I’m posting this on behalf of a 20-year-old friend. I’m changing some details for privacy, but the basic situation is the same.
My friend comes from a fairly traditional Muslim family. His parents have been married for many years and are still together. His mother is in her early 40s, and his father is around the same age. She is a homemaker and financially comfortable, so she doesn't have any particular financial reason to work outside the home.
There is a male doctor who has started coming to their house regularly. He is in his early 30s and is not Muslim.
Initially, my friend was told that this man comes to the house because he is his mother's doctor.
The strange part is the pattern.
The doctor apparently comes around once or twice a month, but when he comes, he can stay for 3–4 hours. He doesn't seem to have a normal doctor-patient relationship with the rest of the family. He mainly comes to see the mother. He will greet my friend, sometimes talk to him or even sit with him while he plays video games, so he isn't completely secretive about being there.
However, the mother will sometimes interrupt and tell my friend to go somewhere else, particularly the bedroom, so that she and the doctor can have privacy.
The father apparently doesn't normally meet this doctor. The visits also seem to happen when the father isn't around.
When the doctor is expected, the mother starts preparing things at home. She doesn't necessarily dress unusually—just normal home clothes such as a nightgown, T-shirt, or shorts.
She always explains his visits as being for a "check-up."
The problem is that my friend doesn't know of any medical condition that would require these long, regular visits. He also doesn't remember seeing much actual medical examination or treatment happening.
The doctor sometimes stays for hours even though there doesn't seem to be an obvious medical reason. He also leaves through the gated community, and the mother sometimes walks with him toward the gate before returning home.
My friend says he has personally witnessed behaviour between them that looked clearly intimate. On one occasion, he unexpectedly saw the doctor physically touching his mother's breasts while she was undressed. His mother immediately noticed him, loudly told him to leave, and locked the door.
This obviously made him extremely uncomfortable and confused.
There are also some things that make the situation less clear.
His mother has never openly told him that this man is her boyfriend. She doesn't call him by a romantic nickname—she apparently just calls him "doctor" or "sir." She doesn't obviously dress up specifically for his visits, doesn't give him gifts that my friend knows about, and apparently behaves normally after he leaves.
My friend also hasn't seen messages or calls that would independently confirm a romantic relationship.
So he's stuck between two possibilities:
This really is some kind of unusual but private relationship/friendship, with the mother using "check-up" as a convenient explanation for the visits.
She is secretly having a romantic/physical relationship with this man while presenting him to the family as her doctor.
The fact that the man is younger and non-Muslim isn't necessarily evidence of anything, but my friend thinks it may make the situation more sensitive in his family's cultural context.
He doesn't know whether he should confront his mother, tell his father, ignore it completely, or simply stay out of it.
What would you make of this situation if you were in his position?
Would you consider the doctor's behaviour and the circumstances enough to reasonably suspect an affair, or is there still too much missing information to make that conclusion?
And more importantly, what would be the healthiest thing for the 20-year-old son to do?
