- Best-selling author Jane Green offers advice to woman left mortified by shocking incident with her cousin
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Dear Jane,
It’s extremely uncomfortable to even write about this, but I desperately hope you can help me get through this situation I’m dealing with.
Over the holidays, my cousin, who is a professional massage therapist, gave me and several members of our family gift cards to the spa where he works to use however we want. To be honest, I forgot about mine until recently, when a day moving boxes in our garage left me feeling more than a little stiff and sore.
My husband reminded me of the bonus and I literally ran (well, crawled) to book a massage. But when I got to the spa, the woman at the front desk told me that there had been a mix-up and that the only person available to give me the massage was… my cousin.
Dear Jane, I had a really awkward encounter with my cousin at a spa and I think the incident may have ruined our relationship forever.
Desperate for something to relieve the pain, I agreed to let him work on my back, even though I felt a little uncomfortable, and in the end the massage was excellent – my cousin was the ultimate professional.
Afterwards I enjoyed the spa’s sauna and pool for a few hours, which was the perfect way to relax. However, I clearly stayed longer than expected because when I returned to the locker room, almost everyone had disappeared.
That’s no doubt why, when I walked into the changing room and found my married cousin in an… intimate situation with his receptionist, they both seemed quite surprised to see me.
They both immediately started making excuses – ‘it’s the first time’, ‘this has never happened before’, etc., etc. – before running out of there to allow myself to change.
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After I got home, I had about 16 missed calls from my cousin, all of which I ignored. It’s been about a week and he’s still texting and calling me, begging me not to tell his wife, insisting that nothing’s wrong. Every excuse under the sun.
I have no idea what to do here. I love my cousin’s wife and they have children together… I don’t want to betray him, but I also can’t stand the idea of leaving her completely disoriented.
Whose trust do I destroy?
Of,
serious tension
Dear serious tension,
It’s terrible to have discovered a secret that now makes you complicit in someone else’s infidelity.
The weight of secrets can be really heavy and will always get in the way of true friendships, even when you are first cousins.
The messenger gets shot, and usually will.
I feel really bad saying that, because when you have a strong ethical core and you know that someone you love is being betrayed, you want to do the right thing and tell them.
Why do we tell them? We want to protect them, we want to keep them from getting hurt, and yet here we are, telling them the one thing that could be about to destroy their lives.
You also can’t force your cousin to tell them.
I think you shouldn’t do anything, because other people’s behavior is really none of our business. We never know the full story, and maybe his cousin’s version is true: that it has never happened before.
Either way, I’m not sure it has anything to do with you, as hard as it is to keep silent.
But whatever you decide to do, I urge you to think about the following words: Make the decision that causes the least harm to everyone involved.
