friend cheating on friend

[janey17]

hey guys,

new to this... so i'd love some input!!

 

recently i found out that one of my friends (we'll call him joe) is cheating on his current girlfriend (we'll call her cindy) with another person (umm...kathy?) who i dont speak to anymore.

 

anyways... i've been out downtown the past couple weekends with a bunch of ppl including joe and cindy. cindy has spoken to me and a couple of my girlfriends about how happy joe makes her and how shes so in love, etc. when they dance and stuff they seem happy, and if you didnt know anything, you'd think they were perfectly happy together. yet i got word that joe doesnt like cindy anymore and is sleeping with kathy (who he used to date last year) but kathy wont commit to a relationship so hes staying with cindy... but lying to her this whole time.

 

i just feel bad for cindy cuz she has NO CLUE and i know if someone knew my guy was doing this i'd wanna know, and i'd be totally humiliated knowing that everyone knew except for me... yet i'm not really friends with her. out of anyone i'm the closest with joe, who is the cheater...

 

i just wanna know if keeping quiet is the best thing, cuz i feel like its not my place to say anything...

any thoughts?? thanks guys

[Bethany]

Trust your head. I too would keep quiet. As much as you feel for Cindy, if you get involved.... you will be the bad guy in the end.

[hopelesslee]

I disagree. If you are a nice person, you should tell her the truth, or at least get one of her closer friends to break the bad news. You won't be the bad guy in the end because you will be saving her (although it will be painful) from a long time of being lied to and eventually hit MUCH harder with reality. I'm in a similar situation as "cindy" right now, and I would much rather find out now than to continue dating the person and look like an idiot. Hope everything goes okay.

[Hope75]

Bethany has a point.

 

You have to weigh the pros and cons.

 

Will Cindy believe you? Or will Joe deny deny deny and because she loves him, she will believe him and be angry at you?

 

What do you think will happen if you tell her?

 

If she believes you and stays with him? Then what?

 

While of course your first instinct is to tell her (it's the right thing, right?), consider that if given enough rope, Joe will eventually hang himself (we hope) without any help from you, and you will not need to get involved, at the risk of losing Cindy as a friend because she won't believe you anyway.

 

Just some thoughts.

[Iceman26]

The best advice you can get in this situation is from yourself.

 

Ask yourself this: If it was you in Cindy's shoes, would you want to know if your boyfriend is cheating on you?

[DN]

Do you know for absolute sure he is cheating or is this information from someone else? Suppose the information is wrong?

 

If you want to say something say something to your friend - Joe. Because if you say something to Cindy and break them up and you are wrong you will have lost a friend for sure.

 

Make quite sure of your facts before doing anything.

[LostInMyThoughts]

I would keep quiet.

 

I was in a similar situation, where a good buddy of mine was being totally unfaithful with his girlfriend.

 

I really didn't like the fact that he did this, because she was a hella cool person, but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't my place to say.

 

They ended up breaking up, and I know if I would have said something I wouldn't have had either ones as friends.

[hopelesslee]

Sorry to be argumentative about this, but I think that if the girl finds out you knew all along and didnt let her know, she will be mad with you anyway. I definitely would make sure the facts are accurate first, and also talk to Joe about this and explain to him that you think this is wrong what he is doing. If nothing happens after all of that, you should try to let her find out (not necessarily by directly telling her, because that might get you in trouble). Also, your friend Joe sounds like kind of an untrustworthy jerk in general...so I wouldn't value his friendship very highly anyway, but whatever....that's just what I think.

[DN]

Be very careful that the facts are accurate - remember he's not an untrustworthy jerk until he's 'found guilty beyond reasonable doubt' and that means a lot more that just gossip or somebody putting two and two together and coming up with five. People are all too eager to jump to conclusions and label others without proper evidence.

[darkblue]

I agree with DN on this one.

If you told her that she is being cheated on - and it turns out she is not, you will be the bad guy in this.

[sonjam]

Why not talk to Joe? Hes your friend, and he's the one who's putting you in this situation in the first place! Tell him you are hearing rumours, and ask if they are true. Tell him you are worried that these rumours will reach Cindy's ears, and do damage if they are not true....

[yeawutever]

Talk to ur friend Joe about it, like sonjam says, but u don't say a word if it's true. DO U REALLY WANNA BE THE MESSENGER, I WOULDN'T. Imagine wut would it be like if they get back together, Joe would be so mad at u. Remember friends don't tell, snitch on each other. I would keep quite, and this is none of ur business either.