Dear Prudence,
I just found out I’m the other woman, and all of the red flags seem so obvious now. I met a man on a dating app whose status was “divorced,” and after a few dates, he casually let it slip that he was “in the process of getting divorced.” I’ve known people who took years to get divorced, so I didn’t think anything of it. We always went to my place, and again I believed him when he said all he could afford was a crappy bachelor apartment in a bad area while his “ex” dragged the divorce on and on, and I have a townhouse close to the restaurants and theaters we went to on dates. I let myself get swept away by him, and now I found out through a friend whose child goes to school with his (I posted a picture of us and she recognized him), and then some social media perusing of his wife (everything was public) that he lives in a suburban house with his wife and young daughter (he never mentioned a child the whole time we were together). They are the picture of a happy family, with no indication of separation or living apart. I feel sick with guilt for hurting this family, especially his young daughter.
When I confronted him about it, he only denied it at first, until I showed him the photos his wife had posted of them all smiling together at a barbecue in their backyard from the previous weekend. Then, he broke down and admitted everything and begged me not to tell his wife and destroy her life. As much as I know the damage has already been done, I’m now wondering if I shouldn’t reach out to her, which I initially intended to do with him in the room, so that he couldn’t weasel out of it. We did something terrible, but is putting his wife in the position of having to either break up her family or forgive him, really fair? She didn’t do anything wrong. Obviously, I broke up with him, so he’s no longer cheating with me, and I can speculate but have no proof of him cheating with other women. Is it kinder to confess to her, or would it only help my guilty conscience and make her life worse? My carelessness in not seeing through his obvious lies already hurt her, and I don’t want to be careless with her (and their daughter’s) feelings again.
—Cruel to Be Kind