Does someone have a right to know they are being cheated on?

[Autumnleaf]

If their life is great and they feel great about it, should they still be told they are being cheated on if it will wreck everything?

 

[Jade Margery]

Define 'right'.

 

[***Jamey***]

If their life is great and they feel great about it, should they still be told they are being cheated on if it will wreck everything?

I notice you are married. If your wife was cheating on you, would you like to know? Why/why not?

 

[Wayte]

Happiness gained thorugh ignorance is naught but a lie. It would be worng not to tell them, so they can move on sooner and find somebody who will do right by them.

 

[Autumnleaf]

I notice you are married. If your wife was cheating on you, would you like to know? Why/why not?

Of course I would, because I am one vindictive individual.

 

[sphsjags]

I currently have two friends who are together. He is apparently cheating on her. I'm better friends with her and I've wondered whether it's the right thing to tell her about it.

 

[Verv]

No one has the right to know anything.

This is all evolution, baby, and if I can secretly slip my reproductive cells into someone else's wife and my DNA lives on, and they have to raise my son thinking it is theirs, I am the winner....

---

But no, really, why wouldn't you tell someone that they are in a bad situation?

If I am getting CHEATED ON, I want to know.

Wouldn't you want to know?

So why wouldn't you tell them?

"Ohhhh ITS NOT MY BUSINESS IF THIS GUY/GIRL IS IN A WORLD OF CRAP! Better not help my neighbor out because I am a Libertarian everymanfor himself kinda guy..."

Yeah, OK, really nice of you, dude, to observe my wife humiliating me behind my back and proceed forth as if it is not your business that I my Existence is being undermined and disrespected.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I don't think that there is any absolute duty on the part of others to inform someone they are being cheated on. I'm not claiming the reverse -- that one has an absolute duty to refuse to meddle. This is a difficult judgment to make at the best of times, and it could go either way.

As a rule of thumb, I would recommend not meddling, since an indiscretion may be impulsive and temporary, and the guilty party may regret the indiscretion and resolve to make the original relationship work. Once the partner learns about the indiscretion, the relationship is likely doomed with no chance of repair.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Jade Margery]

I don't think that there is any absolute duty on the part of others to inform someone they are being cheated on. I'm not claiming the reverse -- that one has an absolute duty to refuse to meddle. This is a difficult judgment to make at the best of times, and it could go either way.

As a rule of thumb, I would recommend not meddling, since an indiscretion may be impulsive and temporary, and the guilty party may regret the indiscretion and resolve to make the original relationship work. Once the partner learns about the indiscretion, the relationship is likely doomed with no chance of repair.


eudaimonia,

Mark

This. It's a judgement call. Yes, most everyone would say that they would want to know if they were being cheated on. But since when do people want what's good for them?

I look at this from the perspective of a member of a small town where my mother knows everyone and everyone knows her and everyone tells her their dirty little secrets, because she is so good at keeping them and never tells anyone except me, because I now live two hundred miles away and I don't have anybody to tell.

And let me tell you, more bed hopping happens in small, quiet towns than you would ever believe. A lot of people have small affairs, and it often doesn't make a difference how happily married they are or how many kids they have. Studies have shown that the majority of men who cheat on their wives are not unhappy with them. And while it's slightly different for women, who tend to cheat when they are dissatisfied with some aspect of their monogamous relationship, it doesn't always mean the end of said relationship. Sometimes a midlife crisis or a fling is just that--a temporary situation, after which they go back to married monogamy quite willingly.

So here's what I've observed myself and heard about from my mother. A great number of the people we know have had affairs. Of these people, the ones who told their spouses have gotten divorced and had to deal with moving out, splitting time with the kids, disentangling their finances, and the lengthy and often vicious lawyer-fueled divorce proceedings. The ones who haven't told their spouses are still married and happy with the person they married.

Some people might say the happiness of the cheated-on spouse is a lie. Maybe that's true. I don't know how happiness can be a lie, or whether it being a lie makes a significant difference to the person who has it. But I do know that the pain of finding out your spouse is cheating/has cheated and going through a difficult divorce IS real. And the unhappiness of the children involved is real too. And if both partners were happy in their relationship, but one of them made a mistake/wanted a bit of variety/got seduced etc., is that really worth ruining an otherwise good marriage?

So it's a judgement call. For Mom and I, we keep out of it*, impartial observers, because we've seen this sort of thing go both ways and you can never tell. People say they would want to know if they were being cheated on, but really why? We don't want to think about industrial chicken farms when we're enjoying a bucket of KFC. We don't want to think about abuse and slavery when we get a diamond necklace as a gift. We don't want to think about how just about every time we eat something red, it's been dyed that way with 'natural' dyes that were probably made from crushed bug exoskeletons. When we fill up our tanks, we don't want to think about how every gallon burned means one less gallon will ever exist until there are no more gallons at all. We ignore things that would make us unhappy all the time. Maybe we shouldn't. But we do, and most of us are quite happy to do so. Is marriage really any different?

If people already seem unhappy in their relationship, and one of them is cheating, it would probably be okay to tell them. But if they seem pretty happy, don't mess that up. People aren't perfect, and a marriage that lasts a lifetime is going to have to survive a lot of stupidity, selfishness, bad judgments, dry spells, and mistakes no matter how much they love each other.



*Except in one case, where a certain husband is a total rake and either has tried or is trying to bone just about every woman in town. In that case we have quietly spread the rumor that he has an STD to hamper his efforts. For all we know, it's true.

 

[TheOliveSeed]

Sometimes it would be best to stay out. Other times it might be a good idea to tell him/her.
It really would depend on the situation and how close I am with the person who’s being cheated on.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

A lot of this is distinguishing between right, duty, obligation and other variations/permutations. If it was an outsider who knew, there is the potential duty if the person in question is not necessarily socially adept enough to realize it. For instance, I don't have the suspicion that my girlfriend is cheating on me, but if I was being played for a sucker, then the question would remain: is anyone obligated or even ethically bound in any sense to tell me that I am if they indeed have proof? No, but if nothing else, I'm kind of socially inept, as I said before, so I might be a special exceptional case where telling me would spare my feelings more than if I found out myself.