Dear Readers - This heart-wrenching quote sums up why I've devoted an informal survey and three columns, to Whether to Tell on a Cheater:

"Being married to a cheat is like waking up and finding you've been put on a rocket to the moon without your knowledge. There's no easy way to get back to Earth, and the ride is terrifying with no way of knowing the outcome."

No wonder I heard more searing personal stories from people who'd been cheated on, than from those who refuse to expose the cheater.

Yet there were also personal accounts of the no-interference rule:

Reader - "My two best friends were a married couple: He was cheating and delighted in telling me details. They finally saw a counsellor together. Each one would tell me what happened; neither was being honest before the counsellor. So, I went to see their therapist.

"He recommended I keep quiet and let him deal with them. They soon separated and subsequently divorced.
"As a friend, keep your mouth shut! I would've lost two friends. Instead, they're both happily remarried."

Ellie - Despite my previously stated convictions about not interfering - except when knowing of health risks - (June 26 column), this next story changed my view:

Reader - "My ex-husband was unfaithful with one woman for 10 years, while he had two children with me, and lived very comfortably while I supported him financially so he could be self-employed.

"His business allowed him to hide his actions until he eventually confessed. I divorced him. He's now married to his mistress and creating ongoing problems because she doesn't want him to have a relationship with, or support his children financially.

"I'd give everything I have, had someone been brave enough to tell me what was going on. It would've saved me from wasting precious years devoting myself to a lying cheat, and stopped me from giving birth to two children who have been totally messed up by the ugliness of our divorce.

"It's grossly unfair to hide this truth from the victim. He or she should have the right to determine their own future based on truth, not delusions about their partner. Cheaters are playing with their spouses' lives and futures, without consent.

"Had I been informed I could've had a life with someone who truly loved me, who would've been a true partner and father to my children. Instead I stayed with a man who's ruined me financially, fathered children he doesn't wish to support, and is now married to someone who's the bane of the children's' and my existence.

"An anonymous note would've been fine, just to let me know that the man I thought I knew was hiding a significant secret that had the potential to blow my world apart. He, too, would've been happier, had he not had to keep his love secret for 10 years.

"Foolishly, he thought he was having his cake and eating it too, until it blew up in his face.

"The truth is always better. Why do people feel that they're doing cheaters and their partners a favour by hiding behaviours that could financially, physically, psychologically and physically ruin them? We have dangerous venereal diseases to deal with when partners cheat. We also have the family law systems to deal with.

"In some places, family law rulings can cripple the higher earners, and turn people into slaves when leaving long term marriages, no matter if their spouse is the one who cheated."

Ellie - "Here's my own story, with a different twist: I was once made the confidante of the victim spouse. Never again!

"Years ago, a close friend called, upset, begging me to rush over. When I arrived, she confided she'd accidentally discovered that her husband's late nights "working" were a cover for a months-long affair with his secretary.

"He'd even been helping the other woman's child with homework, leaving his wife alone at home with their school-aged kids!

"I listened, as shocked as she was (they'd appeared a model family), to her heartbroken reports through weeks of their mutual agony now that the affair was revealed and their marriage at risk, and through their period of therapy.

"Ultimately, the couple stayed together and moved away. The wife immediately severed our friendship forever. I hadn't been the messenger, but it seemed losing me and my knowledge was necessary for her to keep her marriage."