Justifiable homicide is not murder. However it does constitute insurance fraud in such a scenario, and the SDMB does have rules against instructing law breaking, so I withdraw it.
Remaining silent is not ethical. It’s aiding and abetting Viki in the commission of unethical behavior. You are not only helping her get away with what she did, you are enabling her to inflict similar betrayals upon other people since they won’t be warned. The people trying to play a “Get Out Of Acting Ethically Yourself card” are the ones who claim that since she’s your wife you should cover for her unethical behavior.
No one has a right to force someone else to lie to cover up for them. Vicki has a bad character flaw, and I’m not sure that I could tolerate it. However, even if I were, there would be no requirement for me to lie for her. In fact, it would seem prudent to warn Janet about Vicki, to make sure Vicki doesn’t burn her again.
Personally, I would feel too uncomfortable about Vicki’s feelings and actions, it would pretty much guaranty that we would never all get together again.
It’s different, but once my then best friend (“Don,” since it’s his real name) made a really blatant pass at a girl that another friend (“Mark,” but not his real name) was with. Don and I had been out for dinner (with plenty of beer), and we went to a bar, and saw Mark and his date there. They invited us to join them. Don is making a drunk attempt to pick up this girl in front of Mark, who is really classy and not beating him up.
After a while, the date announces that she has to go. Afterward, Don tells me that he had been grabbing her ass. I got pissed at him and told him to ether apologize to Mark or I’d tell him myself. There were a couple of other things which also happened, but this was one of the breaking points in the friendship.
I don’t believe anyone’s said that her actions were born out of ignorance; certainly I haven’t. I said her homophobia was born of ignorance: that is, she had a pre-conceived notion of the nature of homosexuality (informed by her alleged childhood molestation) and does not know better.
Don’t make me throw this pie at you.
I disagree. Vicki’s behavior was odious, but I don’t think she did anything unethical to Janet, and certainly she doesn’t have to worry about getting away with anything except as regards to Jack. Vicki has broken no confidences; neither Jack nor Janet either volunteered the information about Janet’s lesbianism nor asked her to keep it a secret. Nor can I imagine she much cares about keeping Janet’s friendship, though obviously she prefers not to be confronted her. She hasn’t done anything illegal. And while it’s tempting to ascribe her homophobia to hateful bitchery, it’s just as easy to explain it as ignorance and hurt. Bad guys are never bad guys in their own minds, after all.
Nor has Jack an obligation to volunteer the information to Janet. Nothing about her employment situation changes if she knows Vicki outed her, as she knew beforehand that she was likely to be fired if it became known she ate that the Y. All knowing that Vicki is the author of her discontent does for Janet is give her a specific person to punch in the schnozz – which, while an understandable impulse, is probably unethical and certainly illegal.
As others have observed, the real issue here is whether Jack is willing to stay with Vicki after this. And while I can understand some of the remarks saying she’d be unlovable after this point, I think claims that she is categorically so to be over the top. She’s not perfect; none of us are. And love isn’t rational anyway. Jack is demonstrably willing to prioritize his wife over his friend (the OP says that he dialed back the friendship with Janet because her beauty made Janet nervous). Why isn’t it acceptable to keep the secret but insist on marriage counseling?
I would never have married Vicki in the first place, given how different her views are from my own. And I can’t imagine knowing someone well enough to marry without knowing something like this.
Cooperating with such a bigoted “morals” clause in any way is bigoted and unethical in itself. And yes, she has to worry about “getting away” with what she did; there’s Janet, there’s any other people who will be offended at her bigotry, and there’s the common disdain for “tattle tales”. If it gets out no one will trust her with anything remotely private ever again.
Turning Jews over to the Nazis or escaped slaves back to their masters wasn’t illegal either; it was still evil. While what she did wasn’t that extreme, the principle is the same; she turned over someone to bigots for the purpose of persecution.
Yes, he does. Viki is malignant scum, a bigot who works to aid the cause of bigotry.
It also tells her the identity of a specific enemy, someone that she should hate, fear, and never grant either trust, forgiveness or respect.
Forget “not love”; I’d utterly despise her.
Jack probably shouldn’t volunteer the information to Janet, because it wouldn’t help. Unless a situation comes about in which the information would somehow be of help (I can’t think of one offhand, but I imagine such a situation could theoretically come about). In that case, then he indeed should tell her, because it would help her. Now, if Janet asks, that makes it tougher. Jack then has to either actively lie to her or tell her the truth - there’s no other reasonable option. I don’t like lying to friends, so I am inclined to say that he should tell her.
As to whether Jack should stay with Vicki after this, that’s another rough question to answer. Vicki clearly knows she was doing something objectionable; she wouldn’t have had to go behind Jack’s back to talk to the headmaster if she didn’t. She also knew that this would be contrary to Jack’s wishes, since obviously, he knew and had not told the headmaster himself. If she felt it was important to tell the headmaster because of her misguided beliefs on homosexuality, the right thing to do would clearly have been to discuss it with Jack first, even if in the end she felt obligated to tell the headmaster. While Vicki never had the issue directly discussed with her, and she was never asked not to tell anyone, it was obvious to her that she should not do so. It should hardly be considered necessary for a spouse to specifically request “Please don’t do anything you know might hurt me or my friends.” and yet Vicki was knowingly and intentionally harming a friend of Jack’s without discussing it with him in any way.
Additionally, Vicki has already displayed questionable tendencies in regards to Jack’s friendship with Janet in that Jack had to ‘dial back’ his friendship with Janet because of Vicki’s discomfort. To add intentionally and maliciously ruining Janet’s life on top of this prior insecure and jealous behavior paints a pretty unflattering picture of Vicki, and should give Jack serious pause and reason to rethink his relationship with her. At the very least, counseling is definitely called for, but the level of malice that Vicki has displayed in destroying Janet’s life is pretty significant, and I would say that Jack should be giving some very serious thought to divorce if he doesn’t find such malicious behavior desirable in his wife. That’s…just not a level of behavior that is likely to change, and it has little to do with her misguided homophobia. It is plausible that this would make it difficult for Janet to find employment in her chosen field ever again and is in no way minor, yet she shows no remorse for it. To be willing to do this to a stranger for no personal gain is already repugnant, but to be willing to do it to a close friend of one’s spouse is extremely so.
As to your second claim, it obviously isn’t, since the act in question is done and gone. That ship has long sailed. There isn’t really anything to “get away with” here; Vicki is not facing sanction or punishment. She might get an earful from ME. her husband in the scenario, but that is between “us.”
As to the first, you’re simply wrong. That is, granted, MHO, but there it is. When you marry a person you have an ethical duty to hold their confidence, end story. If you married poorly, maybe you have to do something about that, but until you do, marriage is a promise and adults keep their promises.
That’s ridiculous; by that logic there should be no consequences for any unethical act that someone actually manages to pull off.
Legally no; but there are other forms of punishment than the law as I’ve already mentioned. And again; not mentioning what she did will enable her to get away with harming other people in a similar fashion. Saying nothing is irresponsible and puts other people in danger.
Garbage. What she did puts her beyond the pale and absolves me of any moral duty I have to hold her confidences or show any form of loyalty to her. Holding her confidence in this case would make me complicit with her evil.
Would you say that I should remain silent if I caught her abusing children or committing murder? No? Then we agree that marriage isn’t about remaining loyal no matter what; we only disagree where the line must be drawn.
You mean soon-to-be-ex-wife’s request? Hell to the no.
Because homophobia is to be driven out wherever it occurs, but especially when it goes beyond plain thoughts into actions with such devastating consequences. And because Vicki knew she did something wrong, and something that would upset her husband, if she’s trying to cover it up after the fact. And since she knows about CTC, she can’t claim sexual jealousy as an excuse, so it’s just vanilla homophobia, and “I was molested” is a poor excuse for that, believe me.
No fucking way.
He should volunteer the info (it’s probably going to come up when his friend asks why he’s getting divorced, anyway)
I must have missed the bit in my vows that said “cover for your bigoted ass when you narc on my friends”
But if there’s an implicit covenant of trust in a marriage, it surely covers “please don’t rat out my friend to the government persecuting them for their private life” even MORE than “please don’t rat me out to someone I betrayed”…?
I mean, I agree that she didn’t INTEND to do something bad, but I can’t see how you can call it “nothing wrong” unless you think the school’s policy is ok.
My mid-to-late 90s girlfriend, whom I lived with for several years and would have married if she had not had an attack of common sense, is quite prejudiced against Mexicans. I never knew this because it simply never came up; we never had occasion to meet any. And despite this lamentable (and major!) character flaw, I would say she is overall a good person.
Nitpick: the OP says Janet worked for a private school, not the government.
You’re assuming he’s going to get divorced. And while what Vicki did is a major offense against Jack, I’m not sure it should be a marriage buster. In his place I’d want to try therapy first.
I’m not convinced that Vicki knows she did something wrong to Janet. I think she knows she did something that will displease Jack and anger Janet, but I think it’s possible for her to honestly (albeit ignorantly) believe she is in the right.
Either a divorce or a signed enforceable contract for blowjobs every day for the rest of my life is how this would end for me.
You were asking what me he should do, not what I predict someone in that situation would do. Homophobia is a one-strike, overriding relationship ender for me, just like racism would be.
That’s nice and all, but her believing she’s right doesn’t make her right. Now, if she’s willing to immediately own up, apologise and work at making financial restitution, I might see my way to forgiving her, were I Jack, but your OP made it seem that was not in the offing.
True. You can be stupid and oppose them.
I might give her hell for something if it’s bad enough, but it would have to be really extreme for me to “rat her out.” And I would expect similar from them.
Amen.
There is no way in hell that Vicki didn’t know in her gut that when she narced out Janet that she was doing harm to someone. What she did do, was convince herself that Janet wasn’t a someone who mattered. She de-personed Janet. That’s what gets me about all this. I have hangups about how easily people do that anyway, and if I were to find out that my wife did this purposefully to my good friend? Hell no and have fun with the alimony.
What Vicki did to start with (which wasn’t necessarily BAD, just mistaken) was say to herself: “Janet is a lesbian. A lesbian hurt me when I was a child. I think that lesbians should be evicted from all situations involving children.” That’s a stupid opinion, but she’s welcome to it, and even has cause due to childhood abuse.
Now, if that was her only train of thought, she would have talked to Jack about it. Or perhaps she would have even been brave enough to face Janet about her “predatory proclivities” and asked her to resign from the school. Still a wrongheaded idea, but those are direct approaches that deal with Janet as a person, not as a dehumanized problem to excise.
Since dear sweet Vicki didn’t do either of those things, but instead kept her mouth shut and sent an anonymous letter, that means on some level she realizes what she is thinking about Janet is not entirely valid, or at least that she doesn’t believe that she could defend her position.
So, her thought process must have continued: “Vicki is a predator, she doesn’t deserve any consideration, Jack is an innocent and doesn’t realize how dangerous she is. I’ll just get rid of her and then everyone will be safe.” Now Vicki isn’t even a *person *- she’s a dangerous monster to be thrown out like the trash.
Vicki is using Janet as a means to “win” something back from her childhood trauma, and totally avoiding dealing with her husband as someone who is invested in his friend and her happiness, and avoiding dealing with Janet as a real person with thoughts and emotions and a need to earn a livelihood. All of that really squicks me out, so I’d be in a hotel room starting that night.