I Should Clarify: Ratting out a philandering co-worker
It’s funny, the columns that get people fired up.
Maybe it was the eye-catching photo of a lipstick-stained shirt collar (shout out to Monique in the WaPo photo department), or the bite-sized headline: “My co-worker is cheating on his wife. Should I tell her?” But comments came fast and furious on my response to the reader who stumbled upon a steamy supply-closet scenario at work (1700 at last count — a slow Tuesday for Carolyn Hax, but I’ll take it).
The topic was slightly outside my workplace wheelhouse, but I figured it would make a light snack for a week when everyone would no doubt be glutted on headlines about Kamala Harris and Snoop Dogg taking up torches and the GOP VP nominee definitely not humping couches.
Turns out, readers always have room for a little more scandal.
Responses were divided between two camps: Hell Yes Rat His Ass Out, and Hell No MYOB. Plus, of course, the usual contingent of readers roasting me for wasting too many words explaining a no-brainer.
Pro Ratting
Most if not all the readers strongly in favor of telling the wife had been in her shoes. Their spouses had cheated on them, and they were humiliated not just by the infidelity, but by being the last ones to know about it, sometimes after decades. And as they pointed out, the cheating husband is potentially exposing his wife to STDs — all the more heinous in this case because he and his wife were reportedly in the process of trying to get her pregnant with their second baby.
I get it. As I said, letting the wife remain ignorant in that situation doesn’t satisfy my sense of justice. If she were my sister/mom/daughter/friend, I would 100% find a way to say, hey, I saw something, I don’t feel right not letting you know about it, and I have a tarp and shovel and alibi at your disposal should you need them.
But those are people for whom I have only the purest motive: to love, support, and protect, whatever form that takes. It gets murkier the further removed I am. I do believe we all have an obligation to look out for one another and have each other’s back. But sometimes we don’t know enough to know what having someone’s back looks like.
There was a time in my life when being cheated on would have been the worst dealbreaker imaginable. Nowadays I see it more as a symptom of bigger fundamental issues (including, sometimes, the issue that you’re with a lying shitheel who doesn’t care about your feelings or your health). This isn’t to say I think cheating’s okie-dokie artichokie — just that it’s only one of many ways to know you’re in a shitty marriage.
I know, my whole “maybe they have a don’t ask/don’t tell arrangement” line sounds like mealymouthed weaksauce. But the more long-term couples I know, the less far-fetched it seems. Long-term commitment looks different for different people.
And, full disclosure, I’ve been in an open relationship* before. I had to confirm that fact for someone who, as we warmed from acquaintances to friends, wanted to come clean about a past incident when my then-partner had politely but fruitlessly propositioned her. I already knew, of course. I did appreciate her saying something — but I wouldn’t have blamed her for keeping mum back when she barely knew me. (Hell, maybe I should have been the one to give her a heads-up in advance, to spare her the worry. There’s no etiquette manual for this stuff.)
I also know personally of more than one long-suffering housewife from my mother’s generation for whom the humiliation of being “unknowingly” married to a serial philanderer was less of a burden than the humiliation of everyone knowing that she knew, and tutting at her about what she should do about it.
Not your farm, not your pig
And then there were the folks who agreed the LW was better staying out of it.
I hate to split hairs with people who agree with me, but I wouldn’t sum up my reasoning as “it’s none of your business.” There are times when bearing witness to something that might be labeled “none of your business” is unquestionably right.
But any would-be Samaritans laboring under the just-world fallacy should be duly warned that, at best, they’re unlikely to be thanked for intervening. At worst, they may encounter blowback — from the coworkers, the wife, or even the employer — completely out of proportion to their degree of involvement. I’m not one to urge people to volunteer for the role of red-shirt messenger.
To reiterate: Betrayed partners have all my sympathy. I do think they deserve to know their partners are violating their trust and endangering their health. I’m just less certain that it’s a bare acquaintance’s place to tell them.
I also understand why people want to scold the reluctant witness for their inaction, or me for endorsing it. Presumably that’s more feasible, and feels more like doing something, than focusing blame and shame on the one person who knows the whole truth and has every moral obligation to confess it to his wife.
*Some open relationships are healthy expressions of a polyamorous lifestyle. Some are signs of a primary relationship in its death throes. Mine was the latter.
