Do I tell or not?

[Nomad]

Weird dilemma.
My very good friend, I'll call her Sue, confided in me that her husband's cousin (male) lost his extremely, big time, high paying, good job, with an international well known Company because of horrible misconduct and he is lucky charges weren't brought against him. She told me some of what happened and that the incident spun the family into great financial difficulty, they are now barely getting by and are in extreme stress. I've met these people a few times over the years. The story is VERY sad and VERY shocking. They formerly were "well to do," and now are hurting. Many VERY bad (difficult child) choices were made.

Fast forward....

I have various health problems. I call up one of the Society's that deals with one of my health problems. Let's say it's migraines. The woman over the phone says "I see you live in the city of X". We have a very active volunteer in that city and puts me in touch with this woman. I'll call her Betty. I speak with Betty on the phone and we have a lot in common.

I meet Betty for coffee. She shares with me, almost in a whisper that her husband works for international company XYZ (the same one my friend's relative was fired from) and that he was recently transferred to city X.

I do an internet search and discover that Betty's husband was called in to replace the fired relative of my good friend Sue. (Well, really Sue's husband's relative)

Question: Do I tell my good friend Sue that I have met this woman and might see her in the future or keep my mouth shut? I say keep my mouth shut. It is very unlikely my friend would ever meet this woman with me and I wasn't really suppose to know this info. in the first place. However, should my friend ever find out, I do believe it would bother her. Sue even knows I had coffee with a person connected with this illness, but doesn't know anything further than that.

Well...hope this makes sense. Should I tell Sue about this new friend and the weird connection? Again, I'm leaning toward no.

PS / Warning. I might ask for this post to be removed at some point in the future due to sensitive nature of the subject.

 

[InsaneCdn]

My vote: no.

Nobody has anything to gain from knowing, and you have a lot to lose by telling.

 

[BusynMember]

No, my vote is with IC. Keep it to yourself.

 

[dstc_99]

I would tell her. You didn't do anything wrong and its not this mans wifes fault that he got the job. In fact it is the man who lost the jobs fault.

Maybe you could call her and say "the weirdest thing happened today. I went to meet the lady about my migraines and during the course of conversation I found out her husband works for company XYZ and recently moved to town X. It made me nosey so I got on the internet and her husband is now filling so and so's old position."

Wow what a small world we live in. I say face it head on and since it honestly is just a weird coincidence why feel like you have to hide something from your friend.

 

[pasajes4]

Not your monkey. Not your circus.

 

[recoveringenabler]

I'd leave it alone. I'd vote no.

 

[Lil]

She shares with me, almost in a whisper that her husband works for international company XYZ (the same one my friend's relative was fired from) and that he was recently transferred to city X.

She's not gossiping, right? Not saying, "My husband got the job because his predecessor got fired for misconduct and should have gone to jail." Right? All she did was tell you her husband works for XYZ and got transferred to X town.

It doesn't sound like you know Sue's husband's cousin. So really, it has nothing to do with you. If you and Betty don't start gossiping about it, no harm no foul.

I agree with dstc. If you want to mention it, just say, "You are NOT going to believe what a small world this is...and tell her how you met Betty and that she told you her husband works for XYZ and it turns our he replaced what's his name."

But really, why mention it at all if they're never going to meet up?

 

[Nomad]

No gossiping. no discussion, no names, nothing at all . It might be because of the size of the co and that it is well known. Her husband is super high up and maybe she doesn't want me to ask questions or anyone around the area to take notice. Or, because of what happened, maybe she is trying to keep a low profile for awhile. It was kind of a bad scandal and probably others in big / similar companies have heard about. No doubt it is something everyone hopes to put behind them.

Yes, very unlikely the two will meet up.

Yes, I've decided to never speak about to either of them.

 

[susiestar]

The connection to this company has NOTHING to do with you or why you met this woman. That her husband replaced this friend's relative who threw his job away in criminal ways is not your business or Betty's business, and that this woman helping with your health issues is connected to this company is not Sue's business.

Telling Sue wuold only bring pain and is just gossip,in my opinion. It has NOTHING to do with ANYTHING that is relevant to you, so you should stay as far out of it as possible.

As my very wise great gma used to say, "You don't have to tell ALL you know." Esp when it would only hurt people and serve no real purpose.

 

[2much2recover]

Well...hope this makes sense. Should I tell Sue about this new friend and the weird connection? Again, I'm leaning toward no.

In this case I agree since the meeting was about a health issue. Why would you tell anyone else what you learned, especially since you are not close to the actual involved parties? In my opinion it would only bring pain to the parties involved. Keep supporting your loved ones and if, for some strange reason it ever did come up - this is where a white lie comes in, as in "wow it never came up since we were only meeting for health issues".

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I say keep my mouth shut.

Can't write more than that right now Nomad, on my way to Tai Chi.

I don't know why this series of events has occurred, but this is a question of integrity.

Yours.

You did not seek this knowledge. It was never your intention to speculate or judge anyone or tell anyone. Your sincere heart is in your posting: your concern for your people, for the people who matter to you in your life.

That is you.

This other thing is just a horrifyingly weird coincidence. Treat it as such.

Integrity.

It is the heart that matters. If no one else ever learns any of this, you will know you behaved with integrity. If you are questioned about it at some point in the future, your response is the same one.

Integrity.

Cedar

 

[Nomad]

It did occur to me that this is very strange as we don't live in a very small town etc. ...it just seems so weird on a few levels...I wasn't even suppose to know in the first place. But, thank you everyone. I have peace about my decision.