A close friend of mine who is getting a divorce recently told me that her husband has not paid taxes for a very long time — possibly since before they were married. They have been filing separately, and she has dutifully paid taxes on all her earnings throughout.
When she told me this, I showed surprise but made no judgment. It has bothered me ever since. As a retired educator, I am troubled that this man, a 60-year-old public-school teacher, has been avoiding something I consider to be a civic duty. Do I have a moral responsibility to report him? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
I agree that this man is failing in his civic duty; he’s also being reckless, because he’ll be in serious trouble if he’s caught. But there is a higher threshold for sharing things we learn in our circles of friendship than the fact that a third party — in this case, the government — has reason to know them. In a functioning community, friends don’t have to be hypervigilant in what they tell one another, because they can trust that nobody is secretly moonlighting as an enforcement agent for the treasury.
Given that your friend and her husband are currently divorcing, and perhaps not on the best terms, it’s possible she’d be happy to see her husband audited. But if this were her aim in telling you, she’d be using you to settle scores, and the “using” part would be a problem. That’s her war to wage, not yours to be drafted into.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader whose sex addiction had nearly destroyed his marriage, and who wondered whether he and his wife should tell their kids about it. He wrote:
My wife and I are trying to make an ethical decision about truth-telling within our family. We’ve been married for decades and have two teenage children. For most of our marriage, I lived a double life driven by compulsive sexual behavior that escalated over time. My wife discovered evidence of it a few years ago. The discovery shattered her trust and nearly ended our marriage. We chose to stay together on the condition that I enter a 12-step recovery program for sex addiction, which I’ve successfully maintained. … Our home today is happier and more connected than it ever was. Our children are doing well — happy, engaged, thoughtful teenagers on positive trajectories. They know their parents’ marriage has been under strain and that we’ve been in therapy; they do not know the nature of the betrayal, the addiction or our recovery. … My wife and I struggle with whether we have a moral obligation to tell our kids the truth about what happened — not in graphic detail, but in substance. — Name Withheld
In his response, the Ethicist noted:
Transparency can be an important value, but it isn’t the only thing of value, and more of it isn’t always better. … The relationship you have with your children, in particular, is not a relationship of peers. Yes, children come to understand, in the squeamish abstract, that they may be the product of coitus — but as a rule, that’s about the limit of what they wish to know about their parents’ sex lives. It would have been dishonest had you told your children that your relationship has never been in trouble. It isn’t dishonest to refrain from delivering a full marital account that they have no expectation of receiving and no right to know. … If you both believe the kids are mature enough, you could begin by acknowledging that you know they’re aware of the difficulties and asking whether they’d like to know more about what happened — giving them time to think about it. Then, if they do want to know more, you can get a sense of how much more and (within limits) calibrate accordingly. I suspect you’ll find that there are drawers they’d rather not open. And I don’t recommend exposing details for the sake of it.
(Reread the full question and answer here.)
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When I was 15, I found out my father was having multiple affairs. When he realized I had found out, he sat down with me and explained as best he could. Because I seemed mature and receptive to explanation, he shared more than he might otherwise have. In retrospect, I wish he hadn’t shared any of it with me. The possibility of him having more affairs in the future, and my concern for my mother and our family, all weighed too heavily on me. I began to question the safety of romantic and familial relationships in general, and this carried over into how I saw the men I dated in the coming years. I wonder whether for most children it might be best to wait until they are full adults, with adult relationships under their belts, before sharing this weight with them. — Jamie
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The letter writer portrays sex addiction as a problem contained solely within the marital relationship. But while the explicit sexual behavior may have been kept under wraps, the writer cannot possibly have hidden all evidence of this orientation. My children do not know the extent of their father’s sex addiction, but I have seen remnants of my ex’s struggle in their casual jokes about sex and views of women. It’s as if his addiction was in the air they breathed. When I entered a healthier relationship and brought a different role model into the household, I saw some of these attitudes dissipate. As time passes, however, I worry that these effects are still there, and wonder if them knowing more about their father’s struggles would shed light on their own. — Amy
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I agree with the Ethicist on this one. I am 20 years out from a similar betrayal and am still married to my spouse. We worked hard to get here. There have been a few times when I wanted to let my daughter, who’s now a young adult, know about her father’s infidelities, but I’ve always stopped myself. Mostly the urge is there when I’m angry with him, which is never a good place to speak from. I know disclosing what happened will negatively impact her relationship with her father, and in the long run, possibly with me. She knows marriage isn’t easy and that it takes commitment, honesty and constantly choosing to turn toward your partner instead of away. She doesn’t need the intimate details. — Sarah
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The Ethicist doesn’t take into account that behavioral addictions are partly genetic. The parents may want to have an age-appropriate talk with their kids about the inheritability of addiction and how it can affect relationships. — Megan
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I have worked with teenagers and their families as a counselor and therapist for over 20 years. I do not believe in keeping secrets. At the same time, I believe there is a difference between secrecy/deception and privacy. The details of your marriage are private. Teenagers are in a unique developmental stage, and having to make sense of sex addiction at this point, compounded by the fact that one of their parents has that affliction, could cause them harm. If your wife is struggling with wanting your kids to know it was your fault, that’s a sign that this is not resolved between the two of you. And that’s OK — it sounds like you’re still working on it. But that is not a sound reason for burdening your kids with more information than they can handle. — Emily
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