Moral obligation to tell husband of wife's attempted adultery?

[EasterJoy]

No, your husband does not have a moral obligation to tell a wronged party, even a close friend, that someone else, even the wronged person’s wife, sinned against the wronged party. He also has no moral obligation to remain silent about it, either, however. She has no right to expect him to cover for her.

I think he would do best to consider the Golden Rule, and act accordingly. That requires discernment of parties involved that I can’t have, so I can’t say what I would do if I were your husband.

Were I myself in a similar situation–that is, feeling I needed to put distance between myself and a friend for reasons that the friend could not know and was not responsible for–I’d probably arrange to meet B for lunch, and let him know I’d like to talk to him alone, without C.

Then I would disclose what “seemed to me” to be seductive behavior on her part, making it clear that she did not bluntly proposition me. Then let him make of that piece of information what he will, but explain that this is the reason that I do not under any circumstances want to be left alone with his wife and that in an ideal world I would avoid her altogether. Since C obviously knew that your husband was married, her behavior was an offense against you, the absent wife, and would have been an offense against you even if C had been single. On that account, I would also point out that for obvious reasons my wife does not want me spending time with his wife, a wish I intend to honor, but that I wanted B to know the reason for my change in behavior.

IOW, I would tell your husband to explain to his friend that while your husband wants to remain close with him, he has what he feels is good reason not to want to spend time with his wife. While B is free to consider this all a big misunderstanding, he has to understand that his friend, your husband, interpreted her actions otherwise, and that there are natural consequences when you give a married man reason to believe you’re willing to make moves on him.

Your husband might lose his friend, at least for a time, but he was ready to put in distance, anyway. Your husband does not have to make any rash judgments (or even any reasonable judgments) about C’s intentions, but only has to say that he does not feel comfortable around her.

Still, if your husband does not want to report the incident, there is no moral compulsion to do it. He may not lie to his friend if his friend asks point blank, but since a) he did nothing wrong and b) has only his interpretation of C’s actions and not a blunt proposition from her, does not have “evidence to convict” that he’d be duty-bound to turn over if asked. If asked, he may not lie and say that there was never anything that gave him any concerns. He may not morally give a misleading answer. He may morally elect not to answer the question. Still, his friend will wonder why the relationship cooled, and it is fair to give him an answer. I think the wisest and kindest road to all involved (including you) includes all three: avoiding rash judgment against C, being truthful to B about this new unwillingness to be around C, and prudently honoring your wish that your husband strictly stays away from C.

 

[EasterJoy]

Nope nope nope. It is most definitely not your DH’s place to say anything, and if he does, it will do more harm than good. She has plausible deniability, and she intentionally went just far enough that she would. Your husband will look like an insane, bitter liar once his friend’s wife is done telling her version of things. Think about it, if B is any kind of husband, he will listen to his wife over his friend.

Now what your husband does have a moral obligation to do is stay the heck away from C. Your husband is a married man and it is his responsibility to stay completely away from women who behave inappropriately towards him. He doesn’t need to announce to B why, but he does need to avoid social situations where she will be present. If he’s over at B’s house again and she comes home, he needs to quickly leave and coldly say hello to her on his way out. If asked, he should never say more than ‘I just don’t feel comfortable around her anymore’ to his friend. If pressed he can say “Look, I don’t feel comfortable around her anymore. It isn’t my place to get into it, but I just can’t spend time with her”. Not only is that the right thing for your husband to do by his marriage, it will make far more of an impression on B if he knows that suddenly his best friend doesn’t feel comfortable around his wife but no one is willing to verbalize why.

It isn’t the place of this friend to throw around wild accusations or rash judgments, but it is absolutely his place to describe how he remembers and interprets an incident that is going to totally change the conditions of his friendship with someone. The alternative, after all, is to change the conditions without anything like a sufficient explanation.

You are totally right that the husband would be unwise to say, “Your wife tried to seduce me!!” That is not the same as if the husband merely says, “Your wife acted in a way such that I’m not comfortable being alone with her anymore. To be frank, I’d rather avoid being around her at all. She made me that uncomfortable. Maybe I’m over-reacting, maybe your wife sees the incident very differently, but my wife feels the same way that I do, and I’ve decided to respect my own intuition and my wife’s sense of the situation. I am not willing to spend any time at all alone with your wife and it is my preference to avoid spending time with her at all. Doing anything as two couples is out of the question. This is what I’ve decided; I hope you understand. If not, well, it can’t be helped, because I’m not going ignore my own sense of the situation and offend my own wife in order to avoid offending yours.”

Those are not the words of an insane, bitter liar. Those are the words of a man who is careful with his own chastity and with his wife’s feelings. Whoever doesn’t like that is no friend to his marriage, and therefore no friend to him.

 

[EasterJoy]

I would get behind this if the husband was convinced he had *witnessed *the wife trying to seduce someone else–for instance, if he had seen her with a strange man in a bar, and the two seemed unaware he had seen them. In contrast, what he experienced was an offense against him and against the OP. That makes it his business and his wife’s business, too. It is going to affect his friendship with one of his oldest and dearest friends. That alone makes it his friend’s business. What his friend does with that information is up to the friend. We can’t control everything.

 

[Boy_Wonder]

I told DH to try to maintain his friendship, keep his mouth shut, let them work out their own marital drama, and just be there for B whatever happens. I also told him I am no longer comfortable with him going to their house and that while I trust him, I do not want him to ever, ever, ever be alone with her again. Really just to avoid any appearance of impropriety and any possible cause of doubt for everyone.

DH isn’t sure what he’s going to do but he’s very sad thinking he lost his friend because of his friends wife’s behavior.

Does DH have a moral obligation to tell B? Should he end the friendship, tell what happened and see if it does any good, or keep his mouth shut, stay friends, and avoid C as much as possible? (His avoid C plan is to meet B for lunch or whatever at a neutral location without C present, which I think would eventually fail because C is known to either come with B or randomly show up where B is when she gets bored.)

You were right. DH shouldn’t tell B. Desperate people do desperate things. C may worry that B loves DH more than he loves her so she wants to fracture the DH/B relationship by having a fling with DH. Simple jealousy. She may also sense the marriage is finished and that this would push it over the edge.

It’s sad. Best to keep his distance.

 

[EasterJoy]

You were right. DH shouldn’t tell B. Desperate people do desperate things. C may worry that B loves DH more than he loves her so she wants to fracture the DH/B relationship by having a fling with DH. Simple jealousy. She may also sense the marriage is finished and that this would push it over the edge.

It’s sad. Best to keep his distance.

It is one way to go. The problem is that it is difficult to enforce the “punishment” of avoiding a friend without giving any explanation why.

This situation does not have an easy answer, save that the OPs husband is very wise to refuse any contact, especially one-on-one contact, with C.

 

[MJJean]

We’re still hashing out what to do and how to handle things. We’ve been busy, so we haven’t had time to talk very much these last few days as my DH is a truck driver and needs to sleep 5-6 hours minimum to be able to drive safely. So, if it’s either sleep or talk we have to choose sleep.

I’ll let everyone know what DH decides to do when I know.

Honestly, at this point, I am sort of hoping he decides to just avoid them both altogether.

 

[HouseArrest]

It is one way to go. The problem is that it is difficult to enforce the “punishment” of avoiding a friend without giving any explanation why.

This situation does not have an easy answer, save that the OPs husband is very wise to refuse any contact, especially one-on-one contact, with C.

They only see each other a few times a year. It would not be that difficult to arrange meeting somewhere other than the friend’s home for those few times, and would not cause any suspicion by the friend. Really, no explanation is necessary.

 

[CatholicSheila]

I wouldn’t tell if it has only happened once.

I’ve had a married women kiss me. She was lonely and starved for affection. I practically ran away from her. I didn’t tell her husband. It honestly didn’t even occur to me. I simply pretended it never happened. Had it occurred a second time, I may have said something. It never did.

5 years later they’re still married. They’ve gotten help and they’ve sorted out their problems. That would have been a lot harder to do had I mentioned the kiss.

Unless I saw a pattern of behaviour, all I’d do is encourage counselling. Which is my standard advice whenever someone tells me about their marriage prob;ems.

 

[EasterJoy]

They only see each other a few times a year. It would not be that difficult to arrange meeting somewhere other than the friend’s home for those few times, and would not cause any suspicion by the friend. Really, no explanation is necessary.

Your husband knows his friend. As far as I know, there is not an automatic moral obligation to tell nor a moral obligation to hide the information. Deciding how to balance the husband’s right to know of his wife’s offenses against their marriage against the good of remaining discretely silent about the faults of others is something I’d suggest is better for your husband to discern. I think it is a good thing if he confides in you (provided you are discrete around people who know the parties involved) and takes this to prayer.

He might decide to put some distance in for a time, since it can be accomplished discretely, and then start with a clean slate later on. I would not forget that the wife has shown she might prove to be weak or even a near occasion of sin, but I agree with those who suggest this could have been a momentary lapse that happened under a stress that the marriage might weather and grow beyond. If your husband puts some distance for just a time, you may get to the point where he will have difficulty believing that the incident ever happened.

I wouldn’t tell if it has only happened once.

I’ve had a married women kiss me. She was lonely and starved for affection. I practically ran away from her. I didn’t tell her husband. It honestly didn’t even occur to me. I simply pretended it never happened. Had it occurred a second time, I may have said something. It never did.

5 years later they’re still married. They’ve gotten help and they’ve sorted out their problems. That would have been a lot harder to do had I mentioned the kiss.

Unless I saw a pattern of behaviour, all I’d do is encourage counselling. Which is my standard advice whenever someone tells me about their marriage prob;ems.

We can’t know what would have happened, if you had told. For all you know, she disclosed her offense privately to her husband and they have worked for her to regain his trust since then. Work like that has been known to heal both the precipitating wound and other serious wounds that were being ignored.

Still, I think you have a very good point. Once told, the offense cannot go untold again. Other than refusing to lie about the incident in order to hide it, concealing that kind of knowledge can be the best course.

OP, warn your husband of this: sometimes this kind of incident will mean so much less to the offender than to the one offended that only the one offended will even remember it, after many years have passed. This is particularly true if the offender goes from being a habitual over-flirt to a more careful person. The “over-flirt” will have forgotten most of the over-flirting he or she did, because it wouldn’t have registered as anything special or even as a serious come-on at the time. (Come on, admit it: We all have things that our family says we did as children that we don’t want to ever believe we really did. We know our siblings did certain less-than-praiseworthy things that they now deny up and down that they ever did, too. Well, maybe they remember themselves with more affection than we do. Our memories become sanitized, as time goes by. It is human nature.)

 

[SuperLuigi]

Does DH have a moral obligation to tell B? Should he end the friendship, tellwhat happened and see if it does any good, or keep his mouth shut, stay friends, and avoid C as much as possible? (His avoid C plan is to meet B for lunch or whatever at a neutral location without C present, which I think would eventually fail because C is known to either come with B or randomly show up where B is when she gets bored.)

Anytime you ask on here “is there an obligation to do XYZ” in situation like this, it’s best to talk to a priest. These kinds of questions tend to get a variety of opinions, and I’m not so sure that’s very helpful.

Understand that in the Catholic Faith, an obligation can be serious. That word should not be taken lightly.

Sometimes, it’s not always the best option.

Spouses who have had affairs have said their Confessors have told them they do not have an obligation to disclose it. Another user on here said she wish she had never found out.

 

[MJJean]

DH has made a decision. He’s decided he will not tell B and that he will also not contact B and/or C and that he will not respond to contact initiated by them.

DH says that while examining his friendship with B he has realized that B really has no interest in making his situation better and that he has opened his eyes to certain behavior patterns over the last decade plus that are concerning. B has also been very lazy these last few years when it comes to maintaining the friendship and left DH to do most of the heavy lifting.

So, I guess all that’s left is for us to say a prayer fr B and C and for their marriage.