h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is it best to own up?

It think it kindda depends on the situation...

It might not always be the way to go...

... what about?
... who gets hurt?
... is the alternative keeping quiet or telling lies?

That depends on what you're owning up to. Is it going to hurt someone else that did nothing to deserve being hurt?

Example: You had an affaire. The affaire is over and no one is going to tell. Do you tell your spouse? NO! It would only hurt the spouse that did nothing. You keep your mouth shut about it until you die.

I would need more information about your case to determain if owning up is best.

Mostly

I must admit I agree with Mostly on this one.

A male friend of mine told me that he was having an affair, but I decided not to tell his wife. She is a friend too. The reason is that I would have been letting of a grenade in their marriage, and I would not be injured, they would be. I am sure from things that she has said that she now knows, though I dont know if she knows I knew. They have made up their differences, and are now stable and as happy as I think they can be.

But the alternative for me was keeping quiet rather than telling lies. If she had said "Is he having an affair?" I dont know what I would have done.

Well I reversed into a wall in my mum's taxi. I did toy with the idea of pretending someone had hit me and driven off, but I couldn't do it and I confessed. I felt much better, if slightly lighter in pocket.

But the other's are right. If someone will get hurt through confessing something just to make you feel better, and no one will get hurt through silence, then shhhh...

Can't you tell us what it's about?

I know someone who almost got raped by one of their friend's husbands. She was just staying at their house overnight because she'd had too much to drink to drive home. He came into the room she was sleeping in and tried to force himself on her. She managed to fight him off and drive home well before she was really sober enough to go - but the roads were empty luckily. She agonised for about 2 months over whether to tell her friend. In the end, she telephoned the friend and told her about the situation as though it was hypothetical and asked, if she was the wife, would she want to know. The friend said yes straight away and when the details had been passed to her, she said she'd suspected and was very concerned about whether her husband had hurt her friend. A further couple of dramas also followed. She's still with the man and they now have 4 kids.

I thought it was a good way to find out whether the friend would want to know. I think she should have told her friend whether she wanted to know or not, personally. I don't think she would have been doing her any favours keeping that kind of information from her.

As far a confidences are concerned, anything told to me in confidence would never be reapeated. However, generally I always believed that people would respect one for telling the truth and owning up to ones failings, but I was wrong. People do not respect honesty, they see it as a weakness to be exploited at a suitable time.

A lawyer friend of my said once should "Deny, deny, deny" as it was the only way to survive - it didn't do Bill Clinton, Kevin Maxwell, Jeffrey Archer, Earnest Saunders etc. etc. etc. any harm.

SOME people respect honesty. It's a mistake to mix lawyers up with ordinary people - they're a sort of sub-species I think and not a yard stick to measure the rest of us by

I agree, lawyers do not set a good example, however I have learnt the hard way with 'ordinary' people that being honest does not generally go in one's favour and I shall forever seriously regret being honest and open with people.

Actually, telling someone else you´re having an affair would be quite cruel. That puts them in an awful situation about wether to tell the wife or lie if asked. But I´d say don´t tell the wife. Usually that will make you feel better, but it sure won´t make the wife feel any better. And as for hypothetical questions, if they´re not done properly it´s basically confessing.

"A lawyer friend of my said once should "Deny, deny, deny" as it was the only way to survive - it didn't do Bill Clinton, Kevin Maxwell, Jeffrey Archer, Earnest Saunders etc. etc. etc. any harm."

If you don't consider ending up in court to be harmful, not to mention plastered over the papers. Both of those are "harm" I could do without. So I disagree with your lawyer friend, Rainbow.

Mr PP - any clues as to context?

It was their actions (not their denial) that got them into court - their denial them kept them out of prison.

Hmmm. Earnest Saunders did go to jail. (His wife bought him a Porsche while he was inside, which is about as stylish as it comes). I think Kevin Maxwell was bankrupted. Archer could still go to jail. Aitken did. I am not at all sure about Deny Deny Deny as a strategy - plea bargaining sometimes works better.

But the basic principle remains - who gets hurt by the truth? Who gets hurt by the lies? Remembering that lies can be more dangerous than truth.

If Clinton had said "yes, but she was cute, it was a moment of weakness, and you'd have done the same" he wouldn't have been impeached. It was the denials that put him deeply in it.

I suppost that this is all my own fault. There was really no context at all. However I simply wondered if people would own up (to whatever they imagined really).

The worst of it is that I feel really guilty about nothing now. Oh damn. Perhaps it would have been best just to keep my mouth shut and not even hinted!

Besides, nobody saw me do it.

There is a story that someone played a practical joke at the beginning of the 20th century...

They sent lots of people an anonymous telegram saying "Flee at once, all is about to be revealed" and watched the recipients booking tickets for the colonies.

Interesting that we all assumed you were talking about relationships...

agcB