Cheaters Anonymous — To Tell Or Not To Tell

Hey hey, Reni J here serving you today’s Dialogue. Hope your week has been good to you so far. :D

Ever since Marilyn’s amazing short story, I’ve been watching Gabrielle Union’s show “Being Mary Jane” and I must say there seems to be a million and one talking points in that show. But I wouldn’t spoil it for you… Okay, I will, a little bit, but not more than necessary. The show is full of the usual drama; teenage pregnancy, workaholic girl, crazy friends and of course, affairs. Ahh affairs, no TV show would be complete without at least one of these in some form. Affairs are not uncommon in today’s world both in TV shows and in the real world too and even though there are so many ways people fall into affairs, there seems to be two very common scenarios. Stay with me, let’s explore.

First Scenario: Girl meets guy, they hook up a couple of times and maybe go on a couple of dates, girl falls in love, guy falls in love, girl finds out guy is married/in a serious relationship but is already in too deep.

Second Scenario: Girl meets married/guy in serious relationship, sleeps with him a couple of times under the guise of “just sex”, falls in love, guy falls in love and says all the right things about leaving his partner, affair continues.

(Both scenarios are from the female perspective but we all know things also happen the other way around)

To all the guys out there don’t be put off yet, we need your input today and of course there are plenty of married women having affairs; we concluded on that way back after Toolsman put up this post. The truth is, it doesn’t really matter which way it happened or who is doing the cheating, the fact is a committed man or woman is having an affair without the knowledge of their partner. Obviously.

So back to the “Being Mary Jane” storyline, the main character, Mary Jane, is unwittingly in an affair with a married man and on finding out feels the need to go and inform his wife, yes his wife, of the affair. I had such a “You go girl!” moment when the wife responded to the news with a very simple question;

“So what would you like me to do with this information?”

I could have hi-5’d her through the screen; in fact I think I tried to. Now I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now and wondering to myself, what good reason could there ever be for telling the wife of the affair? I honestly have no good answer so far.

As a scorned woman who was made a mistress unknowingly, I can understand how the shock can make one irrational. Mary Jane claims she did it so that she could expose the married man and make his wife see that her husband is not who she thinks. I think she also did it to clear her own guilty conscience on some level, as if being the first to tell somehow makes her seem like a better person. Even though she still sleeps with him after she found out he was married because she’s “in too deep”. Personally, I loved the response she got because the revelation was unnecessary, she had no point and no reason. Sometimes I’m not even sure that the cheater needs to inform their partner of the affair. Ever. My view is simple, why tell if you have no intention of stopping? You’re just causing the person unnecessary heartbreak, especially if you have little thought about ending the relationship. If you’ve already ended the affair and didn’t get caught? Why still tell? Pretending that it’s because you want to be honest when you know it’s just so you can drop the heavy load in your chest on somebody else.

Well, I’m going to try and be a little more balanced in the view of being fair to both parties. It is very possible, however unlikely, that the mistress would feel the need to tell the wife because she truly believes he’s a bad person on some level. Maybe she can’t stand to see the wife being fooled and living in oblivion when she knows the truth. Some other mistresses just want to even out the playing field and snatch the husband in broad daylight. She doesn’t care if anyone else is getting hurt or losing sleep. As for the adulterer that cheated, perhaps they really did want a clean slate and honestly believed that complete honesty was the only way to go.

I’m curious to read what you guys think, so my question for everyone today is: Have you ever been involved in an affair? If so, did you consider telling the partner of the person you were cheating with and why? If you were the unsuspecting husband/wife would you want to know of the affair? You know the drill, express yourself below. Oh and don’t forget, anonymous comments are more than welcome.