Should I tell my friend his wife has been cheating on him?

Dear Coleen

Ten years ago I had an extra-marital affair that resulted in the breakdown of my marriage.

I’d been married for 20 years and it was a raw time for everyone concerned but, over time, things settled down.

One casualty, however, was my best friend because his wife sided with my wife and my friend was, quite frankly, too weak to go against her decision.

Before the break-up we were inseparable, enjoying holidays together, entertaining at our homes and spending Christmases together.

I also turned a blind eye to my friend’s wife’s frequent affairs, which I knew about but, for the sake of our friendship, never mentioned.

She was unaware that I knew, so I suppose she was allowed to behave quite sanctimoniously and able to transfer whatever guilt she felt about her affairs on to my infidelity.

She refused to talk to me and banned her husband from seeing me again.

So imagine my surprise when I recently caught this same woman engaging openly in very intimate behaviour in a secluded booth of an out-of-town coffee shop.

Over the next few weeks I saw her and her lover more and more and during a particularly intense kissing session I decided to introduce myself.

Understandably, she went ashen and was very defensive and embarrassed. It transpired that she and her ‘friend’ (a married man with a two-year-old child) had been having an affair for two years and everyone else knew about it except her husband and my ex-wife.

She begged me not to say anything to him because she said it would ‘break his heart’.

The trouble is I’m sorely tempted because of the way she treated me for doing the same thing and because I still consider her husband to be a friend.

Should I tell him, knowing that it would destroy him and allow me the satisfaction of getting my own back on his wife?

Or, should I be the better person and just be there for him in case this affair doesn’t fizzle out and she leaves him?

Coleen says

Wow, talk about double standards – what a nerve!

Look, I understand how tempting it is to spill the beans, so you can get revenge on this hypocrite of a woman, but that’s not the right reason to do it.

Yes, you’ve got nothing to lose by telling her husband – you lost his friendship 10 years ago.

But it shouldn’t be a case of tit for tat, tell him because he was once your best mate and you don’t want to see him get hurt.

However, don’t do it expecting him to suddenly become best friends with you again – it might be a case of shooting the messenger!

Plus she could claim you’re lying and only saying these things because you’re bitter they took your wife’s side all those years ago. If your mate is as weak as he sounds, he’ll probably believe her.

If you decide against telling him, perhaps you could speak to his wife to at least try to get some closure on those unresolved feelings of anger from a decade ago.

However, it sounds like you’ve moved on, and, if I were you, I’d be inclined to forget you ever saw them canoodling and keep moving on.

What are your views?