Platonic friend kept me a secret for years and I didn’t know, and now it is causing problems in his marriage
Dinner: curried potatoes and tofu, with veggies and rice
In 2020, I made a friend through my work. We had a lot of common interests and had many interesting conversations. We live across the country from each other (it was a remote job), so we have been able to meet in person only a few times (when I traveled for in-person work meetings) and otherwise our friendship is over the phone. At first it seemed like mostly it would be a work-related contact but we ended up staying in touch and he became one of my closest long-distance friends.
Much of what we talk about has to do with human relationships and psychology, especially our own relationships. We also discuss current events, our careers, and any general life updates or fun stories (family friends etc.).
At one point, it occurred to me to wonder whether his wife or really anyone in his life knew that I was a good friend of his (considering I live in another state and we mostly have a phone call relationship). I had never thought to ask before, so at this point this was over three years into our friendship.
He said, "No, she doesn't." And I said, "Ah….why is that?" And basically he explained that his wife was in a very emotionally shut down place when him and I became friends and would have immediately been threatened, and he just felt like it was easier to just not mention it, especially knowing it was platonic and I lived far away. So I was essentially a secret penpal. I felt a little uncomfortable about it and asked if he planned to tell her eventually because that just seemed impractical to hide forever and would just be a bad look and he said yes he was planning to tell her soon.
I don’t like secrets, but I also knew him to be someone of integrity in every other regard after three years of knowing him at this point, and he had never crossed a boundary with me. I believed him that he planned to tell her soon. I know at the end of the day, we can’t fully understand from the outside what all the factors are in someone’s relationship, so I trusted his judgment that for whatever reason it was the best decision at the time. The fact that he was going to tell her at some point soon was enough for me to feel ok continuing the friendship. (At this point we maybe talk on the phone once a month or every couple months, as well as occasional texts with life updates).
Fast forward, they finally talk about it. As you can imagine she was surprised to learn he had a friend she had never heard about and felt very confused and suspicious as to why he hid it. But then he said ultimately she agreed that she was in a very bad place at the time of him becoming friends with me, and she understood why he needed a friend and why he didn’t mention it, even though it hurt her to learn that he did that.
So the reveal was back in 2024 and our friendship has continued as usual since then (occasional phone calls and catching up on life).
Since that time they have been doing a lot of processing about their relationship as a whole and they recently decided to be in couples counseling.
Now the issue of this friendship with me has come back up. It turns out she never really felt like she got over the betrayal/hiding and she kind of swept it under the rug and moved on at the time, but apparently it has been the elephant in the room and has really been bothering her this whole time and she feels that she never had the chance to process any of it.
He told me that she said on the one hand she agrees that she would have responded badly to the friendship, and on the other hand she is upset with him for not telling her and keeping it a secret. I'm inclined to agree that secrets are unnecessarily damaging no matter what, and this situation is very unfortunate. I do believe we have a right to have a private life and not telling our spouse everything doesn't necessarily mean we are doing anything wrong, but having a good friend for years who you never mention to your partner would probably make anyone think there was something weird there.
So, they are finally addressing this in therapy and she asked him to stop talking to me while they process all this. He said he will honor her request and I said I totally I understand given the circumstances of the initial hiding of our relationship.
So that was a couple weeks ago and we have not spoken since. Imagine my surprise when I get a phone call from his wife. She basically said she got my number from her husband/my friend who told her I would be willing to talk (which is true, I always said I would be happy to talk to her anytime and hopefully even meet one day, but I did not expect it to happen right now and with no heads up).
Basically she said she was calling because she said she felt like she just wanted to better understand the whole picture and still felt unclear about certain things and that maybe I could shed some light on things.
Her first question was, why did I participate in something like this. I clarified that I was not aware that this was hidden from the start. Had someone told me "I want to be your friend but I am going to hide it from my wife" that would have seemed very odd to me, but I had no idea that was happening. By the time I learned this, I had already gotten to know him and knew him to be someone of integrity in every other regard. He said it was a decision he made based on the factors at hand at the time but he knew he would be accountable for the decision later. Since he was planning to tell her soon after I learned this, and I knew it had been truly platonic the whole time, I continued being friends with him knowing he was planning to do the right thing ultimately.
She said ok and this all made sense to her, she didn’t realize that I didn’t know from the start. But then she said, "Just so you know, he never told me." And I was like…..what. Basically, she said she found it while looking for something else (I didn't ask details but my guess is that being together for so long and having kids, they probably share a fair number of accounts and so she probably came across some messages or something and then asked him who I was).
Now, I don't know his side of the story, it's very possible he WAS truly planning to tell her and planning for a certain moment to do so and then she happened to find out before that happened, but as you can imagine that made it much worse for her experience of the whole thing and made it seem that much fishier because now it’s hard for her to trust he was ever really planning to tell her. And of course I don't know her very well so I am just taking her word for it that finding out was as she said, an accident.
My friend never exactly told me about the reveal. All he said was "She knows about you now" and then we talked about what her reaction was and all of that and he said how it was jarring but ultimately she understood. So I just assumed he was the one who told her. So that's something for me to put a pin in for later to ask him why he didn’t mention that part to me.
Anyway the phone call ended with her basically saying she is just so confused what it is about me that made him hide it if it was truly platonic, and she wishes he just told her. I said I agree I wished that too and I never wanted anything like this to happen. She said whatever it is, it is unlike him and she hopes they can work it out. She thanked me for my time and I said if anything else comes up she can reach out anytime.
So now I'm left with all these ethical questions spinning around in my head. Knowing how it all played out thus far, is there something different I should have / could have done? This was a platonic friendship but she is having the experience a little bit of me being like "another woman" which I get. I also feel like he put me in a very weird position having her reach out to me when I didn’t even know all the information about the initial reveal (assuming he knew she reached out). And obviously he put me in a weird position from the start being a secret and not knowing I was a secret for years.
What would you do now? Also general thoughts?