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Relationships

The affair of a close friend....

43 replies

Acinonyx · 17/10/2010 17:22

So one of my oldest, closest friends has been having an affair with a married man for a couple of years now. She's single, neither have kids (yet). For over a year I was the only person who knew - now 3-4 others have been told.

I don't like to think of myself as a right old judgey-pants but I can't really view this other than negatively. I have tried to 'be there' and she has wanted to talk about it - but I can't honestly say that I think it's acceptable behaviour to lie to your spouse on this scale.

There is no question of him leaving his wife. She/he has broken it off a few times but now she seems to have 'committed' to this arrangement (her word). She says I have been the most censorious of those told and seems to think my problem is an overly simplistic view of relationships.

A few years ago I fell out with my then closest friend over this kind of situation (that also had additional factors tipping the balance, e.g. kids). I don't want to fall out over this. It's her life, her choice. But much as she obviously intends to justify this situation to herself because she loves him I am not likely to do the same. I don't think we can just agree not to discuss it - it's too big and important a part of her life. But I am struggling to keep this friendship afloat in this storm.

I feel rather aggrieved by the accusations from our recent conversation,that I basically just don't understand. I am prepared to accept her relationship but I just cannot make 'it's OK' noises about it as well.

We both have a habit of being forthright in telling it like it is. Deceit is not normal to either of us. Anyone else BTDT? Am I not trying hard enough or am I trying too hard?

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TechLovingDad · 17/10/2010 17:24

I suppose you could tell her, not in a nasty way that you don't approve. You don't want to lose her as a friend, but can't sympathise with her about this aspect of her life. Make it clear you'll be there for her if it all goes tits up, but you can't pat her on the back.

Hopefully she'll respect that.

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purplepeony · 17/10/2010 17:30

Funny old world.

My BF is talking of having an affair or at least finding another man whilst still married. She is so unhappy and her DH is such a plonker that I wish her well...in her case I think it would give her the push she needs to move on and divorce him.

The problem with your post is that it is full of contradictions- you say you don't want to be judgy- but you are!

Can you remain detached from it? It will end in tears and she will turn to you I suspect for support. Good friends stick by in thick and thin.

Even if you cannot agree with or condone her behaviour can you at last put it to ne side?

Her part of the bargain must be to shut up about it.If she knows how you feel she is equally guilty of spoiling your friendship- it isn't all down to you!

If this doesn't work then you might have to accept that she has crossed a line in your eyes and that as you feel so strongly, your friendship has to end. This can be the price you have to pay for being judgy. Not saying you are wrong but you may feel your morals outweigh the friendship.

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Acinonyx · 17/10/2010 17:46

She knows what I think about the situation. I think where things have gone downhill is where she has talked a lot about things that have happened - especially trying to justify his behaviour using his account of his situation which just seems fantastically full of holes and inexplicable bit bobs. And I have soemtimes given my opinion on these accounts!

Oh I know I am judging. Where we are reaching an impasse is not my judgement of her behaviour so much as my dismal veiw of his behaviour. It's the 24/7 lying that I just can't get past.

We are likley to offend each other irreprably at this rate - in fact, I'm feeling right now that we may have crossed that line. It's not her behaviour that is the key problem for me so much as her attitude. (It's ironic, as I have often thought she was quite judgey in general.) It's as if we cannot reconcile unless I say that I have not moral issues with his behaviour. That is just not going to happen.

And I do think that if this becomes a no-go area for discussion, that would kill our friendship just as surely.

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TechLovingDad · 17/10/2010 17:48

If she can't respect your views on her behaviour, then perhaps she isn't that good a friend.

I suspect that in the short term she will feel angry, as havig you to talk to helps her justify it. Longterm, she will realise you are right and will either seek to reconcile or just admit she was wrong.

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purplepeony · 17/10/2010 17:54

I have a very old close friend- detailed above - and we both have very stroun opinions on things. We have had words about stuff over the years , but her overall comment is that she doesn't want to see me hurt- and vice versa.

What we do do though is not talk over things that we know we don't see eye to eye on.

I think your friend should shut up about it and you should ask her to do that.

This will be over one day; the question is,, has this made you see her in another light so that you don't actually like who she is or her values- or will it all blow over?

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Acinonyx · 17/10/2010 17:54

I have a feeling techdad, that this affair might runa nd run for years and that in any case, she will probably never see herself as having been wrong. Since she is single, I can deal with that. But he isn't - and seeing him as somehow innocent in all this just isn't working for me.

Last time we talked, I came under attack for viewing his behaviour dimly. She loves him and I don't think she can accept that I think badly of him. I think I will be lying low for a while...

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Acinonyx · 17/10/2010 17:57

purple - I think we will have to cool it on this topic. Now that there are other people she can talk too - I don't need to fill that need.

'has this made you see her in another light so that you don't actually like who she is or her values- or will it all blow over?'

Not really - as I think she is besotted and has a tendancy to be niaive. But she has said some things too me in retaliation which may fester and become deadly.

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TechLovingDad · 17/10/2010 17:58

Perhaps you should see them both as not being innocent. Making out she's ok, but not him, isn't realistic. Although she is single, she's still shagging a married man, so is equally complicit.

Perhaps she sees your stance as a double standard? Cheeky of her, of course.

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Acinonyx · 17/10/2010 18:01

I don't think she's innocent by any means - I have just worked hard on trying not to judge her.

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purplepeony · 17/10/2010 18:05

Changing he subjecta bit....could she be persuaded to seek help such as counselling instead of talking to her friends about something very emotional?
Her defensiveness may be a shield to hide her real emotions. it's a case of "she doth protest too much!"

Maybe what you ( and her friends) ought to be challenging her on is not the morality of seeing a married man, but what she will get out of it long term- ie ending up alone and posssibly missing her chance at finding anyone else, having children etc etc.

She is settling for 2nd best and that often comes from having low self-esteem.

Can you direct your emotions into concern rather than holier than thou?

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TechLovingDad · 17/10/2010 18:08

Or perhaps she just needs to meet a nice single bloke, who isn't an arsehole.

As opposed to a married bloke who is an arsehole.

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perfumedlife · 17/10/2010 18:11

God, how low must friend's self esteem be?

The married guy doesn't even have kids to excuse his lack of leaving, he just wants her as a bit on the side Shock

If it were me I would suggest she work on her self worth, and ask her not to discuss the affair further with me. It's only enabling her. Dry up her publicity, she is feeding off it. Some folk just love a drama.

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QueeheeeheeeheenOfShadows · 17/10/2010 18:12

It is actually very sad.
How old is your friend?

I was standing by my best friend while she was having an affair for 5 years with a married man, watching the years (and many other potential partner go by) while her biological clock was ticking away, becoming more and more broody.

I listened to her, she knew I did not approve, but we did not discuss the morals of it at all. Only her and her situation. She was of the opinion that as long as nobody else came along, she might as well be with him. My opinion was that she would never look for another relationship while her emotions were firmly parked with him, so this was futile.

She did eventually break up with him, because she realized that much as she loved him, he would never leave his wife and move on with her, and if she were to have any life with another man, and children, she needed to move on.

In hindsight, she regrets the whole thing a lot, because she wasted years of her life on a man that gave her nothing.

Good luck supporting her friend.
If you want to have a voice, and her an ear for you, please be subtle, not too harsh, and keep the morality out of it.

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TechLovingDad · 17/10/2010 18:13

Yes, what Quee et, etc, said.

He doesn't have kids? Jesus, why would he stay if he is SO unhappy?

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AliGrylls · 17/10/2010 18:24

Your friend says that you have a simplistic view of relationships because she is doing something morally wrong and she is desperately trying to justify it to herself.

By telling you about her affair and all its problems she is involving you and is asking for your judgement/advice (or however you want to put it).

If I was in your position I would say to her that I was not interested in hearing about her affair unless she actually wanted my opinion.

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Acinonyx · 17/10/2010 19:20

Quee: ''She was of the opinion that as long as nobody else came along, she might as well be with him. My opinion was that she would never look for another relationship while her emotions were firmly parked with him, so this was futile.''

We have had exactly this conversation. We are both late 40s so the biological alarm has rung already - which gives her less incentive to move on. I have encorouged her to keep trying to meet other people - but I know how it is when you are already emotionally bespoke.

I have urged her to go to counselling (as has another friend) but she doesn't want to - doesn't think it's worth the money (although she could afford it - I know - I've done it myself). I seriously doubt a gp would get hercouselling n the nhs since she is highly unlikely to suggest she is depressed although she has been in the past and I think it's just so chronic she dismisses it as a normal state.

I will have to pull back from talking about this with her. The moral angle is relevant in so much as she needs to justify his behaviour and not think badly of him or that means she must think badly of the man she loves. Therefore I should not think badly either. It seems very clear to me that he does not much care what becomes of her as a result of this relationship - that there can be no satisfactory outcome for her. It seems very selfish to me - wrt both her and his wife. She MUST know this on some level but chooses not to see it this way.

Ali: ''If I was in your position I would say to her that I was not interested in hearing about her affair unless she actually wanted my opinion.'' This is the bottom line here. I can't just listen passively and keep smiling. It's just not my nature (or hers!).

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QueeheeeheeeheenOfShadows · 17/10/2010 19:25

Then, if she has no children, and no "proper partner" who will she grow old with?

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WhenwillIfeelnormal · 17/10/2010 19:26

Why does he stay if he's that unhappy TLD? Because he probably isn't that unhappy, that's why. Remember you asked this on a thread ages ago? Wink

More from me later, but actually OP, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being judgemental - about anything, in fact, if you believe it to be wrong. I have no idea why anyone feels it necessary to be non-judgemental about something that is fundamentally wrong i.e. deceiving another person.

I've got recent personal experience of this with a friend, so I'll tell you what I did to help her and why she then decided to end this relationship. Must go for now, though.

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Acinonyx · 17/10/2010 19:34

Quee - I really think she has pretty much given up on the idea of a 'proper partner' - she was single a long time before this. I know she was lonely - and I try to keep that in mind. I really wish she would have counselling.

Whenwill - do please come back and share! For obvious reasons - I can't discuss this irl (except with dh - and he is unsurprisingly unsympathetic to my friend or 'partner').

It is the deceit - ongoing, everyday, long-term - that just boggles my mind. Nothing she has told me about why he doesn't leave his wife sounds remotely plausible to me.

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purplepeony · 17/10/2010 20:37

OP- there is no point talking to her from a moral point of view- she is in denial.
Also, you are too close to the situation.

I think you should work on your own behaviour; you can't change anyone else's just your own.
Either you reject her as a friend, or you learn to listen and ot judge, or you tall her and meanit that you will not talk about this and if she does, then you will end the friendship.

I know you cannot condone what she is doing, but once you have heard it and accepted the morality, then can't you just back down?
I do understand you but you also come across as controlling- expecting her - and him- to do what you think is right.

Love is not rational. She knows it is wrong, he knows it is wrong but humans are weak.
You would have greater peace of mind if you could adopt some humility, and accept you have a friend who is fallible.

It must be hell for her really. Maybe you should put your energy into taking her off on holiday or to places where she might meet men!

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WhenwillIfeelnormal · 18/10/2010 13:15

Sorry to be later coming back to this than I'd planned.

Having reread your posts, it seems you are saying that it's because of her retaliatory remarks that this has now become so pressing an issue? Perhaps also, because others know about it now - and she has said that you are the most censorious, this has made you feel quite lonely in your views? That's really quite unfair of her, you know.

When someone is doing something they know to be wrong, they simply have to find a justification for it - and they also tend to hit out at anyone who isn't buying the justifications, because that forces them out of their denial. I suspect that this is what is happening with your friend.

Realistically, no-one can square deceiving someone else for a long time; there is simply no justification for it. So this is where the bargains and the denial come in. Her response is to counter-attack with accusing you of simplicity. This is all part of an internal script she is following though. She thinks this relationship is unique in its challenges, that it's somehow different to every other relationship with a MM. I'll bet she's coming out with gems such as: "This isn't all back and white, there are shades of grey that you can't possibly understand..." and "You don't understand him, he's a wonderful person...he's not like any other MM having an affair."

Meanwhile, OW the world over are coming out with the same old lines, believing that their circumstances are unique and that others simply don't understand Hmm.

Reject this accusation of over-simplifying then, OP because actually, what's needed here are some unassailable truths. Neither her not her MM are intrinsically bad people, because good people have affairs, but there is no getting away from the fact that deceit and lies are bad - it's their behaviour that is bad, not them as individuals.

My friend story is rather similar to yours. This friend has been close to me for over 30 years. She has a history of chaotic personal relationships, but she is a good person and I love her dearly. She actually pursued her MM, whom she met at work. It seems he wasn't really looking for an affair, but having been married for 20+ years and with grown-up DCs, it seems he finally said "why not?".

He told my friend initially that he wasn't unhappy in his marriage, but wasn't deliriously happy either - a state of affairs in many long marriages, really.

Once the affair had started in earnest though, he followed the same script as many adulterers - finding fault with his wife and complaining to my friend that his wife didn't value him enough; in effect, finding himself a justification for what he was doing. Withdrawing from his wife and blaming her response behaviour.

Not that my friend saw it like this at all - she had bought all the tales about the unaffectionate wife who was more concerned with her high-flying career than her H.

That is, until the "uncaring wife" treated the H to a wonderful present that he had wanted all his life - and it turned out she had put months of effort saving for it and choosing it, which blatantly contradicted his story about her not caring enough Angry.

The main reason he gave for staying with his wife was that he was waiting till the youngest went to university.....but you guessed it, he was still there a year afterwards.

Now fortunately, her and I have always had the type of relationship where we can tell eachother how it is and because I know her so well, I knew I could be quite challenging with her and knew what buttons to press in her basic character and personality to get her to think this through more rationally.

I told her at the start that I couldn't condone this relationship and that if she wanted to talk to me about it, I would be very challenging with her. That left it in her court whether she chose to speak to me about it. Fortunately, she decided to do just that. I then did what you are doing, kept finding holes in his story, to the extent that she told me that although he'd never met me, he wished she'd stop talking to me about it!

I got her to read the book that I always recommend on here "Not Just Friends" and managed to persuade her to go to counselling. In fact, her counsellor wasn't very challenging and seemed intimidated by an older feisty client like my friend, so she stopped that and found another who understood infidelity, from all sides of the triangle. This counsellor was far more interventionist and challenging and my friend often said it was like the counsellor and I were comparing notes and acting as a team.

Both the counsellor and I got my friend to look at all the stories in the triangle. It won't surprise you to read that the wife's story was being woefully ignored by these two. As I said, my friend is at heart a good person and a feminist too, so I knew that although she really didn't want to, once she forced herself to empathise with the wife's position, we would make headway. This was the first real erosion of her denial.

I also helped her to project the various outcomes and what that might look like for her. We had a lightbulb moment when my friend worked out that even if this man left his wife, there would be times in their relationship (my friend has got very challenging older DCs herself) when his ego needs would be at the bottom of the pile, because that is life at times. What would he do then if yet another woman pursued him? Would he be saying similar things to a new woman - that he wasn't unhappy, but that he didn't come first at the moment?

By this time my friend had come a long way. She started by thinking that she would be able to prevent his future infidelity by being the ever-loving and attentive wife, to realising that this hadn't worked in his current marriage, so why would she be any different? She actually started to see his selfishness and how this was all about him. There were other clues of course; his self-absorption with his own problems, his lack of care and understanding of her DCs' problems. But by now she was noticing these things and not bargaining them away, like before.

I took her for a weekend away last summer and by the end of it, she had the courage to end this relationship. She looks back now and can see things so much more clearly and has a lot of guilt about the damage she caused to another woman, but her fantastic counsellor is helping with this, as I continue to do.

The man? Still with his wife and enjoying child-free time with her now that the DCs are away from home....

This is a long story, but I hope it might help you. Your friendship might be different to the one I have with my friend and only you can know whether yours can withstand this level of intervention. My friend always knew that I was doing this at her request and because of the deep love I have for her. She knew I wanted only the best for her.

I understand what you mean when you say that this man is such a big part of her life, it would be difficult not to talk about him - and I think had my friend not chosen to talk to me, it would have created a distance in our relationship. But that's a risk you might have to take, if you are going to stay true to your morals and your beliefs, which you should never feel bullied into compromising.

It helped in my case that our other friends were on the same page as me, although once her and I started talking properly about this, we had an agreement that I would not discuss this with the others and I stuck to that confidentiality throughout. However, she told me that she would often go to one of the others and tell them what I'd said - and fortunately, they backed me up.

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Frrrrightattendant · 18/10/2010 13:23

She probably can't help the way she feels about him.

I've been in a similar situation and yes, plenty of potential partners go by but none of them is the one you want. So it's irrelevant, that she's still with him - if someone else she loved better came along she would probably leave him.

You can't choose who you love - only what you do about it.

FWIW she's not being fair telling you your views on relationships are at fault - however compelling and lovely an affair can be, it's wrong because of the deceit involved.

You can't change her behaviour, so it's up to you how much you talk to her and listen to her - you can put a blanket embargo on affair talk if you want to. But don't make her choose between you and him, because it'll be him.

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everythingiseverything · 18/10/2010 14:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Acinonyx · 18/10/2010 14:57

Ah purple - I surely wish I could find some eligible man for her!

Whenwill - thanks for taking the trouble to tell me that story - there is a lot of similarity indeed! I think with the other 4 people she has told - one has also been having a similar affair Hmm, two are concerned but a) are more tactful and b) haven't heard AS MUCH about it and the other, her sister, frankly doesn't care enough to feel strongly one way or the other. And yes, apparently there are shades of grey beyond my understanding....Hmm

I think she has given up on him leaving his wife to be with her and just hopes to go on, pretty much as things are, indefinitely. I so wish she would get a good counsellor. It isn't that long since she stayed with me for the weekend to keep away from him while she tried to break it off.

We need to actually have a chat about how we intend to talk about this and what expectations are. The 'retaliatary remarks' concerned my relationship with my own family (i.e. it's an example of something that is 'not simple' - no shit...) and any more along that line and we will have crossed a line of no return. We have been friends for 30 years now.

Friggggght: 'But don't make her choose between you and him, because it'll be him.' You are so right. I totally see that.

everything: I also ended a very dear friendship over something like this and I am still very sad about that. I often think about it and wonder if the friendship could have been saved. I did try, but in that case the behaviour was so apalling, and her defensiveness so unassailable, I eventually gave up.

This is obviously going to be a challenging area for me in general and I need to be clear how I'm going to handle these kinds of situations. Some of you may be wondering about my choice of close friends - and actually I think you would have a point. I think a certain open-mindedness shading into amorality is a recurring theme - the darker side of personalities I'm attracted too.

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WhenwillIfeelnormal · 18/10/2010 15:46

Can I suggest you read that book I mentioned yourself? I really think it's going to be helpful to you, because it might surprise you to read that your friendships might be causing some trouble in your own marriage. I focus on the line where you say that your own H is unsurprisingly unsympathetic. I wonder whether he is feeling a bit vulnerable too, that you have friendships with people who think so little of fidelity within marriage?

The author Shirley Glass talks a lot about the concept of "friends of the marriage" and tells the story of a woman whose BF was having an affair and regaled her with tales about exciting sex, hotel rooms and her ability to deceive an unsuspecting husband. Because her friend was "getting away with it" and seemed to be positively glowing with the increased attention, the taboo wasn't so great when an admirer came calling....Sad

I am pretty convinced from what you say that you are stronger than that, but I do think it would help you if you had a chat with your H and asked him how he felt about you having friends like this and whether any of this is making him feel a little vulnerable? You see, you're telling us on here how much you hate what your friends are doing, but are you telling your H this as strongly? And I wonder whether he is burying it and wouldn't dream of coming to you and telling you that he feels a bit insecure?

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