Couple months ago I met a woman who works at a dispensary I visit about once a week. We hit it off really well. Despite trying to just keep it casual sex, and that only, I ended up developing some feelings for her. She confessed the same to me. I even introduced her to my teenaged daughter, for fucks sake.
I ran into her this evening at a gas station, with another guy, who turns out to be her husband. They’ve been married five years, and have two children together, ages 4 and 2. Finding out they have kids just made me feel disgusting.
So, I told him. He didnt believe me until I described a tattoo in a somewhat intimate place on her body. I had no fucking clue she was married. I think I ruined someone’s marriage. Or at least took part in ruining one.
I feel guilty. I am sorry for what I participated in. Am I a bad person?
agree. honestly this thread stinks of patriarchal myopia and frankly, gleeful misogyny.
there is a non-trivial chance that this woman now gets battered because of OP. he could have not acted emotionally and taken steps to ensure that wasn't a possibility.
blaming the woman for the theoretical actions of her theoretically murderous husband, nice. not engaging with this misogynistic nonsense. tbh women in cishet relationships cheating is basically nbd anyway, couldn't care less.
women in cishet relationships cheating is basically nbd anyway
C'mon.
Stalin definitely fucked though
Also, no offense but please, touch grass and consider the human element of things. Cheating generally sucks but there's a whole world of circumstances out there (many of which are far more common than you'd like to know) which would excuse or even justify it in varying degrees, and even if we're to assume uncharitable things, they're still human beings (who have messed up in doing very human things).
Idk, I've been in pretty controlling abusive situations and it's taken me a long time to be open about them, even to my therapists. I don't think that's a level of duplicity that means my abuser is right for abusing me. That sort of situation makes a person cagey as hell and terrified of losing any social connections outside of the abusive relationship.
It might be nothing, maybe the couple actually do this all the time and nothing untoward is happening at all, but it happens often enough that it's worth not jumping the gun.
Talking about this in terms of social contract theory is really sidestepping the morality of the issue. Would you say that her lying entitles OP to punch her in the face? Surely not, two wrongs don't make a right, punitive justice is bad, etc. What OP should do is investigate the issue with her not because she "gets to" tell her side or has a right to, but because he doesn't know what the consequences of telling the husband would be. For all he knows, the husband is abusive and would beat her for this transgression, transgression though it is. The most likely outcome is, of course, that the husband is not abusive, but the most likely outcome of a round of Russian roulette is that you go unharmed. In either case, there is a real risk that is severe enough that it's worth checking, even if it's substantially less likely.
That only makes sense if you completely discount the husband as a moral patient. While I'm arguing that he's been slightly over-emphasized, I am by no means discounting him and in most possible scenarios believe he should be informed. If he has no history known to his wife of probably 4+ years of being an abuser to her or others as far as she knows, it's pretty unlikely that he is. Making the decision to not tell him anyway on the very, very unlikely chance that he, as a historically normal dude, snaps and blows her head off with a shotgun, is completely discounting the guaranteed outcome of him being wronged by being left in the dark about this.
you should have confronted her personally first. you definitely got ahead of yourself and overstepped. you acted emotionally without considering the possible repercussions.
the chorus of he/hims in this thread positively relishing the idea of this woman getting punished by her husband for her actions and not even stopping to think about the possible violent repercussions of OPs actions is honestly disturbing. people cheat for all variety of reasons. many of them, especially for women, are justified. hate when this site shows its
roots so plainly.Honestly hadn't thought of it like that. And after reading some more of details OP provided in the replies, especially the fact that she was making a big deal about him approaching, makes it seem like there was some legitimate fear on her part of some sort of reprecussion.
I just hope others take your, and other women's, perspective on this and learn something. Admittedly I figure being honest about an affair with the person that is being cheated on seems like a good thing on the surface, but it also completely devalues the woman and the situation they may have been in prior to cheating.
so she deserves whatever's coming to her basically because of that moral infraction/strategic error? real nice. top male minds of hexbear showing their whole fucking asses in this thread. you're fucking gross.
no justification? what about circumstances of abuse? cishet relationships are an uneven power dynamic. plenty of women out there with varying degrees of asshole husbands who they feel coerced into staying with for economic reasons or because of fear. that is how the dynamic manifests in many cases. you come across ignorant and thoughtless acting like ending a relationship is always such a simple act. this is Christian morality nonsense, non-dialectical thinking and basically doing a generalised form of victim blaming tbh. "just leave him" smh. expect a more thought out response from a woman.
If you fear your partner will be violent towards you, you need to leave.
more victim blaming individualist misogynistic nonsense. you suck. why are you even on a Marxist feminist website if you believe this shit? do better.
I really read "mermaid woman" and was saddened when that didn't enter the story but unintentionally being made partner to infidelity did
My friends call me a loser
'Cause I'm still hanging around
I've heard so many rumors
That I'm just a girl that you bang on your couch
I thought you thought of me better
Someone you couldn't lose
You said, "We're not together"
So now when we kiss, I have anger issues
I'd be so afraid of the guy getting mad at me and getting physical
thankfully that burden will now be borne entirely by his wife.
...kinda shocked a woman doesn't see how bad this is
This, 100%. u/Feinsteins_Ghost, if you have any doubts, you should probably at least check in on her to see if she's fine.
I had assumed that if he didn't get mad enough to beat her right there and then after hearing the news he wouldn't get any more mad and beat her later
Now that I actually think about it yea, this is a completely wrong assumption
I don't know how cheaters and physical abusers think lol
Many totally messed up/dysfunctional people know how to keep a good face on for the public, and/or even have a particular preoccupation with doing so. My family, growing up as a kid, definitely was one such example- and eventually facades tend to break, but it can take years. Hopefully this isn't one such case, but you never know.
IMO- something I learnt from others (as I used to be pissed if someone tried to lie to me)- not all lies are done with malice. Her lies hurt the husband, not OP.
They're not responsible for keeping the secrets, sure. But we also don't know her circumstances (clearly OP didn't either, if they only found out she was married now). You can feel vindicated that the "cheater/liar got punished," or whatever, but I imagine you'd feel different if OP posts in the future saying next time they see her she has a black eye (or it's in the news she was killed or something), now wouldn't you?
Personally I'd have confronted her about it and asked first. And personally- coming from a seriously fucked up family upbringing myself- not all marriages, "even with kids" (sometimes especially with kids) should exist, some are a curse on everyone involved. I'd have thought most people nowadays can understand that on some level, in such spaces in particular.
I do agree with this general sentiment, I've been in a cursed, abusive relationship and cheated on them (though not to the point of sex) because at the time I was being quite explicitly threatened and coerced into staying in that relationship. If I had been found out, it would not have looked pretty; OTOH cheating like that was a major step in giving me the confidence to leave.
I have no idea what the woman's circumstances were, but I agree they could've been very complicated and not as black/white as it seems.
At the same time, I also don't think it's fair to claim her lies didn't hurt the OP, and I don't think OP is a bad person. I wouldn't have blamed the other person if it had happened in my circumstances. I can 100% understand why a person might cheat (obviously, as I've done it), but if you betray a person's trust, especially the one who actually hasn't wronged you at all, then it's not unfair or unreasonable for them to react negatively, nor to assume the other person should find out too.
Personally, I'd do the same as you. But it is an understandably murky moral sea, and I'm not sure any answers are 100% right. Not confronting it there and then could mean OP just gets lied to more.
Good point, in regards to that her lies did hurt OP (unintentional as that may have been). FWIW I didn't think OP is a bad person, it was a difficult situation and in the heat of the moment, I can't claim that I would have necessarily acted differently (hell, I'd say I genuinely used to be a bad, or overly spiteful/vengeful/malicious person about such things).
My comment wasn't written as, or intended as a judgement of OP's character (which wouldn't be defined by just one thing, hell, "good" people can do "bad" things), that said. I just wanted to bring up what everyone else here seemed to have not considered- what I'd like to think I'd do, if I approached things from a calm and collected manner, and the insights that I've had shared with me from others (not always taking lies personally definitely wasn't something I learnt myself).
There's all sorts of reasons why someone could cheat, or even (highly circumstantial and uncommon) reasons why someone should cheat. And seeing all the comments moralizing about always outing or condemning cheaters also just put a bad taste in my mouth (as someone who's never cheated, myself- though coming from the childhood I did, I can't claim possessiveness/exclusivity matters in the slightest to me).
For sure. I agree with everything you've said here, and fully appreciate you bringing up those points. Cheating comes with a context and complex circumstances that don't make things so clear cut.
And personally- coming from a seriously fucked up family upbringing myself- not all marriages, "even with kids" (sometimes especially with kids) should exist, some are a curse on everyone involved. I'd have thought most people nowadays can understand that on some level, in such spaces in particular.
In my family's fucked up marriages, cheating is almost always the violation that sends the whole thing spinning - no abuse needed. My parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle, in-law grandparents were all destroyed by one side choosing to cheat.
Neither of my parents cheated, as far as I know (and if they had, good chances are I'd have known). They just tortured each other (and the kids) for a decade, while spiraling deeper into certain Catholic mindsets/circles and quiverfull-adjacent nonsense. And then they tortured each other for the better part of yet another decade (taking several years to properly divorce despite being separated, having a long, drawn-out divorce which only further ruined their already long-since ruined lives).
Not invalidating your own experiences here, but it's a big world out there, and there's probably just as many out there with experiences like mine as with yours. As a kid my parents' separation (nasty and destructive as it was) was still a relief, and when it was finalized with a divorce it was all the better. Some things (or many) are simply cursed from the onset.
Assuming OP was right, I'd frame it more as his having an obligation to the husband as a human being making the choice correct rather than as a lack of obligation to the wife making the choice indifferent. We should be trying to make the world better, not carefully demarcating the bounds of social contracts so we can find out exactly where we're allowed to do as much harm as we feel like.
But I also think SadArtemis is right that OP, to put it charitably, got ahead of himself
