I have a friend (female) who suspected her boyfriend was willing to cheat on her. She had a friend come on to him online and he said yes.
She proceeded to kick him to the curb.
She told me she found out he as a plenty of fish account, which she looked at (after all of this went down) and found he had been chatting with several other women.
She asked me if I thought it would be a good idea to warn the other women of where he has been on those “quiet weekends alone” over the last 6 months.
Here is our chat exchange: Her He should also be grateful I don’t hack into his plenty of fish, and advise all of the other women he’s been chatting with for the last few months exactly how he’s been spending those “quiet weekends”
Sorry- I’m livid. Me I can tell. That is why I thought you might want to chat a bit Her Would it be wrong of me, or childish of me, to let the other women know? Part of me thinks that sisters gotta stick together, part of me thinks that’s too highschool-ish
maybe I’ll just scrub the toilet bowl with his toothbrush before I send it back to him :) Me Interesting. I have never considered this issue. Her it’s a pickle!
So what says the dope? Which is the high road? Tell the others, or shut the fuck up?
I have no problem with telling other people, but not via hacking his account. And I’m not sure what other way there is of warning people on POF. Is there a forum they might use for that sort of thing.
I think the childish thing would be the toothbrush thing, since that is passive aggressive as all get out. But I assume that was the intent of the joke.
I don’t like the idea of calling it “sticking up for your sisters,” as you aren’t doing it because you are female. You’re doing it because you want to save any of his potential mates from learning about it the hard way, and providing a natural consequence for an act that you consider immoral, so he might be less likely to commit the act in the future.
It’s more a matter of doing a little bit to make the world a better place.
This is tough. There’s a lot of married/dating guys who do the online dating thing that aren’t cheating (in the normal sense of cheating). Some do it to mess with people online, some do it because they like flirting, some do it to fill something they aren’t getting from their SO, some do it for no reason other then to boost their ego (I still got it!). But they have no intention of ever doing anything beyond messaging the back and forth with their ‘potential matches.’
The big question is, was he actually going to or has he in the past, cheated on her or was it strictly an online thing. And if it is strictly online, is that something that she can get past if he gives up? Work around if he doesn’t? Fill in the void if that’s the problem?
But that’s not the question. The question is, what should she do about the people that he was talking to. I say, just drop it. Deep down inside (and even she might not know this yet if the wounds are still fresh) more then likely, she’s not ‘warning them’ she attempting to sabotage his relationship with them.
Also, the sooner she let’s this go, the sooner she’ll start the healing process. This will just drag it out. Even just sending out a quick message to each of them has the potential of creating a connection with them that may mean it’ll take longer before she can start getting over it.
If she doesn’t know the password to his POF account, I’d say the best thing she could do is to clear the browser cache so she can’t do anything about it even if she wants to. OTOH, if she’s just looking for someone to agree with her that it’s a good idea and she’s going to do it sooner or later, then she might as well get it over with. A quick "BTW, this is Jim’s GIRLFRIEND, he’s a cheating POS, just wanted to let you know " might help her blow off some steam. I’d stay away from something long and drawn out. One pissed off sentence is plenty.
But again, like I said, a lot of guys poke around on these sites just to stroke their ego. Kind of like flirting. Go out to the bar, flirt with some cute girls/guys, get your engine revved up, but your still go home with your SO. I’ve heard some relationship therapists say that extra-marital flirting can be a great sex-life booster (provided it’s agreed upon by both people in the relationship.
If this has been a long term relationship she might want to explore that option before she kicks him out for cheating.
She definitely should not do this. If anything, it’ll make her look obsessed, and he’ll be able to use the whole “my psycho ex” routine. IOW, it’ll be counterproductive.
If he is just ‘flirting online’ then no real damage will be cause by posting something - he’ll just make another account and start over.
If he isnt, then whoever he’s also currently messing around will get a headsup.
But there is the tricky bit that hacking his account could cause real problems for her like that guy who got charged for finding out his wife for cheating.
I doubt that would be the case for most women. Most women aren’t like “Oh, those poor dears, I hope this never happens to them!” Most women would more likely be hoping that, by revealing him to be a cheating ass, it would turn her off thus making him alone and miserable. What most women don’t realize is that most other women don’t care much if he cheated on YOU because YOU are not THEM and he would never cheat on THEM because they obviously lack whatever horribly negative quality you possess which made him cheat on you in the first place. :rolleyes: IMO, anyway. I know a lot of really ridiculous women.
Dumb.
It’s stupid and not helpful for her. Anything beyond her is not her responsibility so, regardless of her true motives, no, she shouldn’t do it. Move on.
She’s simply seeking revenge, even if the rational part of her head says there’s another reason.
Two jerky moves (cheating & revenging) put together don’t add up to sweetness & light. So she shouldn’t do it.
And my advice is given while setting aside totally the question of whether what the guy did amounts to “cheating” by any standards other than that of the woman who’s now plotting revenge. We have no reason *a priori *to believe the guy was doing anything untypical for that stage in their relationship. Were they engaged, or was this after just 3 dates spread over 2 months? We don’t know. **Rick **may have more details he can share.
ETA: Several posts above mine just appeared when I posted, so I didn’t start out to write quite the pile-on this is becoming.
No, she should not do that. It was bad enough that she had a friend flirt with him. Those sort of bullshit relationship games are a terrible habit to get into.
Whatever she’s telling herself, her proposed actions sound like simple revenge. “Sticking up for her sisters?” Please. Regardless of how she goes about it, she’s going to look either nutty (hacking into his account isn’t exactly normal) or jealous. It’s just not worth it.
And what exactly does she hope to accomplish with the toothbrush thing? So she does it, sends it back and… What? He uses it, then she tells him afterward? So he has a moment of, “Oh, crap!” Then he gets a new toothbrush. And has yet more fuel for the fire. As an added bonus (to him), she looks really childish. And he has a legitimate gripe to post about her online.
hacking into his accout = childish, bordlerline “my psycho ex” and stepping over some serious boundaries
telling the other women = not coming from the motive she says.
OP, your friend won’t want to hear this, but both sides of a couple contribute to every relationship problem. She needs to think about her input here - her communication with him, signs she missed/ignored, etc.
I voted “Shut Up!” but I’m really thinking “Move on”.
Also, getting your best friend to pretend to seduce your boyfriend to find out if he’s cheating? When your situation starts to resemble a “Facts of Life” episode, it’s time to reevaluate your life choices.
I think she should ask herself why she attracts this type of guy in the first place. Then move on. I’m never going to buy the concept that she wants to help other women out. She only wants revenge, a fool’s errand.
Does she like drama? Because that is all she is really going to get out of this. And as much as women often refer to each other as members of some kind of international sisterhood, they seem equally willing to undermine each other at any possible opportunity, leading me to suspect that her real goal isn’t to protect any other women out there as much as simply spite back at him, which then leads to the conclusion that she really isn’t done with him.
The mature thing to do is just walk away. This guy will meet his just deserts some day, and she really doesn’t need to be around to absorb any collateral damage when it happens. In military terms, a smart forward observer calls out his shots far, far away from his position. Preferable over the horizon in someone else’s domain, 'cause you never know when some asshole lazy bombardier is going to drop early or off-target.
