How do you bring up the fact that your friend's SO is cheating?

[im_in_love]

My very good friend has been with her current boyfriend for over 3 years (he's a former alcoholic). He's cheated on her before and she's caught him, faught, broke up, he apologized, and she took him back. Each time she has taken him back and things for them have gone back to normal. She says that she can tell when he's lying, and that he never lies to her. I've caught him in a lie before that she doesn't know - obviously she doesn't know when he's lying. I've caused problems in their relationship before without meaning to, so I've stepped back and kept my mouth shut about the whole thing for quite a while now.

Not too long ago, I found out that they had been fighting and that she kicked him out of their house. I found out, because he drunk texted me instead of her. Our names are on opposite ends of the phone book, and I very rarely text him ever. It's not like he accidentally clicked on my name because it was next to hers in his phone, or he replied to a recent conversation of ours. He had to be completely wasted to select my name from his phone. In his drunk text he refused that he was drunk and said some other stuff that led to me finding out what exactly happened. I replied to his text just so that he would know text his girlfriend right away instead of waiting for a reply from the wrong person. He replied with "oh shit, sorry. shhhhh" with jumbled up letters, but still legible. To this day my friend does not know that he accidentally sent me that text first.

She took him back. Before she kicked him out, her friend at work guessed exactly what was going on right away just from my friend talking to her about the situation. She was so shocked that she guessed it right away, and that she herself didn't even think that he had been drinking. She's so blind to things with him.

My question is this: if I know things, and realize things that she can't see about her boyfriend, should I tell her? Recently, she told me a story about something that happened with her boyfriend. The story seemed a bit ridiculous and far-fetched, but she believed it 100%. I, however, guessed something else was going on right away, and I'm almost positive I'm right. It involves him cheating once again, and receiving a gift from his "other" girlfriend - which he made up a story for that is absolutely ridiculous. He claims that some old lady dropped it off at his work when he wasn't there for him, and that he doesn't know the lady. He claims he watched the security tapes of her dropping it off and he doesn't recognize her. The gift has his full name and birthday engraved on it. Sounds a lot like another girl gave him the gift, and he had to make up a story so he could keep it.

Any thoughts/advice?

[Lite]

Well, you're kind of in a pickle...

You didn't tell her right away so she's going to be upset at you for that.
She'll probably be mad at you for telling her. (Anger transference is common... Kind of like how you get mad at the women your guy slept with more than your guy...)
And it comes down to your general level of personal integrity. Is your integrity and self conscience so important to you that you're willing to lose her as a friend?

Because, basically you'll likely lose her as a friend.

She already knows he cheats, and she takes him back. She's got an issue that she needs to sort out, and the better approach is probably simply to start asking her hard questions about the relationship, its future, and whether or not he's really worth all this stress to get her thinking about dumping him.

That way, you're still doing the right thing without implicating yourself as one of the women he possibly slept with.

[bulrush]

You need to tell your friend that her SO is cheating, even if it is a little late. Try to conserve your friendship with her at least. Apologize for not having told her sooner.

[VincenzoG91]

She already knows that he's a cheater, and she keeps taking him back. I really don't see the point in telling her that he is cheating again. In fact, it could even cause some confusion if there hasn't been enough time since the previous cheating incident. You should let them figure this out for themselves.

[devonbrown]

It is there relationship, and you should, in general, stay out of it.
But if you have concrete evidence that he is cheating, not just suspicion, you should let your friend know. Even if you only have suspicion, but it is strong suspicion, I would just let her know that you don't trust her boyfriend and as her friend you want her to be happy and careful.

Good luck.

[Wakeup]

Look, this is a totally codependent relationship of addiction and habit. Who are you to tell her what she doesn't want to know about. Let her believe and not believe what she wants. Until she breaks her own codependent addiction and has the self respect to leave him, you butting in will not do a thing but lose you her friendship. You've said you getting involved in their business before caused a problem so why have you not learned a lesson?

Unless she comes to you and specifically asks you if you think he's cheating then stay out of it. If it ever comes from her mouth that she's upset that you knew and didn't tell her then you have two perfectly good excuses: 1. You've already caught flack once for being in her business and 2. She would have never believed you until she was ready to believe you anyway. Just like the alcoholic, the codependent has to hit rock bottom before they attempt to recover and no amount of nagging or discussing or pointing out will make them change until they themselves want to.

Mind your P's and Q's is my suggestion.

[VincenzoG91]

This is how Sammy Sweetheart and Jwoww ended up getting in a big brawl. Sammy told the other women on the show to tell her if her boyfriend was cheating on her, but when they did, she got mad.

[Wakeup]

This is how Sammy Sweetheart and Jwoww ended up getting in a big brawl. Sammy told the other women on the show to tell her if her boyfriend was cheating on her, but when they did, she got mad.

... lol ....

[im_in_love]

Thanks for all your replies! Being somewhat new to this forum, I don't know how to "quote" more than one post in one reply, so I'll just use general quotation marks.

"You've said you getting involved in their business before caused a problem so why have you not learned a lesson?" - I said that I did that without meaning or knowing I did. It was their fight (actually, multiple fights) involving me when I wasn't even there or talking to either of them. It wasn't about anything I did, it was about my friend having feelings for me (that I didn't know about) and her boyfriend got jealous/mad and they fought over it. I've certainly not intruded on their relationship in any way, or given my opinion without her blatantly asking me for it.

"She already knows that he's a cheater, and she keeps taking him back. I really don't see the point in telling her that he is cheating again. In fact, it could even cause some confusion if there hasn't been enough time since the previous cheating incident. You should let them figure this out for themselves." - This is what I'm thinking. This is the reason I've held back from telling her anything I know. I've caught him lying to her, and doing what I mentioned in my first post, and I haven't told her any of it because she knows how I feel about him (she used to ask me if she thought she shouldn't be with him, and what I thought of him. I told her the truth. She stopped asking) so she knows how he is and that he's no good for her, she just refuses to admit that she won't be the one to change him.

I feel like my suspicion is very strong and warranted, but I'll most likely keep doing what I have been and stay out of it for the sake of our friendship. Atleast until she realizes what he's doing and steps out of her tunnel vision.