He’s also my business partner. He kept his watch collection with me since his wife doesn’t allow him to buy watches and made me promise not to ever tell his wife about them. Not only because she doesn’t like it but also because she will definitely ask him to sell them and probably spend the money on clothes and traveling like she often does.
He lets me use the watches in the condition that I don’t cause any damage. But now that he passed away it doesn’t feel right any more.
His watch collection is worth about 200K$ in todays market. I think the lawful and ethical thing to do is to break the promise and tell his wife but I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do since he made me promise not to tell her.
I understand you made him a promise but it feels really unethical to hide 200k worth of assets from his widow. The promise made a lot of sense when he was alive but I think you both had a good run, time to call it.
This is the only way to look at it, in my opinion.
Today I have learned not to come to /r/watches for questions of ethics.