Carolyn Hax: Old friend’s new wife spills awkward secret at dinner

Q: My husband and I work in the same place and are long-term friends with another colleague. The colleague was divorced most of that time but remarried a few years ago. His wife is nice but sometimes seems a little uncomfortable around us, which makes sense because she does not work where we do.

Tonight, we had them over for dinner, and when he left the room to take a call from his 20-something son, the wife told us he is not the biological father of the son.

It was a totally gratuitous revelation. It’s well known that the son had been conceived by IVF but not that our colleague wasn’t the biological father. Wife made clear that she knew we didn’t know and quickly changed the subject as soon as our colleague came back.

I feel quite awful about it; our colleague obviously didn’t want us to know because he otherwise would have said something during our lengthy friendship. In fact, according to the wife, even the son wasn’t told till he was older.

I think the right move is just to never say anything to anyone about it, but I somehow feel like we’re keeping a secret from our friend.

And I feel the wife betrayed our friend and he doesn’t know that, either. At the same time, I think he’s quite committed to the marriage, so telling him would cause upset without any probable gain. Thoughts?

— Colleague

A: A few of us were talking the other day about how there are Two Kinds of People when it comes to watching movies: the ones who want to understand what everything means as it’s happening, even if it means blurting out, “Wait, who’s the guy in the hat?” — and the ones willing to sit tight through the confusing parts while the story unfolds.

You want to be the patient moviegoers here.

The metaphor came to mind not only to validate your instinct to keep quiet. It’s also to help you feel better in that choice. You’re not keeping secrets from an old friend, and you’re not abetting his wife in her bizarre betrayal; you’re sitting tight through a confusing scene because you don’t know yet where the story is going or how all the weird pieces fit in.

(If they even do. Could be some postmodern thing.)

Keeping this to yourself goes by another name, too — minding your own darn business. I can’t even picture this long-standing work friendship in the same Venn diagram as the son’s paternity. If he ever finds out you knew, then that’s self-answering: “It was so none of our business, we weren’t even sure it was true.”

That does leave unaddressed the weird-spousal-behavior issue, which is somewhat your business. In a quick sketch in your letter, you showed us an awkward and left-out-feeling, recent-but-not-new-anymore wife who sold out her husband to flex her intimacy advantage. Ick. To put you in your places?

Assuming that’s accurate, though, then your colleague-friend has the bigger problems (either in store or well in progress) that come with an insecure spouse demonstrating fantastically poor judgment. Plus whatever diverted rage she tamped into this spousal torpedo.

That involves some speculation, sure. But even if we stick just to the fact of her “totally gratuitous revelation,” then you can deduce this: Something’s off with her, you don’t know exactly what — and the best friends he’s got right now are the ones who can stay calm and see what he needs.

• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.

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