Ironically
HELPER cannot help. Keep your lips shut, ride it out. You don't need to step off but you will probably be served to find some activities / interests that involve none of these people for a time. Your at the age where college friendships sometimes just fade away as real life gets more real. That's OK.

Dan is spot on.

I don't know if I'd call the friend nosy, though. Presumably, he didn't ask Betty to give him unwanted and unnecessary details of the two messy marriages.

But it's not his Titanic. There's nothing constructive he can or should do other than STFU, pretend he knows nothing about anything going on, and forget Betty ever told him anything. Except maybe try to be a little more supportive of Bob, in the redirective "Who knows why women do what they do, buddy, but it doesn't matter why she won't try to work things out, it just matters that she doesn't want to, so stop torturing yourself over it and think about the life you want to start building without her" sort of way instead of sitting unhelpful and paralyzed by his secret knowledge.

Does no one see it? She is in love with John! And thinks that by telling him, he will dump his wife and she will get him.

Ding, ding ding! BG for the win.

Gah! Anyone else having high school flashbacks?

I think HELPER's intoxication with this juicy piece of gossip is getting the better of him. One of the best skills we can all learn is to keep our mouths shut. Just being there to listen is all the help you need provide.

I agree with all of the STFUs. At 30, and especially married this letter writer should: a) have enough life experiences to know that intimate relationships are complicated and it should be obviously that regardless of what he thinks he knows, he can't know the whole story/backstory. And b) (particularly regarding his perception of his friend John's happiness or lack there of) I am sure he has had the experience of, when discussing something with another person, someone taking what he thought was an expression of mild annoyance more minor dissatisfaction as bitter complaints (due to the listeners projections as much as anything) and be aware that, while john might really be unhappy, LW doesn't sound like he can really be sure. A+B= Mind your own fucking business.

And HELPER, just in case you haven't seen the acronym before, "STFU" means "Shut The Fuck Up," and Dan's right; that's what you should do.

@6: Hah! If it's causing him this much stress and unhappiness-

"I also worry that John is desperately unhappy and won't do anything about it until after his wife is pregnant. Should I bring it up? I want him to have someone to talk to about his feelings (I have felt like he needs to go to counseling for a while now)."

Perhaps they should follow their own cry for help and speak to a professional?

Also agree with @7 in that 30 is getting up there in years for meddling in the affairs of friends.

Is LW M or F?

Here's a good rule of thumb HELPER: unless you're a Parisian ingenue named Amelie, living in a world of magical realism, don't attempt to solve the problems of those around you.

One other thing HELPER, your friends are all married, but you don't mention having a partner. Maybe you should be spending more time building your own relationship then trying to involve yourself in the relationships of other people. And if you're just totally happy being a single person, go find a hobby.

I have some sympathy for HELPER here. Some secrets are really crummy to know. If this was me, HELPER, and this secret was weighing on me as much as it seems to be weighing on you, then I would make a point of telling Betty the next time this kind of thing comes up that you don't really want her to tell you things you can't talk to your friends about. I've found if you flat out tell people, Don't Tell Me Something I Can't Talk About With X, they will usually knock it off pretty fast. As for what to say when Bob is trying to understand what happened: He doesn't need you to solve anything. He might need sympathy and distractions while he grieves the end of his marriage though. So, if you want to do something for Bob, I would focus on that.

@12, the thing that eases the burden of knowing secrets such as Helper's is, as Dan rightly pointed out, the likelyhood of you having the full story is incredibly small. That means that the odds of you doing more harm than good opening your mouth is incredibly large. It's not just about minding ones own business to keep ones own hands clean. Keeping ones mouth shut in this type of situation is actually the caring and judicious thing to do.

Ok can we all agree that it's a real dick move to tell your friend about an affair if said friend is also friends with the person being cheated on? You put someone in a position where they now have to choose between betraying your confidence or betraying the other friend by remaining silent.

That being said, I think while I would certainly tell a good friend if I knew they were being cheated on, in this case LW should keep quiet. You aren't Jane's friend, and it wasn't even an actual affair. Stay out of it. As for Bob, he's not going to be any happier knowing the divorce is because of an almost-affair. Stay out of it.

This was downright cheating. Whether they consummated the relationship or not, this was an EMOTIONAL affair that resulted in one of the couples getting a divorce. Even if part A did not go in Slot B, it still was a relationship that resulted in the dissolution of another relationship.

What is the desired outcome here? Telling Bob that his wife had a Snapchat dalliance will explode the relationship HELPER and Bob have with John. Not telling Bob might keep the friendship together but the secret will come out. And poor Jane, who will never know.

John and Betty are both assholes. Betty is already going to be spun out of the circle, but do you really want to keep John around knowing that he was a catalyst for the dissolution of a marriage? Is he that good of a guy otherwise?

I say plant the bomb and get a new set of friends.

There is one thing HELPER might say: "I'm really uncomfortable with your telling me all this. Please don't confide in me any more. If you want a marriage counselor or any other sort of counselor, see a professional."

(I didn't read the whole letter, just skimmed after the first few sentences. Reason: I was really uncomfortable reading all this ...)

@15/TheMisanthrope: "John around knowing that he was a catalyst for the dissolution of a marriage?" HELPER cannot know whether John was a "catalyst" for the dissolution of Betty and Bob's marriage, and there is every reason to think it was not.

In any event, crapping on Betty, Bob, John, and Jane, before searching for "a new set of friends," seems to be terrible advice. And after doing that, any potential "new friend" would be better off without having made the acquaintance of HELPER.

I call fake. I can't think of any reason, that isn't malicious, for Betty to confide this kind of information to one of her husband's best friends. I would be more inclined to believe this if the LW was one of Betty's female friends. Why do "friends" (with a fiend like this who needs enemies) insist on putting their friends a morale dilemma by giving them TMI? Women vent about problems looking for emotional support, men see a problem and want to fix it. This letter wouldn't never have been written if Betty had not confided in the LW.

SB: friend not fiend, but then again maybe fiend may be an apt description of Betty

@16 boom.

I'm curious what the relationships are that the snapchat affair was divulged to you knowing that you were mutual best friends with both the married man she was cheating with and her husband. One might say she "wanted to get caught" (a passive-aggressive way to make the other person end the marriage)? I have been assuming LW is a male, but it'd make more since if they were female, as one could more readily imagine that the sharing of privileged information with the neutral go-between between Jane and Betty is a classic mean-girl-power-move.

TheMisanthrope @15 -- getting new friends seems like good advice. Setting off emotional bombs along the way seems like bad advice.

I also think that given Betty and John's choice to look to each other, rather than outside of the group to satisfy their respective urges to test the waters of infidelity (I personally don't find text based flirting to be that big a deal and if I found out my partner was indulging in a little flirty fantasy, I can't imagine feeling threatened by it unless it included some disparagement of me or expression of his unhappiness about being with me), Betty's choice to disclose it to some one in the group, and that someone's utter preoccupation with it is all an indication that their little world is awfully small for 30 year olds with out kids. Betty, unless she was trying as someone mentioned, to stir the pot within the group, should have other friends that have nothing do with the group, whom she could have told. And Helper shouldn't be so tortured with this, as he should have other people to distract him or talk it through with.
Their world already sounds mind numbingly insular now, and it's only going to get worse as kids appear and their careers get busier.

Fichu @16 wins the thread. EricaP @21 is a close second.

SublimeAfterglow @17 Have you had an affair with your best friend's significant other only to watch their relationship crumble? It sounds like you're looking for absolution for the wreckage you may have caused at one point. Maybe you're doing it now? Are you "John"? Because, of all the people in this whole toxic swamp, John is the bad guy for having an affair (emotional and almost physical) with his best friend's wife. Not knowing who started the flirtations (Betty or John), John should have had the emotional investment in Bob, one of his best friends, to put a stop to it as it started.

Wait a second...is this the plot to The Room? Is Helper actually Peter, the psychologist Best Man who learns of Mark and Lisa's relationship? When your circle of friends starts looking like a Tommy Wiseau movie, it's time to run away. Run, LW, RUN!!!

@21: They appear to be of the Heath Ledger-as-Joker school of winning friends.

@24: But he did nah heet hahr.

...

O hai Misanthrope!

This made my brain hurt. HELPER will probably do whatever the hell they want no matter what we say. If they need to ask what to do, they are just hoping for permission to keep it going. P.S, HELPER, this will blow up in your face. The most expendable variable here is you. So if you do tell your friends, they will probably reconcile because they want kids, and you are going to get the blame. You didn't cause the "affair", but it's a lot easier to blame you as a toxic source than it is to divorce and find a new person willing to have kids in their 30's.

@26 Oh hey, Ayn Rand. What's up?

@28 http://media3.giphy.com/media/12SWAjro31…

I love that flick more than is healthy.

@29 You think girls like to cheat like guys do?

This letter is a little too close to the plot of that movie, right down to the "we're best friends" comment. Do you think LW is Peter or Denny? Either way, now I'm really worried for Bob.

I didn't know Snapchat affairs were a thing. Sounds totally high school to me, lots of drama and no sex. STFU, and how about grow the fuck up too?

@30: Gosh, I couldn't even guess. There weren't any tells, but I'll go with Denny for expediency's sake.

We'll know if he's being hunted by his drug dealer or with a penchant for creepy manchild wandering into the home while one couple is trying to get it on.

Shame the Wiseauverse isn't broad enough that we could find parallels for each post as some do with the Brontës.

This letter is totally bizarre - hard to believe LW et al. are in their 30's. Snapchat, really? I totes can't see how it's any of LW's business. It's disturbing that LW wants to tell the wife - to blow up the marriage and stop her from getting pregnant - when, like Dan said, LW can't know if any of it is true! And even if LW truly believes in this story/gossip, and really, REALLY thinks it's his/her business to stick himself/herself in the middle of other people's marriages, why not talk to the would-be-errant-husband directly, and if the "culprit" admits to Snapchat cheating (!!!), tell him to tell his wife before she finds out through the grapevine? Wanting to go to the wife makes it seem like LW wants to blow up this marriage for some reason. LW is too invested in these couples' private shit. LW need to step back, tell the confider to shut up, and get some new friends!

@33: "Wanting to go to the wife makes it seem like LW wants to blow up this marriage for some reason."

They didn't mention a crush on the wife, but that doesn't seem to be an uncommon thread for those who want to help the "poor" partner who he thinks doesn't know what happened. For all he knows, the husband could have copped at some point.

@15 Wow, thought crimes are real crimes, now, huh? Your whole approach to this is very Tea Party, very Trumpian. Jumping to conclusions without facts (no evidence that the snapchat interchanges broke up the marriage), insisting that married people are cheating if they have emotional responses to their friends - no wonder you are a Misanthrope, you have the mindset of a member of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, and we know that did not go well.