QUESTION:
“We’re really good friends with my neighbors. We invite each other to birthdays, baby showers, message each other often, come knocking just to say hi and talk, notify each other when we’re out of town, etc. They’re a married couple in their late 20s, just like us, so we get along in many ways. Let’s call them Jane and John. We have another friend, let’s call her Lucy, who was casually dating some guy who was recently separated from his wife. Lucy has always wanted a child, so she came to an agreement with this man. The agreement was that he’d impregnate her, and then afterward, he can be as involved as much as he wants to be. Financially, she will never ask him for anything. They had a beautiful daughter. I finally saw a picture of this man. And it’s my neighbor….John. I was shocked. Lucy was shocked. She began piecing things together (i.e., she had never been inside his home, he would sometimes not be available for a couple of weeks at a time, etc.). We decided not to say anything, as it’s not our place. Jane recently shared with me how they have been trying to have a baby for over a year now and have been unsuccessful. It broke my heart. What would you guys do? Tell Jane and/or John? If we mind our business, we will have to break this close friendship up. It’s too hard to look at him in the eye and not see a snake, and it’s hard to look at her in the eye when we feel like we’re lying to her. Lucy won’t do anything about it. After her shock wore off, she just went ahead and continued in this relationship “for her daughter.” It’s just all so sad, really. Help us out? Break our friendship with them, or say something to Jane and/or John?”
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TOP ANSWERS (AS SELECTED BY MODERATOR):
The following top answers have been selected by a moderator from hundreds of responses to the original question.
“Tell her. Who knows, maybe it’s fate you get to her before he gets Jane pregnant too, and then she’s stuck with him in her life forever. But the poor woman deserves to know.”
“I would absolutely let the woman know before she had a child with that man. That relationship is doomed to fail and better it happen now without children involved then several years down the road with kids in the middle of that mess.”
“100% I would tell Jane immediately. She deserves this knowledge before she ends up succeeding in her pregnancy efforts then stuck in a situation she didn’t sign up for. Also, if my friend sat on this knowledge and didn’t tell me… well, our friendship wouldn’t end pretty.”
“Tell Jane!!! As a woman that has been cheated on, I would want to be told sooner than finding out on my own. If Jane finds out (and these things have a way of coming out eventually), that friendship will end when she finds out you knew and didn’t say anything. She may not be ready to hear it, but as a friend, you should be open and honest with her. If you don’t say anything, can you truly be considered a good friend?”
“Not your place to tell Jane. However- tell John you know. Ask him how he is going to tell Jane. Urge him to come clean & if he refuses you may want tell him that you will tell her as you refuse to disrespect her any more than he already has.”
“Tell Jane. We as humans need to stop covering for or turning a blind eye to these kinds of things. I would want someone to tell me if that was happening behind my back. No one deserves to be played a fool. If she is your friend, you do have a need to tell her!”
"I think you should take John aside, tell him what you know, and give him an opportunity to tell his wife, BEFORE you do. This “friend " relationship is going to break up, whether you break it off or he breaks it off because of what he did. Put yourself in the wife’s shoes, doesn’t she deserve to know exactly who she’s married to? And if she’s the one with the fertility problem, she needs to know that, too. Ugh. This situation sucks all around.”
“If it helps you make a decision, I thanked the other woman when she found out about me and contacted me when I was being cheated on back in the day. You’re literally taking her side by telling her so that would be something a good friend would do.”
“Say something to John. Encourage him to come clean to Jane. Eventually it’s all going to come out and you’ll be in the middle when Jane finds out everyone knew.”
“You have a piece of information that will keep you up at night. You will be thinking of this every time you glance over at your neighbor’s house. I liked someone else’s idea of writing an anonymous letter for Jane but be careful with what you write. Stick to the facts. Write only what you know to be true. Keep your feelings and opinions out of this. Once the information is in Jane’s hands, she can do with it what she will but at least you’re not holding onto such a heavy piece of information by yourself. Do it sooner than later in case she does end up pregnant as well.”
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