The most unfortunate part of law enforcement, as well as the medical community, is that you are compelled to confidentiality. To help you deal with the mess, confide in your wife (she can't testify against you
), but you are obligated to uphold your oath when taking your position.
In a perfect world, I would advise you to tell him, but you are basically stuck. It wouldn't do anyone any good to lose your job because of a breach of duties.
Police logs and reports are public record. If you don't want send a copy, then tell the person "You need to check the police logs on this date". Send the tip annon if you have to.
A cheater can expose their spouse to a STD, can be diverting marital funds, etc...
I agree with most of the others ....you NEED to tell your wife and you can, with her, decide how to handle it ....Keeping secrets in a marriage is never a good idea...never.
I'd be diggin out my employment policy manual/sylabus/pamphlet or what have you, and reading up on the rules and regulations regarding confidentiality of what is heard or seen while on duty. In my line of work, a breach of confidence can result in a fine as great as $250,000.00 dollars and several years in jail.
Hmmmmmm.... which is worse, ruining your whole life, or sitting on a secret. The one person you CAN discuss it with without breaking confidentiality is the woman cheating. She knows she cheated, she suspects you heard. If you "NEED" to unload your secret, I would unload it directly on her and keep your wife out of it. If you feel put out, TELL her you do NOT appreciate being put in such a position. I would not give her any ultimatums or directives either. Just tell her you know... let her sweat bullets instead of you.
BUT..i wonder...IF this lady dropped HIS name to try to get out of trouble with another police officer...where does the confidentiality end?....in my opinion..when she did that..does that not make the confidentiality null/void?....
After rereading the OP post...did she drop the name to try to get out of something or did she drop the name telling the officer Please don't let him find out about this situation?
Well when they call in for you to run the names does it go across the scanner? Like the police and fire scanner you can buy at Radio Shack? When they pull people over in MD my aunt has a scanner at her house as she is on the fire dept. They always say the names across the scanner when people are pulled over ect. If it does go across the scanner there, then the info is not private really and anyone with a scanner would know they were in that car together. So maybe someone else will tell her husband, if not I would stay out of it. You know what they say doesn't matter what happens the person that tell always catches the heat for the whole problem for some reason. I would just tell my wife, I don't want to hang around them anymore. If she asks you why tell her to ask her friend, that you are not aloud to say.