To tell or not to tell

[astralsuzy]

Hi all, would you tell the persons partner if you thought they saw a prostitute? My sister in law rang my other sister in law and said Mark, her husband) and her husband both saw prostitutes when they were in Bali. My brothers went to Bali together, just the two of them. My brothers are over sixty years old. Everyone including her husband hates her for saying it. My family are the only people that like her. I said to her it would have been best if she did not say anything about it. Nothing was gained by it. She gets the blame for it. My sister in law said she has proof. I said some people do not want to see the truth. What are your thoughts?

Questions are -
1) how did she find out anyway? One of the brothers must have said something.
2) Is it her business to police others' lives?

At the very least she's a malign gossip. Were I one of these brothers I'd probably
start a rumour about her to teach her a lesson. Well, looks like you already know:
give her a wide berth. Trouble is, gossipers will make stuff up anyway
if excluded from her social circle which is possibly why she does it - she knows she isn't liked.

♥

[kris]

Seeing a prostitute should not be taken lightly. What if one or both them are infected with sexually transmitted disease. It is a wise decision to alert the wives in this situation. Perhaps the wives should ask their husbands to do testing for STDs before having sex with them, it they are still inclined to have sex with their husbands.

[astralsuzy]

Originally Posted by kris

Seeing a prostitute should not be taken lightly. What if one or both them are infected with sexually transmitted disease. It is a wise decision to alert the wives in this situation. Perhaps the wives should ask their husbands to do testing for STDs before having sex with them, it they are still inclined to have sex with their husbands.

I never thought of that. It is obvious but I did not think of it. I suppose it was a good decision to tell the wife about it. She was brave. I would have kept quiet and kept the peace. My sister in law is going through a lot now for saying it. She has paid a high price. The unfortunate part is everyone hates her. They do not want to know the truth. I can see there would be a lot of people saying she should tell or she should not tell. My sister in law said she has proof because her son went over to Thailand and saw them there. There was proof in emails they were sending to each other.

And I think you would have done right. One doesn't go round blabbing this kind of stuff off to men's wives or wives their husbands without asking to be disliked unless there are hugely mitigating circumstances. One approaches it with circumspection, assuming there's truth in it. However, if there are emails then the husbands are somewhat lacking, surely.

Every day, like it or not, there are furtive encounters, clandestine trysts and assorted adulterous antics and every one comes with the risk of an unsocial disease. It's a chance one takes even when the man uses a contraceptive. It isn't nice and when a partner discovers the deceit there's always trouble.

But in this case it was prostitutes, fleeting and probably borne on novelty, not affairs. At least the wives don't have to suspect deeper involvement. Were I one of them I'd ask myself why the man needed to turn to someone else.

But there it is. Some people feel the need to make their mark by policing other people's conduct in the knowledge of the result.

♥

[CrystalSong]

Originally Posted by astralsuzy

I never thought of that. It is obvious but I did not think of it. I suppose it was a good decision to tell the wife about it. She was brave. I would have kept quiet and kept the peace. My sister in law is going through a lot now for saying it. She has paid a high price. The unfortunate part is everyone hates her. They do not want to know the truth. I can see there would be a lot of people saying she should tell or she should not tell. My sister in law said she has proof because her son went over to Thailand and saw them there. There was proof in emails they were sending to each other.

A few years ago I would have been on the 'let sleeping dogs lay' bandwagon. Hush-Hush, stiff upper lips, things we don't discuss and just let eat us from the inside out....etc
But lately self repression and having a different standard as a woman than men are held to is loosing it's appeal and becoming a bit nauseating even. Truth and being able to respect and honor Truth within and without is a higher calling to me that continued repression.
In her circumstances I would want to stand in my own Truth and not be suppressed by social conditioning, families in denial, or personal fear of rejection.
We women are taught to suppress our own truth and responses in favor of the man, the family and social dictates. I realize my own playing along with this seriously unbalanced social ethic has added to the suppression of women and is not in the service of love but in the serve of suppression, which hurts about 1/2 of the world population.

Ethically I'm don't think it's fair to expose the other husband - that's his business to own up too. But she certainly has a right to talk about how she feels about what her husband did and the impact its had on them as a couple and as a family and potential health concerns as a result if she wants, and I won't hold a Sister down. There's been enough of that under the patriarchy.

[TheGlow]

Honesty prostitutes are a deal changer. No way anyone should be exposed to that kind of wrecklessness without being warned.

I'd want to be told and I'd certainly thank her for being willing to risk being hated for potentially saving those women's lives. It's silly to think the women don't have a right to their health being protected. It's the wives own issues if they don't want to know.

[Rozie]

In general, an adventure like that on a trip to an exotic land should stay in the exotic land and not be discussed or spoken of or brought up.

Honestly, who can trust anybody to not have a fling if the opportunity came knocking. Technically the wives should always practice safe sex if they really want to protect themselves because the trust system isn't 100 percent foolproof. I think that point about it being a health risk is not that big of a point. If they had a fling in Bali, they could have a fling here but I don't think that is normal. We would assume that they were smart enough to use very good protection and be sure to take every precaution.

If you have a secret like the brothers did then it must never be mentioned and that is how you keep a secret. Someone let the cat out of the bag and that is where the fault lies.

Their deeds were done in private and nobody should have ever been put into the position of knowing. That hurts, but the pandoras box was opened and it couldn't be closed.

People prefer not to know facts that serve only to harm and damage the family.

If it was an outsider, that would be one thing, but how can the sister-in-law mind her own business about that. It is her business because she cannot unknow what she knows.

In that case it isn't a matter of right or wrong but it wasn't something she could keep to herself. The skeleton got out of the closet.

If she was snooping into places she shouldn't have been snooping and that is how she found out then she deserved what she got.

I don't really blame the boys for crossing something off their bucket list but I would if I was married to one of them.

[shoni7510]

Chances are the brothers were not seeing prostitutes for the first time and they had it in their itinerary from the get go. For heaven's sake their are 60+ and happily married so they knew what they were doing. What is different this time around is that somebody let the cat out of the bag and that is creating tension in the family. I think the sister-in-law who talked would not have been able to keep quiet because it is a big deal. Those who are hating her are just in denial and don't know how to handle it.

[Jaroon60]

You should never get involved in things like that unless somebody is in danger. And going to a prostitute is not the end of the world.....telling a partner could mean a lot of problems. It is something people have to solve within a relationship. I have lived in Thailand for years. Telling all I know about people visiting prostitutes could break up many marriages which still work fine without the information.