I was watching a movie last night called Obsessed, about a woman who gets obsessed with a high powered exec and decides to ruin his life if she can’t have him. Despite being completely far-fetched and unrealistic even in its portrayal of a psychotic woman, Obsessed did present a very difficult dilemma that could actually happen in real life and which could be handled in several ways, none of which is too appealing.

In the movie, Lisa, a new temp assistant in some major company falls hard for her boss, Derek Charles, a vp in the company. So hard that she tries to seduce him at the office holiday party, shows up in his car wearing only lingerie, follows him to some corporate retreat where she drugs him and slips into his room, and otherwise does everything she can to separate him from his wife and make his life a living hell.

At the office party, she tries to get him to kiss her under the mistletoe. When he refuses, she follows him into the bathroom and physically pushes him into a stall, trying to get his pants undone. At this time, someone else enters the bathroom and hears the commotion in the stall. Now fortunately for the guy, the other person who came in was drunk and wasn’t sure what was going on, but certainly Derek must’ve been thinking in the back of his mind about what if someone finds out, what would happen to his job and his marriage, etc.

So here’s the situation: A woman comes onto you and actually becomes the sexual aggressor. There is some light intimate contact, but through no fault of your own. However, someone may have seen what happened. Also, the woman is mentally unhinged and could use this as blackmail against you. Your career and marriage is at stake. You could go and report her, but who would believe you? Would someone believe that a petite woman sexually assaulted you against your will?  And what about your wife? What if she somehow finds out either through this other woman or through some gossip? Should you tell her now and deal with her reaction, hoping that she believes your side of the story, or just keep quiet and hope the situation fades away? What would you do?

Answer: This is a tough one since either situation has negative consequences. On the one hand, your wife will have a hard time believing your story that you ended up in an intimate situation in a bathroom stall with another woman against your will. So, unless you have a iron-strength relationship with your wife, this may not good over too smoothly. On the other hand, if you don’t fess up now this situation will always loom over your head as potential blackmail fodder. And if your wife finds out from someone else besides yourself, she will definitely NOT believe you, since you’ve already lied by your omission. So what to do?

When in doubt, always lean towards the side of truth. First, it’s a miserable way to live to have to keep secrets, especially about something that wasn’t your fault. Second, it’s doubly miserable to always be looking over your shoulder, wondering who knows what about you or what can be used against you.  Third, by being the first to reveal the truth, you are in more control of the message and have a better chance of being heard and believed. By acknowledging a situation at first occasion, you are able to root it out before it becomes a much more real, bigger problem.  What Derek should have done is told his wife what happened as soon as he came home and dealt with the consequences right then and there. By being honest with her throughout the relationship, she would be more likely to believe him now and he might even come out looking real good as someone who doesn’t hold secrets. It might be natural for her to react strongly at the thought of her husband having some kind of intimacy with another woman, but by being calm, rational and forthright he would be much more able to calm her down and get her back on his side. Then when something happened in the future with the other woman, Derek and his wife would able to handle the situation together as a couple, rather than separately.

So what happened? As usual in these movies, Derek does the wrong thing and just tries to sweep the situation under the rug.  Eventually the crap hits the fan and the truth finally comes out and when Derek tries to convince his wife that the other woman is instigating everything, of course she doesn’t believe him and kicks him out of the house. All of his words fall on deaf ears since he’s been hiding what’s been happening from his wife the whole time. Eventually the other woman gets so psycho (she tries to steal their baby, breaks into the house, etc) that the truth becomes apparent and they are reconciled, but Derek played his hand poorly and was lucky it didn’t end up much worse.

Lesson learned: If there is something that someone could lord over you, some secret you think you need to hide, best policy is to deal with the truth from the start and dissipate the situation before it grows into an unmanageable fiasco.