My friend’s dilemma - Tell or keep schtump?

So last time I told you I was going to present you with a dilemma. I was speaking to my friend Jo from the states catching up on gossip (yep, we’re ladies after all) and after our usual banter her voice literally changed from jovial to hoarse in 1 note. I could tell something was up so I inquired to find out what was on her mind. ‘David is cheating on my sister and I don’t really know what to do about it’. Wow, talk about dropping a bombshell. David is her brother in-law who is married to her older sister and they have 3 lovely kids. A 7 year old girl Nkem, a 5 year old boy Eloka and the newest addition to the family is 17 months old Chidi. David by normal standards is financially secure – he has properties in various places across New York and also owns a bar which is main business base so he’s always there. Jo’s sister is a nurse and she had just recently returned to work after a lengthy maternity leave.


My observations of David when I met him during one of my trips to the states was that he is very quiet, softly spoken and slightly withdrawn (not a bad thing) but since hearing Jo’s story I have now come to the conclusion that the people with these qualities are the ones to watch out for. The story unfolded – apparently David has been seeing a ubiquitous 18 year old (he’s in his 40’s by the way) and he’s made it quite obvious. It’s beginning to look like he is basically flaunting her in people’s faces except his wife’s of course. She comes to his bar very often sitting by herself and patiently waiting for him to finish work after which he goes back to hers sometimes. He’s made no attempts to even shield this blossoming affair / relationship (or whatever you want to call it) from Jo. When she went to his bar on two occasions the girl had been there and it was pretty obvious something was going on between them. Her spy who works for David (she has now been subjected to deploying espionage skills) confirmed that they were definitely having an affair. Initially when they first started sneaking around he was a bit conscientious and was trying to hide it but now it’s gotten to the stage where he doesn’t go home after leaving the bar sometimes. His usual excuse to Jo’s sister is that he was tied up with the work load at the bar and he gets so tired that he sleeps there for a while before heading home. He owns the studio flats above the bar so his lie wasn’t too far fetched. All the while when he stays out he goes over to this girl’s flat and well, your guess is as good as mine what they get up to. Remember I mentioned he was quiet, softly spoken and a bit withdrawn so all his lies appear to be somewhat convincing. He also appears to be really dedicated to his kids. ‘Appears’ of course being the operative word because which dedicated father would risk losing his family for a flimsy fling with a teenager? I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.

As Jo continued the story the situation progressively got worse, this girl had actually met his kids several times and he takes them all out together playing happy family (talk about cosy). He recently bought Jo’s sister a brand new Audi (no prizes guessing he’s trying to keep her sweet while he carries on with his extra curricular activities). When he was confronted by a close friend of his who was disgusted with his behavior he told him that the girl was the one pursuing him not the other way round. He claimed he has told her several times he wasn’t interested but she keeps turning up at the bar to see him and vehemently denies that anything was going on between them. Right, so he must have accidentally ended up in her flat (oh which by the way, Jo has found out he personally purchased) in the teeny hours of the morning and of course they don’t sleep together, they just stay up and have a good chat…please, give me a break. He’s got such roaming eyes that he even eyes up other girls that come to his bar and his 18 year old girlfriend has caught him ogling several times.

How has Jo confirmed all this? Her mole in the bar spilt the beans and they had a right good gossip. To say she’s disappointed with David is an understatement and I’m sure you can concur. She feels she’s been put in an uncompromising situation because if she tells her sister she could be blamed for breaking up their ‘happy’ home and if she doesn’t her sister would be angry when she finds out she knew about his shenanigans and sneaky rendezvous but said nothing.

What would you do if you were in her shoes?