is this unforgivable in a friendship?

I think OPs friend knows nothing physical happened or she’d more than block her. So I don’t think it would help for Op to say “nothing physical happened but we did say how strongly we felt for each other but it’s ok we didn’t act on it ” 🙄

I’m sure that is pretty much what she already knows anyway, but it’s still so devastating to know your friend did even that which is why she’s blocked her.

If she wants to have closure with the friend she could maybe offer to answer any questions she had and share any texts if that’s what friend wants.

But no it’s too late now for her to dump a load of screenshots on her former friend. And the friend has likely seen the texts anyway.

If she’d came clean and went to her former friend to share everything, before her husband was exposed /confession, she maybe could have showed the texts then but not now.

OP, you just have to move on from this and do better next time .

If you really want to say something send an apology note expressing how sorry and disgusted you are for your actions and that you understand how betrayed she must feel. And end it by saying you hope that she heals and has the best life ever. And then I’d leave her alone to figure things out.

It’s absolutely pathetic that you’re attempting to paint yourself in an innocent light here. Yes he’s the one who had the commitments to his wife, and he wronged her deeply, but you did too. You encouraged his attention and gave a platform to the feelings you had towards your friends husband. Scumbag behaviour, even if his is worse. Say what you need to in order to sleep easy at night but if I were a mutual friend in your group, I’d want absolutely nothing to do with you either. I don’t believe you’d be a threat to my marriage personally but I don’t make a habit of being friends with people with morals like yours.
Whether she stays with him or not is her call but there’s always far more investment and complications in a marital relationship than just a friendship, it doesn’t take a genius to work that out and I don’t believe you really need that explaining to you.

I have to disagree. There has been some kind of emotional relationship and op nurtured that and allowed it to grow to the point where she is now obsessed with this utter sleaze.

We are not blaming her instead of him. IMO op has to take responsibility for her part in this. She states herself that her actions are despicable. I agree.

How do we expect her friend to react? Poor woman must be so upset.

Ever heard of divide and conquer? That is exactly what this man has done to these two women. They should probably both get rid of him.

ETA: my mistake didn’t mean to quote the entire OP 😂

OP you’re not going to compare your friendship in a mums group to someone’s marriage are you? And it doesn’t even sound like a very long-standing friendship by the way you’ve described it.

It’s very simple what’s happened here, she has either found the texts or been told by her husband that you have feelings for each other. She’s obviously going to want to block you from her life after that, you know that right? And some of her married mutual friends will probably be a bit wary of you now as well.

Whether she stays with her husband or not is up to her - I wouldn’t - but it’s obviously a massive deal to break up a marriage especially if you have kids. But that doesn’t mean he’s come out smelling of roses! The other women in the circle are probably wary of him too now and no doubt she’ll be having very strong words with him too and their marriage may eventually break up as there’s probably other women tbh.

I had a friend who had invited one of her best mates to stay with her and her partner /father of children. So her best mate who had never met her partner before traveled down to Brighton to stay with my friend.

On the third night, she ended up being caught with friends partner in the kitchen at midnight (they had both got out of bed) standing close chatting intimately and jumped apart when they saw my friend. My friend threw her former bestie out the next morning and had rows with her partner for weeks. They both denied anything happened but it was clear there was an attraction and something was going to happen.

a decade on from that she is still with her partner but has never spoken to the “bestie” again. As she justifies it - she didn’t have kids with her former best mate, but she had kids with her partner. There’s no competition- it’s a no brainer to end the friendship with you but much more complex to end a marriage.

That said you didn’t act on the feelings, and that is something. But what worries me is you’re not showing concern that your friends marriage has been destroyed and how she’s feeling. you’re just worried about looking bad and being turfed out the friendship group and the fact he isn’t being “punished”.

A tale as old as time.

Married man gets bored. Starts sending signals to everyone to see who will pick up on it. Woman who does and thinks its like some Mills and Boon novel where they would be together if only the universe wasn't keeping them apart. Man gets caught somehow and blames the woman. Woman gets ostracised.

I've seen this exact thing a million times over.

I'm also confident that if she does kick him out he will come crawling to you, not because of some passionate love story, but because he will need a home and some idiot who washes his socks until he gets bored in a couple of years and starts flirting with everyone again.

You fucked up. The only difference is that its easier for her to get rid of you, she has ties to him.

Na, sorry but you are as responsible as he is for not shutting down the conversation/relationship. You didn't have to "threaten him", you could have just told him to f off and block his number.

You don't get to play the victim here.
And whether she stays with her husband or not is none of your business.

but am I being unreasonable to feel angry that the husband, who 1000000% drove every single interaction, is coming out smelling of roses, while I'm the scarlet women who tries to steal my friends' husband?

That hasn’t been said by anyone, least all the friend.
You have no idea whether she has forgiven him, is working through it with difficultly or they are planning a split.
In any of those 3 scenarios I would cut off the “friend” regardless, that’s seems pretty obvious for most people.

As a side note, being a single mum is not “a tricky card to play” if you view people within marriages as off the table.

You should have blocked him as soon as he started flirting. You say that this bloke's wife was one of your good friends - you're not being a good friend to her, though. You clearly love all the attention. Find your own man and let this one sort out his marriage.

I was in a close friendship with a group of other mums. over lockdown, I became close to the DH of one of my good friends.

Honestly you could have stopped here. Regardless of whether you are single or not, don't be getting close to your friends' husbands. If you do, your friends would be crazy not to cut you out of the friendship group.

Start over, make new friends, and this time keep an appropriate distance from their husbands.

I became close to the DH of one of my good friends

This doesn't just 'happen' though, does it? It's a gradual thing, and you could have backed away at any point but you chose not to.

You don't know that he has come out of this "smelling of roses". I am sure that the mutual friends you're upset about being judged by are also judging the fuck out of him, and who knows whether the marraige will ultimately survive this. But you can't really be surprised that your friend hasn't immediately thrown her husband and the father of her kids out on the street when you couldn't even bring yourself to ignore his drunken messages!

Your biggest concern seems to be that this situation has changed others perception of you. You mention not wanting mutual friends to think badly of you, but I just don't think this is realistic. Your friend has every right to confide in other close friends after her world has been rocked by the discovery that her DH is a lying scumbag, and you can't really blame her or them if finding out changes their opinion of you. You cannot reasonably expect to have an emotional affair with your good friends husband without it impacting your social life. Yes, his betrayal was greater than yours, but that doesn't mean yours shouldn't carry any consequences.

You describe being a single mum as a "tricky card to play", which is really telling IMO. It reads like you thought it was all a game.

This, nothing physical happened, just messages, and of course many people stay after infidelity, actual full blown physical affair, not just soppy meanderings and flirting. It’s complex to leave a marriage, especially if there are kids.

but every single person would bin the friend and have them excluded from the social group. Every single one.

op he wants his wife, not you. It was all bullshit. If he’d wanted you and not her, he’d be with you. You were an amusing ego boost. And have paid the price.

You are both to blame and you have both betrayed her and yes it is unforgivable in a friendship and she has acted I think like most of us would

but is it unforgivable in a marriage - not sure a marriage is a far more complicated and intense relationship that is not quite so easy to end as just blocking and removing from groups and ignoring someone if you see them in the street. Trying to salvage and work on the marriage having cut you out is I think quite a normal response. She still could end the marriage but giving it a try makes sense

it was always going to end this way OP you must have seen thau so ask yourself why didn’t you tell her and block him and distance yiurself

Clearly he's unhappy in his relationship and maybe there's genuine feelings there for you. Right person, wrong time situation. But even if that was true, his behaviour is terrible. Can you honestly say you're still attracted to a guy who sends drunk messages to women being his partners back? That would turn me right off.

I'm sorry, but your behaviour hasn't been great either.

You could have distanced yourself immediately rather than telling your friends DH that you had feelings for him! You could have blocked him immediately?

Playing the "poor me" card now is pretty awful. Imagine how she feels? I think your message makes it clear you enjoyed the conversations with her DH more than you enjoyed her friendship which probably explains why you didn't stop it earlier but you can't now put that blame on her for ending the friendship.

We all make mistakes. I think you have to recognise that this was one of yours. Step away from it all. I wouldn't want any of this to leak onto my kids either.

He hasn’t compartmentalised at all. You didn’t mean anything to him, he was messaging you for some entertainment.
sorry you’ve gone through this but you sure aren’t the only one he was playing along.

He's definitely managed the narrative here - you should have shot this down from day one, feelings or not, and told your friend her husband is a dick.

@pam72 you're right that he is more to blame than you.

But the thing is that most people don't leave a marriage when their partner hasn't physically cheated and it's just messages. They want to give their marriage another go. But they absolutely would leave a friendship if they felt betrayed by their friend! A friendship is easier to leave than a marriage. I'm not surprised at all by this woman's response to the situation.

You're right- it's an absolute mystery why she blocked you. I cant get my head around that at all - a complete riddle. You'd need a really good psychologist to work that one out OP. Baffling behaviour. 🙄

”in a way, the OP would have done her friend a bigger favour by having a full blown affair with him”???????
I am not sure on what planet ANY of us would feel a “friend” had done us a favour by shagging our husband. If op was so desperate to protect her friend she could have told her that her DH was persistently contacting her, after trying multiple times herself to shut him down. But of course, that didn’t happen because op was getting cheap thrills from betraying her friend.
Op didn’t give a shiny shite about the feelings of her friend as clearly demonstrated by her post. Now she’s whining about being shut out? Grow up and get some self respect op. This was NEVER going to end well for you.

You told him you had feelings for him. You didn’t shut it down. You did not block him.

yes, your behaviour was completely unforgivable in friendship. Hers is perfectly understandable. Why wouldn’t she block you? Try to put as much distance between you and her entire life as possible?

@MsNorburry , I completely agree ! I was a single mum , and I never went near my friends partners , in fact I met my current partner through friends. However the op has just reinforced the idea , that single parents are after anyone they can get .

He’s done it before and will do again. The mistake you made was thinking you were special. Once you responded, and didn’t shut down his first wander over the boundary, he knew he could continue to test the waters. It would only be a matter of time.

Luckil you didn’t do it, however, he probably thinks you’ve led him on without giving it up. He then got frustrated and thus wanted to get rid of you. The easiest way to be rid of you was to tell his wife you’ve come on to him.

The second I read that you had become close to the DH, I shook my head. You had no business doing that.

The wife is married to a dick head, deep down she knows this. She’s silly to stay with him but she was right to block you rather than watch the slow moving car crash unfold. You’re no longer part of that friendship group. Time to move on and learn lessons.

I think there are two types of affairs. One type where people are thrown together through circumstance, fall in love and leave their wife/husband. The other type, which is much more common, is when someone wants the fun of flirtation and extra marital relationships but does not want to leave their wife/husband. They tend to flirt with people they find attractive, somehow find a reason to get their phone number or text them, and follow up if they get some interest in return.

Your guy sounds like the latter type. His wife has decided to stay with him, for now, and knows you have shown an interest in him. Regardless of who is more to blame, she is obviously going to cut you off.

You are lucky that she hasn’t left him or you might have been saddled with him. He’d probably start texting his wife a few months into your relationship.

I'm a single mum - which can often be a tricky card to play

Good grief, I've read some bollocks in my time but this takes the biscuit.

Its not "tricky" to not come on to your friend's husbands FFS, most of us manage this daily for our entire lives.

You are an awful "friend" and I dont blame everyone for shunning you. He's the biggest shit of all but you are also covered in it.

Namechanged.

Right, op. I’ve been in a vaguely similar situation- DH and me are good friends with another couple, and the husband and I find each other attractive. There was a time it felt pretty all-consuming to me, like a bad crush. However, forgive me if this sounds patronising- we were both absolutely sensible enough not to start messaging each other or anything like that. I don’t think either of us would ever cheat on our spouses. The attraction is just there, and still is to an extent - we are married, not dead - but we are adults, we can handle that.

I would feel terrible if my friend picked up on the ‘spark’ between us - she has not as far as I know. My DH once said that he thought the husband had a thing for me after a night out - but he didn’t expect that this was reciprocated on my part, and it didn’t seem threatening enough to stop being friends with them.

By messaging each other, you and the husband have totally overstepped a line, and of course your friend would block you. You say that you weren’t responsive, didn’t ’do anything’, but how would you have responded to his messages had you found him completely unattractive? I bet it would have been different. And I also bet that what’s truly upsetting you here isn’t that your friend blocked you, but that he hadn’t come running to you on the back of this…