, “Your wife is definitely screwing around.” No one is saying he should interfere in his friend’s marital relationship. He should tell the OP what his sister has seen. If the OP’s friend knows about it either because it’s entirely innocent or because he has an open relationship with his wife, then no harm is done. If the OP’s friend is in the dark, then the OP has done the right thing by cluing him in. No part of that constitutes “interference.”
My position is based on the fact that nobody but husband and wife are partners in a marriage. That is entirely rational. Anybody interfering in that partnership, no matter how altruistic he rationalizes his motives to be, is treading where he doesn’t belong.
Let me put it this way, if you came to me and told me my wife was cheating on me, I’d quite likely combination punch you right in the mouth for two reasons:
- Insulting my wife that way.
- Presuming to interfere in our marriage.
Can I make it any clearer? BTW, you can feel free to retract your insinuation that I am a cheater.
Those of you who don’t even want to blatantly interfere, but only plant seeds of suspiscion and doubt in the husband’s mind, are particularly to be avoided as friends.
No, that’s not rational. That’s tautological. A marriage between two people is by definition a partnership between two people. Your statement has absolutely no persuasive import with regard to the question on the table.
Again, this is a tautological statement. You fail to offer any analysis regarding how it applies in this case. No one has advised the OP to “interfere.” They have simply said that, as a friend, he is obligated to convey information to the friend.
All that shows is that you have no appreciation for friendship and a diminished capacity for rational dealing.
Yes, you can. Unless you find a way to explain your position, you may feel free to stop repeating yourself.
Since I haven’t insinuated anything of the kind, I retract nothing. I simply characterized the impression that your comments create.
So, in other words, if you suspect that one spouse is abusing or harming the other spouse, or a child, just zip your lips and stay out of it?
At many weddings I have been to, part of the wedding ceremony is a speech by the minister or priest about how we (the audience), as the family and friends of the couple, have a duty to support them and help them in their marriage.
To me, cheating on a spouse is a form of abuse… so you better believe I would intervene if it were a family member or best friend. For me, as a best friend (or mother/father, sister/brother, etc.) my first loyalty and duty is to that person - to make sure they are safe and not being abused, swindled, cheated on, or otherwise harmed. If I gain knowledge that harm is taking place, of course I am going to do whatever I can to stop that harm.
There’s got to be something in your history that is coloring your opinion, Scumpup, because it’s just not logical. :dubious:
Disagree. I would wish someone would tell me if a husband was cheating. You always suspect, but confirmation is a good thing. WHo wants to be stupid?
Well, aren’t we a cheery fellow. Seriously, why the bitterness?
Okay, I could see an objection on grounds if someone was advising the OP to go to their friend and say, for example, “Your wife is a cheating 'ho, you should drop her like a bad habit, here let me drive you to the divorce lawyer,” etc. But no one is suggesting that the OP advise his friend on a specific course of action in the event of marital infidelity. It will be up to the friend how to proceed with the information he is given, and obviously no one is going to know the correct course but him and his wife. I think the OP has many reasons to be concerned about his friend - he doesn’t want him to continue to be hurt by infidelity, he doesn’t want to see him put at risk for STDs, and so forth. The STD reason alone IMO trumps any emotional problems one might face, because while time might heal feelings, it cannot heal things like herpes or, at worst, HIV.
And what if it turned out that your wife WAS cheating on you? Would you punch her as well?
Seriously, if your marriage is secure enough to the point where infidelity is an absolute non-issue, then more power to you. However, this is not the case in many marriages, and sometimes signs of infidelity are only visible either in hindsight or by a third party. And no, not all third party perspective comes about as a result of people trying to play Dick Tracy. It’s no more polite for you to assume that of the people on this board than for someone else to assume that you’ve been on the cheating end of a relationship, frankly.
And let’s make no mistake here: the people who “interfere” with marriages the most are those who carry on affairs with those who are married. Whether or not this is the case in the OP’s example is not known, but what I’m getting a sense of is definitely friendly concern, not a morbid desire to wreck a healthy relationship just for the hell of it.
Lemme put it to you this way: imagine that your wife is cheating on you (but don’t punch me for creating an imaginary scenario). Your best friend sees her in flagrante, doing something that makes it clear that she is violating your marriage vows. You would not want him to tell you? Would you praise him later for his discretion, after she gave you herpes? What about if she conceived a child, and told you it was yours? And you only found out years later it was someone else’s kid?
That last scenario happened to a friend of my husband’s. And guess what? He’s still paying child support on that other man’s kid. I guarantee that he’d beg to differ with your POV on this.
I wouldn’t be married to my wife if I didn’t love and trust her. Spouse trumps friend.
Do let’s avoid discussing such hypotheticals as anybody being caught in the act because that isn’t what happened for the OP and therefore it is not germane. This whole discussion is based on what, if anything, the OP should do based on the flimsy evidence passed to him by his sister. Stick to the topic, people.
I repeat, if you accused my wife of cheating based on such tenuous “evidence,” I would punch your lights out for the insult. If you tried to poison my mind against her, I’d likely still punch your lights out and I would scorn you for your venomous tongue.
I wonder how you’d react when you found out your wife was porking your buddy 3 times a night when you’re away on business.
Would you at least apologize to your friend who tried to warn you, and got punched in the mouth for his concern? Assuming of course that your murder trial doesn’t get in the way.
I can appreciate your support for your wife and the position you take on marriage, but on the other hand I can’t see how you’d be so put off by a concern from your best friend. Also, it seems that if your trust for your wife was so rock-solid that a legitimate concern from a seemingly genuine friend wouldn’t disturb you so much.
Something is off kilter here.
Nobody’s perfect, eventually everyone makes mistakes that hurt those they love without wanting to hurt them. It seems you need to be more prepared when something like that happens.
That’s wonderful, but what does that have to do with the price of wheat?
No one is suggesting accusing the wife. What’s being suggested is advising hubby of the evidence, which I would hardly call tenuous.
I think Jodi has the right of it.
For all we know, the buddy was crashing on the couch because he and his own spouse had a fight and she kicked him out for the weekend. Or they were repainting and he couldn’t stand the fumes. Or the couple has an open but discrete marriage and the husband knows all about the buddy’s visits and is fine with it. Or any number of other explanations that do not involve the wife being a cheating ho.
While I see Scumpup’s underlying point that it’s really nobody but the couple’s business, I have to say that if it were me, even if there were a totally innocent explanation, I’d want my friends to care enough about me to apprise me of information that may be relevant. Hopefully in the tactful faux-thick-as-a-brick fashion Jodi suggests, but I’d be willing to look past a less-tactful approach and understand that my friend was just worried about me.
When we read the OP again,
This makes the difference for me, that it’s reported as everytime. If it were once or twice, then I could see some of these other senerios, but that frequency would bother me.
If they did have an open marriage, then this wouldn’t be a shock to the husband. If there is another innocent explanation, then it can easily solved.
It’s the parking down the block that turns this from “staying overnight to keep the wife company” into something that your friend needs to know about. That one little detail turns this from something that I could see as innocent into something that just doesn’t look innocent any more - why act guilty if you have nothing to hide? If the husband (or wife) asked you to stay over to help his wife feel safe, you park in front of the house.
Are we reading the same thread? Please explain how this is NOT an accusation of the wife whether in the form of an outright “I think your wife is getting it on with Schlongy” or the more pernicious method of seeding the husband’s mind with doubt. If the folks who think they need to involve themselves don’t believe she is guilty of adultery, why are they so insistent that the husband must be told? Sheer love of shit-stirring?
Once again, trust and love of a spouse trumps trust and love of outsiders.
On the one hand, regarding your wife, you’re blinded by love; on the other hand, regarding concerns of infidelity, you’re blinded by rage. Either way, you’re feeling first, and thinking second, or not at all. Hardly a healthy attitude.