Man informs stranger is wife is potentially cheating, starts controversy

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

This is getting long, so I'm going to be cutting significantly. If you think I'm dropping something crucial or something you dearly wanted a reply to, you're going to need to let me know.

fair enough, I'll likewise summarize bits and pieces.

Yep, that's right. Friends. Now imagine it's a stranger. A great, burly, sweating, bearded stranger. And he's leaning over your shoulder, and reading for hours. Do you get up at any point? Move away? Cover your phone? Ask why he's doing what he's doing? Or simply accept it as part and parcel of daily life?

Experiment...walk up to strangers on the street/subway and start reading their texts over their shoulder. The larger and more imposing the individuals, the better. If they complain, state that you are in a public place, and laugh at the presumption that they should be enjoying privacy while texting. Let me know what ensues.

This is a loaded situation though, these people had assigned seating and they were there for other reasons already. If I lived in a city that actually used public transportation, and it was high volume trafficking, I wouldn't give a shit if the person next to me was watching what I was saying or not, if I found it urgent enough to text at that moment then I don't really care what people around me think. Idk, I guess I'm an open book that way. If they didn't like it for one reason or another (once again, this depends on what is said.) I would just tell them not to worry about it then and find something else to stare at for the ride.

So, ends justify the means, yes?

in this very hypothetical scenario, based on the likelihood that she is cheating, then yes.

However, "ends justify the means" I feel isn't 100% black and white either, I feel like you or I could weasel around and come up with plenty of scenarios that would justify it, however small or big the situation is is regardless when a principle is at hand.


I do get your point though, and in this scenario I'll have to agree to disagree with you on it.

Apparently, yes. That sounds terrible. I'm not constantly reading pages of information by accident, I'm not constantly checking out random dude butts every time I tie my shoe, and I'm not accidentally reading a football game's worth of texts because someone was sat near me at a football game. I have no idea how I'd ever concentrate on anything.

I'm not constantly doing those things either, but for whatever reason, sometimes they stick to my brain like someone just burned it into my skin, I'm just saying that people do occasionally see things only with a glimpse and didn't mean to in the first place.

Human beings don't talk like that. Imaginary social constructs do, but not actual human beings.

you...you have much more faith in the average human than I do. There isn't an accurate way to describe some of the sighs and cringes I've let out before on human idiocy.

Do I prefer it in most circumstances? Yes. Do I imagine she is honest with me 100% of the time? No. Am I honest with her 100% of the time? No. Have I dated someone who made "100% honesty all of the time" a priority? Yes. Was it as big a fucking disaster as it sounds? Yes.

I feel I jumped the gun a bit there...by honest I meant more in a sneaky/cheating way, everyone isn't honest 100% of the time about everything, I've had plenty of girlfriends being the fucking juiciest tampon ***** in the world sometimes(pms? who knows.), but did I tell them? Hell no, I didn't need my dick getting chopped off.

If she cheated on me, would I forgive her? Depending on the circumstances, probably. Have I ever cheated on her, or anyone else? No. Have I ever been cheated on? Yes. Was it painful? Yes. Do I think the person who did it was "scummy douchebag fuckface cuntwad"? Nope. She's one of the most forthright, honorable people I've ever met in my life. She grew up in near constant physical and sexual abuse. She had serious issues with commitment phobia and emotional attachment that continue to this day. That's context. Context I couldn't get from reading some text messages over her shoulder. And honestly? Our relationship ended on its own, long after the cheating, and not because of it. I would've rather NOT known. It caused a lot of pain I didn't need to feel.

Does that mean all cheaters are salts of the earth? Of COURSE not. It's just not NEARLY as black and white as people want to make it sometimes.

you have a much stronger will to cheating than I do then when it comes to relationships, I've let mistakes gloss by like it was nothing hundreds of times...but cheating almost always makes me snap all ties, instantly. I've never had a girlfriend admit to cheating, not until I was able to show her definitive proof that it was true, so I can't say if I would be able to forgive it or not if they came out to me truthfully.... Not that I haven't gone on to be friends with some of my ex's that cheated on me...but I would never ever get back together with them based on them withholding it from me until it was undeniably true. In all of my cases, I would've rather have known much earlier, and the situation with the girl hiding the phone from the guy is all too real for me, I can't tell you the number of times a girlfriend would insist on hiding her phone from me, but then would have no problem poking through mine.

Evidently, yes. I don't share your moral umbrage, alas. I don't condemn you for it, but I do recommend not engaging in fundamentalist thinking on the subject. Relationships are extremely complicated. People are complicated. Jealousy and possessiveness only gets us so far. People make mistakes. One day one of those people might be you. Easy to say NEVAR if you've never been put in a situation.

In this case, the cartoon woman who mocks her husband's small penis before bursting into maniacal laughter before fiendishly texting her vile lover while Imaginary Bro looks on in consternation probably doesn't deserve a lot of sympathy, but fictional characters designed to be hated seldom do.

Oh I won't go full cultist and I don't go prying into people's privacy, I people watch often, but I don't look at anything personal, promise ^_^ Agreed though, relationships are complicated...and I have been put in many situations, I was quite nearly on the verge of being raped while in a relationship, luckily for me, I was able to throw her off me and I even told my partner at the time what happened so she wouldn't hear of it through someone else and not be sure if I was trying to cheat on her or not, but I can still truthfully to this day, say I've never cheated on anyone and vow to never put someone through that pain. (like I said before, pretty open book, I don't hide things.)

...this situation sounds like it needs some day one DLC characters to give the situation more clarity. will there be microtransactions to read each new text?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Guy is a douche for spying on a text conversation in the first place. He is an idiot for acting on it without any context.

 

[psijac]

I want to see the reverse where a man is text cheating on a woman, and see how everyone reacts

 

[Michel Henzel]

If you have undeniable proof, go for it, if you don't, you don't.
I've told a friend of mine his girlfriend was cheating on him once while I was at a club with some other friends. His GF happened to be there as well, she was kissing some random guy there so I decided to film it and show my friend. Since he was my friend I felt it was my moral obligation to tell him about it.

 

[The Lunatic]

Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you don't want to get publicly called out for cheating on your significant other, don't publicly cheat on your significant other.

 

[Thyunda]

I think it would have been best for him to not say anything. He doesn't know the greater context. She could have been philandering, or it could have been a sick friend or family member, or maybe a friend or family member who's on vacation somewhere. Perhaps he saw enough to be reasonably suspicious, but it's still not worth potentially causing a rift in some stranger's relationship over something which may or may not actually be a problem. I can see how her telling a male friend she'd rather be with them could be cheating, but I also see how it could be her just not wanting to be at the game and telling a friend she'd rather be someplace they are.

It was really just none of his damn business.

In his defence, however, he only drew attention to it. It's not like he openly stated "bro trust me she's banging this dude", he merely told him what the text said.

 

[Phasmal]

That's dumb. He should mind his own damn business.

If you read my texts to my boyfriend they're like `Don't forget to do this thing for gods sake`.
And if you read my texts to say one of my girl friends they're like `Lets talk about Dragon Age later I love you, you perfect human being`.

So I guess I'm straight up cheating on my dude. I should have known.

Long story short without context you're dumb.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

If this lass hadn't been texting another fella this guy would be rightly slated for intruding on this woman's privacy and reading her private messages without her knowledge or consent, but now because she was caught doing something wrong then he's a 'good Samaritan' and his actions are defensible? Yeah, not buying it. Regardless of whether those texts were suspicious or innocent, he shouldn't have been reading them in the first place.

somehow i doubt that would be the case if the genders of the people involved where reversed.
and before you flip, NO i dont know the whole story, maybe it IS just a big misunderstanding. and YES, he did have no business reading her phone.
BUT STILL, if you know someone is potentially cheating on someone else and you do nothing about it... your just as bad.
plus if she is cheating, she has some BALLS texting her side guy next to her boyfriend. in a crowded stadium no less.

just super sayin'... 4

Gonna have to disagree with you there. If all someone has is an unfounded, out-of-context suspicion that something like that is going on then getting involved will nearly always end badly. Being told that your partner is cheating on you is devastating news, and giving someone that news based only on a hunch is an incredibly cavalier way of behaving. Yeah, sometimes getting involved will hit the nail on the head and save someone some heartache, but most of the time the Good Samaritan will be wrong and sow seeds of mistrust into what had been a perfectly healthy relationship for no other reason than their own sense of pious highhandedness.

Not telling someone when you know that their partner is cheating on them might make you complicit, but telling someone that their partner is cheating on them when they're not? That's all levels of fucked up and no-one with even a shred of decency should ever put themselves in a position where they might do that, even through an honest misunderstanding.

 

[Kathinka]

Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you don't want to get publicly called out for cheating on your significant other, don't publicly cheat on your significant other.

This right there. Don't want to be exposed as a whore, don't act like a whore.
If I were, in whatever way, to see something like this, I'd let the boyfriend know. For one simple reason: If I was in his position, I sure as hell would want to know too.

 

[DayDark]

Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you don't want to get publicly called out for cheating on your significant other, don't publicly cheat on your significant other.

This right there. Don't want to be exposed as a whore, don't act like a whore.
If I were, in whatever way, to see something like this, I'd let the boyfriend know. For one simple reason: If I was in his position, I sure as hell would want to know too.

While I agree with the opinion, could we call her a cheater or emotional manipulator, or just unfaithful hag, *****? I know whore is usually associated with sleeping with a a lot of people, and while that is usually an occupational "hazard" of being a prostitute, I still think it's a mislabel, since she isn't exactly getting payed for sex, and the main issue really is that she allegedly slept with more than just one more than allowed.


...I just feel whores have a bad rap man.

 

[SNCommand]

As I see it, if she is not doing something wrong then it's nothing wrong, just something for the couple to shrug at and forget

If she is cheating then her partner should know, either way it's better if he knows than continue to be unaware

Only problem is if the guy is one of those, "You send messages without my approval! Time to knock out your teeth!", but considering she dared to send these texts in public that seems very unlikely and the possibility of the man being misled and hurt seems far greater

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

If I lived in a city that actually used public transportation, and it was high volume trafficking, I wouldn't give a shit if the person next to me was watching what I was saying or not, if I found it urgent enough to text at that moment then I don't really care what people around me think

I live in a city with public transporation (I use it on a daily basis). If you look at the screen of other peoples phones and read them you are a fucking creep. People don't like that and call you out on this. Some less pleasant than others.

Yes, you might not care. But frankly, if you care doesn't matter. Other people do. It is basic manners to not read the private messages of other people. You don't do this with books or letters someone might read in the bus or train, why is it a-okay with phones?

It is not even hard to not read the texts. It actually takes concentration and effort to read them, it doesn't take either to not do that.

it's been a while so I've kinda lost any oomph I had for this story originally, and while I have no problem with someone calling it out, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, hell I see it happening in the grocery store when you're waiting in line, and that's even less traffic than public transportation.

"don't do this with books or letters"...funny enough, I've seen people do just that, with both books and letters. not that I'm dismissing your example, it's just funny that I've literally seen it with my own two eyes. books and letters tend to have alot more bloated information and don't have a backlit screen enhancing the words on them, so those don't typically follow what I had mentioned beforehand on simply having your eyes go over something and capturing it.

I'd already admitted that this was a kinda douchey thing to do, but the whole cheating bit is what I was more passionate about, as I fucking can't stand cheating fuckfaces, so unless you're going to discuss that, then I probably won't respond regarding public privacy.