Who said anything about teens? These where the adult students that I asked. I didn’t ask the teens because they don’t have enough life experience to give a meaningful answer.
ETA: Another example of people making presumptions without knowing the facts.
What cheating is … is nobody else’s business. One’s desires, emotions, personal relationships, and genital activity don’t belong to the community.
Just to be clear, that’s merely your oh so iconoclastic opinion not a description of reality.
I’m with DesertDog, Jim has brought his bandmates (and kayaker and kayaker’s GF) into this, by being indiscreet and trusting all of them to keep this a secret from Sue.
It’s time to inform Jim that everybody knows he’s boinking the groupie, and it’s not our job to keep secrets from Sue, so he better figure out his shit and quit making everyone around him accessories after the fact.
None. The answer is still to keep his yap shut. The friends, including the boinker, are *trying *to drag him into it, but he doesn’t have to go.
IMHO, this is about how close Kayaker (or the bandmates, if they ever grow a spine) are with Jim. I have friends that are close enough that if they wanted to talk to me about how I was potentially screwing up my life/marriage, I’d welcome it (maybe grudgingly). There are other people who are far enough that it’s none of their d**n business.
So, kayaker, if, before this latest thing, Jim had taken you out for a beer and then said he needed to talk about how you might be screwing up your life, would you have been “who the f** are you to talk to me about this?” or “I trust you and know you have my best interests at heart, and I think you know me well enough that you’re maybe right about my life” ? If ya’ll are close enough that you feel he could do that to you, then go talk to him. Otherwise, obviously stay away.
Now, you don’t know what’s really going on, so be ready to accept it if Jim tells you the marriage is all but over, or even accept it if Jim says he’s just planning on continuing to cheat (though at that point you may have to go to the ‘I won’t tell her but won’t lie to her either’ message). But I think there’s a decent chance Jim is just caught up in the moment, and a real talk about it will bring him to his senses.
Whoever tells Sue should be someone who knows her well enough to know if she would want to know. Cheating and allegations of cheating are impactful and will have serious consequences to their relationship. It could be that Sue is being willfully ignorant about John because she wants the marriage to stay together. It’s not much of a stretch to think that a rocker who stays overnight after shows might be sleeping with groupies. Maybe their relationship approves of that, or maybe Sue just doesn’t want to think about it. But if someone brings the allegations to her attention, she may be forced to deal with them.
I think it’s totally fine for you or John’s bandmates to confront him about his behavior. Unless he has Sue’s approval, what he’s doing is morally wrong. Remaining friends with him means people will think you implicitly approve of his behavior.
Jim’s a dick for cheating on his wife.
Treat Jim like the dick he is.
Hopefully Sue will find out somehow.
Good luck with you and your friends.
Yeah. They won’t see eye to eye. There ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy.
I keep thinking if I were Sue. The only conclusion I can put on it is, I’d want to know. Sooner rather than later. Someone needs to inform her. I’m not sure Kayaker is the right person, only he knows that. But, God someone tell her, please.
Why do you think so? I don’t have cites at hand, but you must be aware that studies have shown that a significant [ercetntage of people don’t want to know if their partners have been unfaithful? That a significant significant of people who do find out say that they would have preferred not to know? That a significant percentage of marriages survive infidelity?
Or is it just that you can’t imagine anyone who isn’t like you?
If the band won’t tell Jim’s wife, then you certainly shouldn’t. And even if Jim is the handsomest, most talented, most charismatic singer/guitarist that Wheeling has ever seen, he’s still a 50-year old man in a road band, and a 22-year old woman will lose interest in him pretty quickly. Maybe the band could introduce to a tattooed, thrash-metal soloist.
Oh, I know everyone is not like me and that’s fine. But it serves no purpose to wait. She’s gonna find out. Too many people know. It’s a game of mitigating the pain and loss. If Sue were my friend I’d tell her, If I’m Sue I hope my good friend would come to me. It’s a tough call, either way. I would not want to be in this situation.
Kayaker, I feel your concern. Good luck.
Has anyone suggested the band tell Jim they should add this song to their repertoire?
True, it didn’t work out so well for the original band’s lead singer…
Most Mondays I go to a bar after work, and I always text Jim to let him know I’ll be there. He tries to be there as well. Two Mondays ago I texted Mike but he just answered, “can’t make it”, which was odd. That was one reason I started this thread the following day.
Well, this Monday was the second Monday in a row that he didn’t show up at the bar, in fact I haven’t heard from him. It looks like maybe things have happened.
Thanks to everyone for advice offered. It helped me think about the situation. Still sad, as it is the “end of an era” but such is life.
C’mon Jackmannii! That’s too good a story not to share.
Some of y’all would be hilarious on law and order. “Just because he was found standing over the body with a bloody knife doesn’t mean he’s the killer!”
Ew.
I wish I had some advice for you, kayaker, but I think you’re in danger of losing a friend any way this comes out. It happened to my wife and I.
We had a large group of good friends - we’d vacation together, and saw each other fairly often, despite being pretty far-flung across the city. Over the years, we all began to get hints that one couple was having problems. The husband - I’ll call him Reginald “Pongo” Twistleton-Twistleton* - would be gone at odd times, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and come back with … strained… excuses (“My company is Korean, and they don’t understand that Americans get Christmas off.”) One time I encountered him walking with a young woman, not his wife or daughter, in a park some ten miles from his home, at dinner time when I knew his wife, whom I’ll call Dahlia Travers*, would be home fixing dinner and taking care of the kids. At first, I just kept running and didn’t acknowledge him, but then decided to turn around to check; and he had disappeared.
The group’s misgivings were only that, until the family of the young lady - Bobbie Wickham* - managed to contact some of us, my wife included, on Facebook. That’s when we discovered that Pongo had been essentially leading a double life for years, spending weekends and holidays with Bobbie and her family. She had no idea Pongo was married; he had told her that he was divorced and that Dahlia was mentally unstable. Her brothers were trying to confirm this when they reached out to some of us on Facebook.
So the feces hit the aerator. Bobbie broke off the relationship, and Pongo came clean to Dahlia. And she apparently forgave him - they’re still together.
Pongo and Dahlia have three wonderful kids, and Dahlia is a devout conservative Catholic and deeply private; I obviously don’t know the inner dynamics of their marriage, but she still professes to be devoted to him and her family. However, she’s ruthlessly cut off about half of our group; one, Cyril “Barmy” Fotheringhay-Phipps*, because he was Pongo’s close friend and one of the only people Pongo had told about his affair. The rest of us, on various pretexts; she cut me off ostensibly for a Facebook post when I savaged the Catholic Church over the clergy sex scandal. She’s cut her ties to most of the group, and I haven’t had contact with her for about three years. I miss her, too; she and I were pretty good friends, and running buddies who had done races together.
Again, I can’t say what’s going on in her mind, but it certainly looks like she’s furious at her husband, but pretending otherwise for the sake of her kids, and redirecting her anger to the rest of us.
*P.G. Wodehouse characters whose personalities bear no resemblance whatsoever to the real people I’m talking about.
tl;dr version - Adultery damages all relationships, not just the marriage. You’re in a bad situation, and, unfortunately, you may lose a friend no matter what you do. I hope it doesn’t happen to you.
Wow, that’s a song from deep in the memory banks! Hadn’t thought about it in years.
Holy shit, what a story.
Life in the fast lane, I guess.
So, I mentioned yesterday that I hadn’t heard from Jim in an unusually long time. Out of the blue last night he messaged me (and I felt guilty, thinking he was reading along) wanting to get together for beers. Unfortunately, I was driving to meet my daughter to get her dog (dog sitting while she vacations).
There’s a good chance we’ll be meeting at a brewery tonight (his work specifics permitting). I’m planning on arriving early enough to have a beer or two before he arrives.