To judge my friend harshly for this?

OP my (former) best friend of 20 years cheated for a long period of time and got caught about 2-3 years ago. It was horrific for all involved. No pregnancy thank goodness.
The affair had been going on for more than 5 years. In that time she lied, repeatedly and deliberately, to those of us close to her.

I think until you experience it, it’s very difficult to know how you would actually feel.

initially I was supportive and open to there being a lot more to it than I was aware of, and focusing on the needs of her, her husband and the kids. Once the dust settled her continued refusal to acknowledge the significant impact she had on those around her by her lies meant I could no longer trust her.

This wasn’t the only thing that led to the end of what was, to me, a precious friendship, but the lack of remorse and remediation was the final nail.

It was a very hard realization that what I thought the friendship was wasn’t what she thought it was. One of the ickiest things for me was that her affair partner knew all about us, who we were, who our kids were, the day to day stories of life you share with your partner, but we had no idea who he was.
had I known she was in a relationship with this particular person I may have shared less with her.

I think it’s normal to experience a range of complex emotions. Be kind to yourself, it’s a lot to take in.

the Responses to the OP are so classic mumsnet - this site is becoming a fucking zoo and so gender biased. The unfortunate part is that no one will post on AIBU because of all the devil advocate, contrarian, cool kids here.

That you've yet to meet and know of. You don't know the ins and outs of ppls lives. A friend of mine became pregnant on the coil. Stop being so utterly ridiculous.

Agree and she got pregnant what a 304

It means the person is selfish, and being selfish is awful, is it not? Nobody does just one selfish thing and is unselfish the rest of her life. Selfishness is a pattern of behaviour. It's built into one's character.
Don't forget that cheating is also cruel, disrespectful, dishonest and irresponsible.
These are terrible qualities in any person. The sum total of all of these qualities is a bad person, no matter how pleasant the person appears to be on the surface. It's character we're talking about, not personality.

If you have very similar lives - who is your affair with?
of course you don’t have similar lives, no one does. On the surface it might appear to you that way, but it’s not similar

Somebody who makes accusations she can't support thinks I'm argumentative? 🙄
So you know exactly how I think, yeah?
I thought "get physical" meant touching. It meant something else? If so, I don't know what the fuck else you could be talking about. I don't do childish games like playing dumb and nitpicking.
You seem to have a hypersensitive and accusatory nature.

Being left in a respectful way hurts like hell, but is not traumatic. Betrayal trauma, otoh, is real and soul destroying. It can cause PTSD. So nope, not even close.

"We aren't robots" isn't an excuse for cheating either. That's the best you can do? You have to be a "robot" to have basic integrity and decency?

Cheating can indeed mean somebody is a bad person, to greater or lesser degree depending on how they go about it. Serial cheaters, for example, are the scum of the earth. Otoh, somebody who has a drunken one night stand and confesses it immediately could be a good person. Good people confess. They don't make somebody else live a lie. Obviously, you feel differently and it seems to be a self-serving belief.

My GP contacted me a few months ago to say that I needed to explore alternative contraception because, apparently, the medication I am on can reduce the effectiveness of the contraceptive pill i was taking. I had been taking both the medication and the pill for years before they realised.

Everyone knows affairs never end well and always end up with one or more people getting hurt. It kills trust in marriage and that will always be in the background if the married couple stay together.

No one is tricked into having an affair, you make the decision to go and cheat on your spouse, knowing the potential consequences and STILL go ahead and do it, then yes, you're a horrible person.

Depends on what the selfish act is. Having an affair makes you an awful person. Why would the act of actively seeking out someone else to be intimate with behind your partners back not be awful?

“Grabbing for an excuse” this isn’t a high school argument. You knew exactly what I meant by “get physical” and decided to nitpick to try and get yourself up a peg or two to begin with.

The heartbreak from being left can full well be just as painful. Betraying someone is awful for the person betrayed, but doesn’t make one a horrible person. It’s more complicated than that. We aren’t robots

It is NONE of YOUR business.
Never mind judging harshly, just keep your nose out and concentrate on your own life.

Doing something selfish doesn’t automatically make someone an awful person.

It's "narrow-minded" to think dishonest people who betray trust are bad?
Then I guess Bernie Madoff could be a hell of a nice guy after all?

The heartbreak from being cheated on is nowhere near being left for other reasons. The agony is indescribable. So this is not a valid comparison.

It's not condescending. You just can't refute it so you're grabbing for an excuse.

Him leaving you because he doesn't love you doesn't make him an awful person.

Having an affair because he doesn't love you, would make him an awful person.

It's the lesser of two evils to leave because your unhappy than to have an affair. Affairs cause more hurt and more issues than leaving a marriage.

I would reply to this properly if it weren’t so condescending.

I didn’t say it was ok. Humans are more complex than this. I’m not so narrow minded as to think “cheating = bad person, loyal partner = good person”.

I Would also be utterly heartbroken if my husband wanted to leave me as he doesn’t love me. Doesn’t make him an awful human.

Find yourself in what situation? A miserable marriage? Lot where you start to develop feelings for someone when you are in a miserable marriage or when they are married?

Turns out I do know what I would do. It’s not about knowing what happens in their marriage, behind closed doors. Not sure anyone here suggested they knew about the ins and outs of the marriage.

The remark was ‘leaving isn’t so simple’, cheating doesn’t make leaving easier. It makes it the split harder. It makes it more painful.

and it does impact people outside the marriage. No point pretending it doesn’t. As I said before, if I discovered my best friend could consistently lie and deceive their husband, I would assume they could do that to me. I would not presume my relationship with the friend was more sacred or special than her marriage. And that’s not what I look for in a friend. I would want to have to meet and socialise with the OM and pretend everything is amazing. So yes, my friend cheating would have an impact on me. Not as much as her husband or the OM wife. But still an impact.

Friendships are based on judgement. You judge a persons personality and their choices and create a relationship based on the things you have seen. It’s not just ‘one choice’. But there’s plenty of singular choices people can make that might make other people not want to be their friends with them anymore. That doesn’t mean she needs to explain herself to her friends. But they are allowed their own feelings and if that ends some friendships, that’s what’s happens.

I can answer that, but first let's stop using minimizing language. It doesn't "get" physical. You choose to make it physical. You make it happen.

Don't leave just for fancying somebody. Everybody has attractions. They don't have to be acted on. But if you find yourself fancying somebody and seriously considering cheating with that person, then yes, that's when you leave. Your relationship is over if you think you are entitled to do that.

I do feel lt I have very low confidence in myself and I maybe do view myself as quite repulsive. AP did not want to end our affair and he would often say he saw a future for us but I still in my mind feel this was just to get me to continue the affair.

They tell themselves everybody either cheats or would cheat given the opportunity. It's just a rationalization they employ so they won't feel like freaks. Their behavior is unethical and cruel and they know it.

I have twice. Didn't cheat either time and was a good partner. Both said so.
It turned out the reason the second one (my ex husband) was treating me so coldly was that he had been cheating for years.
It devastated me and took years to recover from, caused stress related illness, the whole works. So "unhappiness" excuses don't wash with me.

I don't know. I won't ever understand why you had the affair but that's what makes us different and I don't need to understand why tbh.

But I'm not sure i like the way you don't appear to think much of yourself and that the person you had the affair was only saying things to get his leg over. Maybe he was who knows, but what I'm getting from this is a lack of self confidence partly fuelled by your partners rejection of you.

You are worth more than that.