Should I tell his wife

[Gossip]

Can I be 100% sure or not.
Three weeks ago we said goodbye to our neighbour as she travelled home for a 3 month vacation and to visit her grown up kids.
Two weeks ago the husband arrived back from an overseas trip to remain on his own until his wifes return.
They have no maid however early morning and late evening for the last week their front door kept opening.
We have alot of road workers nearby and as we are in a house (neighbour opp had his car broken into)we are aware of any unusal noise.
Today I saw a young woman leave very early...He is out alot so the question is has he got a part time maid or a new friend!

I hate all this stuff and am more concerned one how to react when my friend returns.

Just say Oh its been very quiet,or Have you got a maid.

Please what you do...nothing my hubby says.

[female]

well yes, males tend to hate the idea of getting involved in anything that is "none of their business".

all i can say is, how well do you know this friend? and how well do you know this friend's husband?

mebbe b4 you tell your friend, you shld go over and talk to the husband 1st to find out what's going on.

you cld just hang out in front of the house, wait for the woman to step out, and then casually remark to the husband, "oh so have you got someone to clean the house while your wife is not here? she'll be happy to have a clean house to come back to. must tell her abt this woman."

and being a woman myself, i can say this much. i wld definitely want to know if my husband is fooling around. yes, it wld utterly break me up, but i also demand absolute honesty.

wld you want to know if your husband cheated on you?

that's the rule of thumb i go by.

males however, seem to work on a different principle. "if she doesn't know abt it, it can't hurt her."

[nikki m]

I'm with your husband on this point.  If you tell her and she's not ready to do anything then YOU not him will be the bad guy and if she does leave him for his affair then YOU will still be seen as the bad guy I'm afraid who helped break up a happy home.  Just IMHO but I certainly don't envy you..  Good luck with your situation.

[PaulN]

Listen to your hubby and MYOB.  They both will hate you for being a busybody.

The impulse to help is strong, I would have it too.  The fact remains, their private life is not yours to meddle in unless they invite you to do so...then at your own risk.

[privacy]

Neighbours should really mind their own business. Unless the woman is your best friend, don't even consider bringing it up.

And stop spying on your neighbours. It's really annoying.

[jeb]

Another vote for MYOB unless the woman is a very close friend of yours and you have discussed such topics in the past.  Even then, it may be better to MYOB.

[BTDT]

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.  Your intervention will not be welcomed by anyone!

[This message has been edited by BoardManager (edited 01-08-2001).]

[tell it like it is]

I may be going off track here but i would like to share my story with you.
Here goes, well to start with i have been living in Singapore for seven years. For the first year my husband worked in another Asian country. I visited him a couple of times and got to know a lot of people who spent time with my husband when i was not there. One friend i made told me that my husband had been seeing a local woman when i was not around,she told me that she had a lot of sleepless nights wondering whether to tell me or not. The point i am trying to make is that i am glad that i was told about it, even though when it all came out into the open it was the most sad and lonely time of my life but If i had not known about it i am sure it would have still been going on to this day. This is only my own experience but i was relieved to be told as i had my doubts about my husband. I wanted to know because i suspected that something was going on and when i was told about it i felt a sense of relief. That last sentence about feeling relief when i finally knew for sure  may sound strange, but it put an end to my wondering is he, isn't he all the time. If he was playing around then i had almost concrete evidence, i just had to pluck up the courage to confront my husband, and let me say that it took some guts to do this. After him denying it for hours and hours he finally told me the truth and at that moment i was relieved to know the truth. A friend had told me about it and it must have taken some guts because both her and her husband were good friends of ours. This was going on for a year without me knowing about it.I was enraged when he did admit to it. I went searching for the other woman as she was in the same area as we were. I laugh now because we were on  a small island with very erratic power, so when i went stomping out looking to find the other woman there was very little power and no street lights, i was not concerned as all i had in my mind at that point was to find this marriage wrecker and confront her.   God knows what i would have said to her, or done to her, all i remember is that i really wanted her to know what damage she had done to my children and myself.I am not the most patient person in the world and i honestly think that i would have just gone for her had i set eyes upon her, think i would have throttled her if she were close by at the moment when my husband admitted he had been unfaithful, but really i just wanted  answers as to why she wanted my husband and the father to my children. I did not find her, i learnt that she had left the place, but unbeknownst to me i had met her previously in the local restaurant, i had even said hello to her and was none the wiser that she was giving my husband one when i wasn't around!( sorry to be so crude.) boy, she must have been laughing her socks off to see her lovers wife being so pleasant to her.
I better cut this short and just say that i am relieved to have been told about another woman in my husbands life when i wasn't around. I think everyone is different so if you know the wife fairly well then i would tell her because she does have a right to know if her husband is messing around with other women when she is not there.
This is just my story. I am probably just one of the many expat women  here that have experienced finding out that their husbands has been unfaithful to them.
After the **** hit the fan, so to speak! my husband and i talked for days about why he did it, we still talk about it after four years. I can't blame the other woman wholly, but she was a big factor as she  knew from the start that he was married with children. I try so hard to trust my husband when he is working away, though i must admit it is hard sometimes. So i guess what i am trying to say is from my own experience, yes tell the woman if you are a friend of hers.  It may be totally innocent like a maid or work colleague. but casually mention it to her when she returns. I will say again that i am relieved to have been told that my husband had been cheating on me and i will be eternally grateful that my friend found the courage to tell me and she risked losing the friendship of my husband when she did tell me. I don't think any less of my friend for telling me, i am only glad she did tell me.
Whatever you decide you have to do what you think is right, and if it means telling your friend then do it, if i were you though i would find out the truth as she may be a work colleague or a friend that is close to the wife and it may be totally innocent but if this female has never been around when the wife has been there then maybe that's a sign that he is up to no good.
Whatever you do think twice before you come to a decision, but the wife does have a right to know if this female has been coming out of her house/apartment in the early hours of the morning.

[honesty]

i agree with TELL IT LIKE IT IS completely.

i would want to know if my husband has been cheating on me. or even if he hasn't been, then why is there a woman coming out of the house so early in the morning. it may or may not be entirely innocent, but i wld want to know.

my ex-boyfriend used to work all over the world (actually he still does). and he'd sleep around. he never had a serious relationship with anyone else, but fact is he did sleep around with other girls.

and when i found out (he told me himself, coz according to him he felt guilty abt it & also knew that he cldn't go on in the relationship anymore like that), i just felt like i'd been the biggest fool on this earth for believing & trusting him. and of course my heart is absolutely broken, coz this is one guy i still love till today.

but we have never stopped talking, and today we're very good friends, discussing almost everything under the sun, even screaming & fighting with each other, and emailing/calling each other a lot.

point i'm making is just telling your fren that her husband might be seeing someone else will not wreck her home/relationship.
(and you shld never see yrself as the wrecker... you're not, her husband is.)
if anything is wrong, then at least it creates the opportunity for them to be true & honest with each other.

within a relationship, there shld be no need for secrets, esp of this kind.

i think it's pointless to stay in a relationship that is not working anymore, and where one person has started to stray just coz 1)you have kids, 2)you've been together for so long, etc..

so honestly, it all depends.
how well do you know this friend? and do you think she'd wanna know?

personally i cldn't know that something like this is going on & yet sit still. that's really just like not giving a damn what goes on in the world ain't it?

yes it wld be a whole lot easier to just MYOB and ignore what's going on - which is why i guess so many pple have advised you to do that - but put yrself in this woman's shoes, wld you wanna know?

as an aside to TELL IT LIKE IT IS, one qn.
why do you blame the woman by saying that she knew that he was a married man with kids.
excuse me, but what abt your husband? didn't he know that he was a married man with kids??and yet, he went ahead and had an affair.. ?

too many times i think we tend to jump on the woman and say she lured him, etc.. but fact is, the guy has to consent to it too.
and if he doesn't agree to it, then nothing happens. it's not as if the woman tied the guy up & raped him. he can always say no and walk away right..??

[Saint Andrew]

I vehemently advise you to keep sthum about the whole incident.
I made the mistaske of blabbin' my mouth off in a similar stylee some time ago to a good friends best mate, who the relayed the saddening truth to the girlfriend.
after that moment, I was a marked man, and classed as a gossipmonger and an arsehole and needless to say we are no longer friends  

I understand your dilema (do I /dont I), it isnt going to make your life any better if you let the cat out.
I guarantee that if you do, neither of your neighbours will thank you, only class you as an interfeering old busybody.

Even if they are good friends, Their relationship past present and future is more important to them than you will ever be.
Turn a blind eye for your own sake if not theirs.

[a woman]

a toughie but obviously you're not great friends with these neighbours so you should keep mum. It's true that you'll be labelled a busybody otherwise and tho that alone shouldn't be a reason not to do the right thing, don't think you know these people well enough to suddenly become their best friend and help their marriage. If you were indeed close enough to them, it would be much better you speak to the husband quietly, not accusingly because that just would demonstrate irrationality and therefore a busy body not to be listened to. Remember that as a woman seeing another man appear to cheat on his wife takes on a "sisters ganging up against the bastards" air about it. If this were the other way around, would you still tell the not-knowing husband? BE prepared that, like the others said, his wife may end up turning around to bite you back, as part of her anger and bitterness and humiliation. If after considering all this you still fell it's worth it, then do it with a clear conscience

[Scouser]

She will probably find out for herself. Don't forget that sixth sense thing! Plus unless he's really smart (which I doubt)the chances are that he won't do a good clean up job and she will find tell tale signs and work it all out for herself.

[choco]

I definetely agree with Tell it like it is. It happened to me few years back that my best friend stole my ex and now they got married. I was so upset to find out only when they were about to get married, whereas my other friends had been knowing this for few months, but no one told me the story until the girl came to me and told me their plan. I was so disappointed about my friends which I thought it was kind that they agreed to the things that my ex best friend and ex boyfriend did with being quiet to me. It seemed that they were on their side.. not supporting me at all. I was so down at that time and stayed away from my friends, I was really mad coz I thought they were not true friends, just think about their own business and never care about friend's problem.

So the point here is that if you are a friend of the family, you better tell her what you saw without accusing that the girl is the gf of her husband. Just try to start the conversation by checking whether they have new maid or something like that.. I am sure you know how to bring the subject up nice and easy.

I also agree with Honesty that we should not put the blame completely on the girl.. it takes two to tango.. if the guy is faithful there would not be things like this happened. I did blame my ex best friend 100%.. but I did blame my ex 100% too. They were really not worthy people in this world.

[been there]

Seems you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.  A friend of mine told someone her husband was cheating on her and was virtually ostracised from the very small expat community we were living in at the time.  

Put yourself in the wife's shoes.  Would you want to be told?  And maybe have a friendship destoyed in the process?

Least said, soonest mended

Anyway, these things have a habit of working out ... one guy I know had a girlfriend who phoned his wife and told her to leave the country as she was "spoiling their relationship" - lovely, eh?

[Gurke]

Sorry leave it like it is.....

Even if everybody screams now, especailly females, we all don't know what she is doing in her free time? Do we?

I mean, to the fact that men cheat (of course not all of them).... to do so we need two hands. And please don't tell me the other "hand" are all singles, without boyfriend/withoud husband.

To brighten you up. I would say that most of the time "ONE DAY" it will come out that he is a bastard.

But I aggree tha't a very difficult position.