I read the story by typing in the link you provided. First off, may I tell you that you seem biased towards your girl-friend & therefore are blaming the guy more for the affair. She's not that young, & she does know right from wrong. Also, she sounded like the aggressor by going over & chatting with him & her providing the place to rendevous. Anyway, regardless of their ages, she's known enough by that age about dating & how it would hurt to get cheated on. They both need to equally take blame for one of them not saying no. Takes two to tango. I don't know why people want to have friends with benefits. I'm sorry you feel like you need to do something as this is totally unfair to the spouses. It's even more unfair to the kids if their Daddy would get fired. Surely your manager can have empathy for the fact that their Dad can & still does his job well. And if he does divorce his wife, he can still provide for his kids. The family getting broken up, Dad losing his job & the cheated on Mom trying to pick up soo many pieces doesn't paint a pretty picture. You said the boss warned him & they backed off (at work.) What they did at her house was on their time & I can't see how he can fire him because of that. With all that one President did in the Whitehouse (& that's the top office of the land that's suppose to be ethical, etc.) he didn't get fired. Some people knew about it for a long time. Remember that one gal? She was alot younger than the gal you are soo protective of & think is so gullible & naive & taken advantage of. (I'm afraid you are biased cuz she's your friend.) It was said that one gal knew exactly what she wanted to do when she went to be an intern. It was said that somehow she knew of his philandering ways & was going to the whitehouse to get her goose egg.
I'm glad you guys discouraged your co-workers from doing that. Cuz some co-workers may help their co-worker friends cheat by giving them alibis &/or letting them feel it's exceptable. Then if the two break up & one of them is hurt by the breaking up -people start picking sides & wanting one to have to suffer for what everyone thought was okay for awhile. I'm glad your boss told them to take it elsewhere. I think that's the most he can do unless he has an employee handbook with a code of conduct saying dating between employees is prohibited. Even so, I hope he doesn't have it out for them cuz he's been lied to. Which, now that I think of it, is what your boss would be trying to base his firing on. But if they kept it clean at work, how can a boss be their keeper when they are off the clock? Remember some that wanted that one President impeached cuz he lied to the public? Well, there's worse things that Presidents have lied about that've effected ALOT more people. At least the guy doesn't lie about his work & maybe thinks his personal affairs are his & shouldn't have to tell anyone. Your boss MAY not be truthful with everyone outside of work about his personal business & feelings, either. Maybe he hasn't been put on the spot or had anyone question his personal life. I'm not trying to criticize your boss, I just want him to be able to have some empathy. He may be a very devout husband & ethical man and find it hard to see such a thing going on.... but maybe judge the two by their work & let the two work out their personal affairs. You'd be surprised, I bet there's more than one person having some sort of personal business issues. As long as it's not changing their work output to an unacceptable level. He, as a boss, told him what he thought & to keep it out of the work place & that's good. I hear employees all over the place chatting with each other about personal stuff so I guess that varies from work place to work place. You'd want your employees to enjoy each others company on breaks etc, as long as you say no hanky panky! Which you guys did & I think you need to leave the rest up to them about what they do when they clock out. Time will take care of it somehow. Either they'll stop, keep going til the spouses catch 'em, or divorce their spouses for each other. But, that really hurts to see the spouses being so betrayed & cheated out of a relationship. I personally would want to tell the spouses but you never know if that's always best. That's what goes on in the world. Glad you & your spouse feel against it & wouldn't do that to each other! You guys are two people we don't have to feel bad for! Just be the good friend you are & with gentle reminders make her feel pressured to stop the affair or divorce her husband if she can't be satisfied or happy if she's found someone out to better. Sometimes when people cheat they may find someone who's better in that area, become disastisfied with their spouses & not be happy any more because they shouldn't have been testing other waters. That's why adultery is grounds for divorce. Remind her that it's not fair or right to be doing that to her spouse & she wouldn't want to be the one in his shoes being betrayed & cheated on. Ask her how she'd feel if she was the faithful one to her husband & he was out every chance he was offered to rendevous w/another woman? Then coming home to her, looking her in the eye knowing he was just intimate & became one w/some gal (when he vowed to be one with her), some gal knew he was married but wanted him to come to her house & satisfy her anyway, & then is gonna lay down next to her at night & hang out with her all day & act like nothings going on! YUCK! (Paint an ugly pic to wake 'em up.) Don't take it up to the boss.
People are people, & they have all sorts of issues. Just do your best to encourage others- if they are friends enough that you get the chance to give them good advice. Then let them grow up in their own time -with gentle reminders once in a while if they still need them! :) {hugs to you, sweetie!}
Added to the 4 hours ago update:
I'm not understanding why you are saying that their activities at work are causing a major disruption? Are they not doing their work & playing hanky panky instead? Or are they still talking to each other like everyone else can talk to each other & it makes people suspicious that they are still having an affair outside of work? If it is outside of work & no hanky panky at work, with all due respect, how can that be anyone's business? It's not that that law has been passed where it would become a crime (punishable by fines & jail time) if someone was committing adultery. If that becomes the law, then someone could report it as a crime. But, then again, I don't know how they would enforce that & make sure people weren't. If they were doing it in the privacy of their own homes, it'd be breaking the law & infringing on their constitutional rights to be spying on them. You could say you saw someone's car at someone's house but you can't say that you know for sure they were having hanky panky instead of just visiting & being each other's secret confidant. What about in some states were sodomy is still illegal? Seems kinda silly to me cuz there would be no way to legally monitor that. I'm sorry you & your co-workers feel bad for the spouses. I feel really bad for all the homeless people, kids on welfare, people living thru the hostility in Iraq, the lonely spouses here & abroad that can't see their loved ones or their families. We can give them our love & prayers but don't dwell on it, let it depress you, & affect your life. That doesn't change anything & there's always gonna be not soo happy things going on. What if they did quit but still wanted to be friends, which I wish everyone could be, would everyone still be suspicious of them? Is there anyway to let bygones be bygones? There are soo many things people do in their personal lives, even what some call simple little things like white lies even to their friends. Someone asked a question on here once wanting to know how to talk to their friend about beauty tips (give her advice in a tactful way) & someone recommended her making up a story about knowing so-so & blah blah blah. They were thinking they were meaning well by doing that so they could be tactful, but it was still dishonest to their friend if they were making up a story. Thinking we need to meddle & be our brother's keeper can be a demanding job... most fit for God. I'm not saying you can't give good advice but we don't need to be our brother's keeper to the point where we make sure that he dots all his I's & crosses all his T's. Let it go & be happy you said encouraging words, now it's out of your hands. As long as there's no hanky panky going on inside of the workplace, cuz your boss can enact rules to say no to that behavior. If you are saying that people are still finding them kissing in the workplace & they are encomfortable about them not respecting the rules, that's a hard one. I really don't think I'd want to be the narc & probably would hope that they'd quit before the boss caught them. But, I just realized the bigger problem may also be that you don't like seeing your boss's concerns being disrespected, either & you wouldn't want to hold a secret from your boss, someone whom you respect and value. Wow! What would I do if I were the boss? I care about people & would find it hard to fire people not knowing how well they could survive without their jobs. Of course they have to be able to do their jobs, too, or that jeopordizes everyone's livelihood. This is why the bosses get paid the big bucks! And I am very sorry, I don't have that answer. Plenty of relationships have gone thru affairs & very, very few statistically turn into a bomb going off! Really!!! Statistically, you have a better chance of being in a bad car accident than getting hurt by knowing about or being in a love triangle! (Okay, we just had that really wierd one on the news about the astronaut lady, but, that's so rare.) You don't worry about driving or having something changed cuz you fear the small possibility of a car accident! Take care, God Bless & pray for our troops, homeless people, & people & kids on welfare while you are at it! :)
And pray for our leaders that are wayed down with concerns of how to fix complicated matters (Senator Byrd from W. Virginia, I listened to him talk about how he has many sleepness nights worrying about issues at hand. He's such a sweetie & I feel bad that he's soo grieved like that.) Genocide in Darfor, Iran threatening to wipe Isreal off the map, Terrorist sleeper cells in the US & abroad... many concerns out there. Thanks for your question... puts things into perspective that there's always people going thru way worse... we can't fix all the problems out there but can help by being as peaceful as possible. {hug}