This Guy Is Cheating On His Pregnant Wife — Should His Friends Expose Him?

Hello, world. My name's Stephen LaConte, and this is Hey Stephen — a cozy little corner of BuzzFeed where readers like you can DM me for advice.

Today, we've got this woman, whose husband's friend just cheated on his pregnant wife. Here's what she wrote to me, via Instagram:

Oh boy. I agree with you that this woman deserves to know the truth about her husband. He sounds like a real piece of shit. But I don't think you're the right person to break the news to her — for a few reasons.

First of all, the piece of shit in question is still your husband's friend. And while you don't owe POS anything, you do owe some degree of trust and confidence to your partner. Assuming your husband has not given you the all-clear to go blow up his friend's marriage, you should not do it behind his back. Whatever you do here will inevitably impact your husband's friendship, so he deserves a say in how you proceed.

My second concern has to do with your proximity to the "other woman" in this mess. You work alongside her, and you're apparently close enough that she confided in you. It's fine if you don't care about protecting this person (I can understand why you might not!), but you still should consider the professional implications of exposing a coworker's affair. Would you still be able to work together moving forward? Could it jeopardize your job or hers? This woman might deserve some personal consequences for her role in the affair, but she doesn't deserve professional ones too.

Third, you do not have any significant sort of relationship with the wife. In fact, it sounds like you know her the least of the three people involved in the affair. My advice would certainly be different if you were close friends with her. But you say you barely know her, so I think there are better candidates for the job of telling her something so personal and so devastating.

And that brings me to the most important point here: The ideal candidate for this job is the man who actually had the affair. He should be the one to tell her, especially given that they're now expecting a child together. If you're tempted to intervene on this situation, I would direct your energy toward him, not her.

I think you and your husband should sit this guy down and tell him exactly what your coworker told you. Urge him to tell his wife before someone else does. Let him know that if his wife comes to you with questions, you will not lie to her. And remind him that if he's hoping to stay in this marriage, the most important thing he can do right now is take accountability for the damage he has done.

I can't promise that he will listen to you — as we've established, he sounds like a piece of shit! But either way, you'll have done your part by urging him to admit the truth. Given your position as a relative outsider to the situation, I think that is all you can reasonably be expected to do. The rest must be up to him.

You're a good person for wanting this woman to know the truth about her marriage. And for better or worse, I do think she's bound to find out soon enough. If your coworker told you about the affair, it's safe to assume she's told other people too. The word will inevitably get to the wife — I can only hope her husband gets to her first. She deserves that much, and a whole lot more.

TL;DR: Tell the cheater to take accountability for what he's done and inform his wife about his affair before someone else does.

That's all the advice I'm giving today, folks, but if you've got any words of wisdom for our DM'er, share them in the comments. I'll be reading...

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