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Should affair partner's wife know about her husbands affair even though she suffers server depression and there is a risk of self harm. i know her husband will not tell her

[This message edited by baconeggs at 10:01 PM, January 14th (Tuesday)]

How do you know she is mentally unstable and self harms? If your cheating spouse told you that, consider that cheaters lie and he’s trying to talk you out of doing the right thing.

Or perhaps she’s unstable because she knows something is wrong and being gaslit and finally having the pieces to the puzzle will help her on her healing journey.

She deserves to know. If her spouse cared about her being unstable or self harming, he wouldn’t have cheated on her. If he couldn’t “deal with” her issues, he could have asked for a divorce in a therapeutically supportive environment and been kind to her throughout the process.

She deserves to know, you don’t have to inform her cruelly.

I do know that she does suffer from severe depression - confirmed by my sister in law who has lived next to her for over 15 years.

Might the depression be related to her husband's behaviour? Remember where the term gaslighting comes from. Knowing my wife was up to something but not knowing what really tipped my generally high-levels of stress and anxiety into a mental health issue that still take antidepressants for even now.

As someone said you don't have to do it harshly.

When my wife cheated, some might call what I went through a severe depression...

Hi Bacon,

I am sorry that you are going through this. I just had the same issue.

Not the severe depression but the angst on trying to figure out if I should be the one.

I fought it, I justified it, I would come to the forum and read responses to my post and I would battle the guilt that I felt for not wanting to do it.

I finally decided that if I feel this guilty about this decision that I was deciding wrong.

I didn't tell the wife I told a good friend of hers.

It was hard, I didn't like it but I did it. I answered what I knew and told her I would prefer to stay out of it but she could reach out if needed.

That was two days ago. I don't know what has happened and I still wake up missing my cheating exe, but I did the right thing.

It sucks that you are in the midst of it and it eats away at you.

Just pick up the phone and let her know or tell one of her good friends.

It sucks in the middle of it but it's cathartic in the end.

I am a firm believer that a person is ENTITLED(and I don't use that word lightly) to have their own agency. The truth is the driving factor in this. Whether the truth be good, bad, fantastic, or detrimental, it is still the truth. IT CAN NOT BE CHANGED.

Is the messenger really hurting the injured party? Or did the betrayer already do that by their actions?

I agree that the OBS deserves to know. How to tell and who to tell her...ugh. I think it really depends on her mental state - how serious the depression is. Does she seek treatment for it? Is there a way to tell a friend of hers or a family member first - someone who might be better able to help her with the aftermath?

That being said, things like this are all semantics:

Is the messenger really hurting the injured party? Or did the betrayer already do that by their actions?

I know people mean well when they say stuff like what was quoted above, but that never made me feel much better. Of course your actions did not hurt them, but, for me, calling the OBS and telling him his wife had been having an A for over a year with my WH was going to demolish him and likely make him feel humiliated and embarrassed and angry and that his world would never be the same. No one wants to be the bearer of that news, even if they had nothing to do with the events being told about.

yes

Ditto what 3greatkids said. Please read that one again.

There is no catch here. I agree she’s prob depressed because she has been gaslit. She knows something is wrong but can’t put her finger on it. And yes, I think you’re being told this so you’ll keep the secret. Don’t fall for that. Please do the right thing and tell her.

I suffered from severe depression after my STBX's A. I also self-harmed. Luckily I went into inpatient treatment and it completely put me on the right path for myself.

I would tell her so that she has agency over her life. You cannot control what she does. She may or may not self-harm. Maybe it will be the lightbulb moment she needs to help herself, but I would think that what her husband is doing to her (severe lying and gaslighting) would make anyone severely depressed.

I will never forget MOW telling me my STBX wouldn't leave me because he was afraid I would commit suicide ( I attempted suicide after multiple broken no contacts between them). Guess what he didn't end up leaving me, they still took the A underground and guess who didn't attempt suicide when the A never ended. She actually was the one to tell me their A continued and I WILL ALWAYS THANK HER for that.

I think It’s very possible that her current relationship could be the reason for her depression but none of know. What I do know is that people deserve to know the truth about their life.

Maybe make sure there is someone who can help her if she has trouble learning the truth. She may not thank you initially but over time she will be glad she has the truth. And she may be so grateful to finally know what is wrong in her m.

Abuse causes depression so does severe trauma.

Having a cheating spouse is both. Abusive and traumatic.

I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder several months before dday. I have no doubt that the state of my marriage played a big part of that. In fact, I remember the diagnosing psychiatrist telling me that medication (for me) would probably help my marriage but that if it was as bad as I said it was, the medication would possibly help me to realize that I needed to get out of the marriage anyway.

The OBS deserves to know the truth about her marriage. That statement stands alone, without exception.

And tushnurse is so right about this that it deserves to be highlighted:

Abuse causes depression so does severe trauma.

Having a cheating spouse is both. Abusive and traumatic.

I know this might be about as popular as a whore signing up to contribute a square at the Church Ladies’ Quilting Circle, but here it goes:

A person, any person regardless of whatever their personal circumstances, deserves to know the facts of their own life and further, the notion that you or anyone else should be the arbiter of what they need or have the capacity to handle is FLAT wrong. It isn’t your place to decide. You don’t have that kind of agency over another human.

I’ve seen discussions here where the poster asking the question was clearly being arrogant, demonstrating hubris, but I can see that isn’t you. You seem truly and earnestly concerned about her well being as opposed to being convinced you know what’s best for her. I think ultimately you are considering taking responsibility for something that is not yours to shoulder and in the process, denying her the ability to make her own decisions based on the facts of her marriage. She can be told compassionately with kindness. She can be offered support.

I’m not a therapist and I don’t know this person, so I don’t know what has caused her depression. I don’t know if the affair is the chicken or the egg and which came first. That said, it does not matter. Don’t take her agency away from her by deciding that it’s kinder to keep her in the dark. It truly is not your place.

Against the advice I got here I kept it from the OBS for a very long time.

It was the wrong thing to do, hindsight has shown me that, and I regret not taking far more sweeping action sooner.

I was a fool, don’t be like me.