Jana Hocking: Should you tell your married friend if you see their partner on a dating app?

I was recently faced with a moral dilemma. 

I was scrolling Bumble when I came across a profile of a guy I know. A very married guy I know. Not to completely stereotype someone, but he is exactly the kinda guy you would expect to see popping on to a dating app for a bit of a sneaky peak at what is on offer outside his marriage.

I was faced with a decision… do I screen shot his profile and reveal all to his very sweet wife, or scroll on and say nothing?

It opened a pandoras box of questions… would his wife want to know? Would I be single-handedly destroying their marriage? Is it my place to interfere?

I took the screenshots and then had a deep ponder. I asked a very close friend I could trust with a secret like this. Heck I even googled the answer.

And after roughly 24 hours of sitting with this information, I came up with an answer. It was a definite no. I would not tell his wife.

Now, many of you will be outraged by this. Especially anyone who has been cheated on before, or currently have their suspicions. But my reasoning is very simple.

Cheating is never black and white.

Unless I literally walked in on him uploading his photos to a dating website do I really know if it was him? How do I know that it’s actually cheating – perhaps, like a lot of couples right now, they’ve decided to try out being in an open marriage? You would be surprised by the seemingly innocent couples who are currently ENM (ethically non monogamous).

Seriously, after I wrote about my own ethically non monogamous experience, I was inundated by friends who admitted (under the cloak of secrecy) that they were in ENM marriages. Shook I tell you!

I even had a couple in my friendship group hit me up for some fun. Flattering… but sadly not my type.

There’s another situation that puts the whole ‘cheating’ thing into a grey area. I’m discovering that often in couples, one loses interest in sex and doesn’t mind if the other ventures out to find it elsewhere, they just never address it.

Weirdly, or perhaps not so, this seems to work for many long-term couples.

So what about other examples of cheating… Say for example the colleagues in your office who you know are married to other people but constantly go for coffee together, or leave work events together, or just seem to have a very strong bond. Your gut tells you they’re cheating, and everyone in the office is gossiping about it, but should their partners be made aware? Once again, I think no.

Unless you catch them red-handed in the act, I really don’t think it’s your place. You can’t set off a bomb in someone’s life without rock solid evidence. You see, I speak from experience. I was told by someone that my former partner was cheating, and I wanted to know all the facts.

Where? When? How long for? The problem was this person had no proof. Just that there were ‘whispers’. This sent me into an absolute spiral. I ended up going through his phone, becoming deeply paranoid when he came home late, turning up to his boys nights to see if he was flirting with anyone. It drove me absolutely bonkers. I didn’t recognise the person I was becoming.

It opened a pandoras box of questions… would his wife want to know? Would I be single-handedly destroying their marriage? Is it my place to interfere?

So if you are going to tell someone’s partner they are cheating you have to be prepared to present your case. Because without evidence you can quickly be deemed a trouble-maker. Whether your heart is in the right place or not.

Sure, the saying ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire’ is correct but judging from the amount of friendships I’ve seen spoiled by someone speaking up, I now want to see the actual fire before I get out my megaphone.

Now on the flip side, I believe there are times you should tell a partner. For example, when you know they are being gaslit. If you’ve seen your bestie’s boyfriend trying to crack on to a girl in a bar, I think you are within your rights to mention it. Especially if she’s already had her doubts and he’s constantly telling her ‘she’s crazy’. That’s just saving your bestie a lot of therapy bills later on. Have we learnt nothing from MAFS people?

But should you find yourself in a situation where knowledge has kinda/sorta come to light… I would suggest you make sure you’ve got a sturdy set of facts in front of you before you drop that bomb. Otherwise, you could find yourself in the firing line instead, and let’s keep our drama for those fabulous reality shows – it’s not so much fun in real life.