I found out my wife and my best friend had a physical relationship before we got married, I don't know how to react

This thread will fill before OP comes back, if they were ever for real.

Great for MN and site traffic.

No, you don’t appreciate the breach of trust. This isn’t like sleeping with a woman a mate briefly dated and wasn’t really into, after checking he’d have no issue with it.

If it was no big thing and easily understood, a best friend and a partner would have shared this info around the time that it was happening. It was kept secret for a reason: they both knew it was a betrayal of trust for a guy to secretly sleep with his best friend’s ex, having known her before, during and after the friendship.

Op, I understand totally that the problem now isn’t an ancient brief relationship from years ago. It’s the ongoing deception and pretence that they’ve only ever been platonic friends.

God you'd hate my uni friendship circle! So many of us were in relationships / had flings with each other both before and after relationships. One even was with someone's brother first! Never during though. Am I meant to ditch my friends because my partner might see someone I've snogged.

Hasn’t op stopped responding?

OP I know it's a shock and fuck knows why your friend told you tbh. Best left unsaid.

But honestly this doesn't matter now. 20+ years of good friendship and relationship is worth so much more.

Like you say yourself you wouldn't have had either relationship if you'd have known. You might not have found another great mate and great wife.

Look at the facts. No one cheated on you. It was decades ago. It didn't mean much, otherwise they would have stayed together. Your wife and mate chose you. You're allowed to feel hurt but get some perspective.

Why has he told you now? That’s a bit weird. Assuming as he wanted to unload, he has told his wife too? Maybe get some counselling

Maybe friend has listened to and witnessed jhkyg making derogatory comments and digs about his dw for too long.

Maybe jhkyg makes comments about his dw being with him because he is the only one who would have her.

All this indignant rage and running away over words used is just history repeating itself.

Now he has moved out. I don’t think there is any comeback from this

What do you think about your marriage in general OP?
I don't think you need to make any big decision here. I think you need to take time to process and work out whether it's something you can move past.

Feelings are feelings, and you can't always rationalise them away or talk yourself out of it.

For me, I would be less bothered about the sex, than I would be about how comfortable they were keeping it from you rather than laying all the cards on the table when you got back together.
I think the fact it was your best mate is relevant.
If it was a random that you hardly saw or never saw, it would be different, but your best friend is different.

No I don't think it is a male vs female outlook.
I couldn't get past this if there was a gender flip here and I am female.
The only difference, of course, is that I wouldn't be wondering who the father of my children is.

The thought of it. Ugh. My best friend and my dh.

It's no use trying to rationalise it. Both marriage and friendship would be done.

It is what it is unfortunately.

I think I’d be the same tbh. The thought of it they’d ever thought about it whilst all being together would really bother me!

I don’t think this is a real post/ situation.

The OP follow up responses are getting more ridiculous and inflammatory.

Understandably you are hurting, and angry no one told you at the time.

However, I would have suspicions about why this friend is disturbing the peace now.
I would be more angry, about the fact that if I wasn't told then, why bother now. What has he achieved by hurting you?

He obviously wanted your girlfriend then and now this selfish friend is trying to destroy your marriage. It's possibly a vendetta against your wife for choosing you over him all those years, ago.
I think he is jealous of your life with your wife and kids.
I hope you won't let him win. If your marriage means anything and its been a good marriage, then seek some therapy and counselling, to understand why this friend has told you now.
( Also he isn't any real friend, he's a jealous and selfish human being. He shouldn't have done this.)
Best wishes going forward.

I would say that what jhkyg wants, (no secrets in a marriage) is pretty much impossible.

Everyone has secrets and everyone if we go by jhkyg‘s definition of a lie is not telling their spouse absolutely everything that has gone on even when you weren’t together.

Do you tell your spouse everytime you take a dump, go for a wee throughout the day even if you aren’t together. If not then jhkyg
thinks you are lying

Or are there specific parameters about what is considered a secret or lie and were these parameters explained

Remember it was jhkyg who dumped his gf over football.

Ever considered what she said was the truth and the reason she and best friend never said anything was because of the reaction when she told you the truth about your football team

I would say you dumped her primarily because you saw she was happy. The issue now is you found out she wasn’t miserable and pining for you
and didn't stay dumped until you decided to ride to the rescue.

I am stunned that you thought that she stayed single for 6 months

You gave her the freedom to shag anyone including your best friend and now you are bitching about it

The fact is that the more jhkyg goes on about cheating and lying and what his wife and best friend have got up to whilst he and his dw have been married screams more like he is the one who actually cheated

There are threads and threads on here from wives being accused of cheating and everyone has replied that the dh is the one cheating.

Even if the op of these threads comes back with the fact they don’t believe their dh would cheat, they soon find out the dh is actually cheating

I don’t think this poster is any different.
As for supposedly raising another man’s child. Makes me wonder why this specific scenario.

It's clear you are having some very big feelings about this and, while you aren't wrong to have feelings about this confession from your friend, I think perhaps you should consider some professional help to work through them so that you don't wreck your marriage.

Your friend is a selfish idiot.

Focus on what you have and what you want to keep (great marriage with the woman you love/ mother of your children, happy environment for your children to grow up in, perhaps some kind of relationship with your oldest friend?).

You'd be a fool to throw all that away over a 2 month fling between two 18 years olds that happened many decades ago (that likely means nothing to either your wife or your friend now).

Maybe they knew the unhinged reaction they would get.

Did you have a relationship with anyone else during that time?
Also, why has this man told you now? Ask him. He must know you would be upset. He should have kept his mouth shut.

Why would I provide you with evidence that you are a man?. I'm not going to provide top tips on how to disguise it better in the future.😅

Yes, completely normal. We’ve had two exes of mine around for dinner over this summer, on different occasions, and we see one of DH’s exes socially the odd time, too.

Self indulgent nonsense. You should have thought about that when you broke her heart, but you didn't. Nothing to do with you. Give your head a wobble, realise that you didn't control everything when YOU hurt her. Give her some credit for forgiving you,

Almost every woman I know is friends with at least one ex. Unless the relationship ended in a hugely dramatic or acrimonious way - and most relationships don't - it's likely that both people will loosely stay in the same social circle and end up back on friendly terms.

I would think it incredibly weird that he was telling me now, but aside from that I can't imagine having any deep feelings about anything that happened TWENTY-SIX YEARS ago. It's ancient history. It wasn't even cheating. There probably wasn't an appropriate moment for either of them to drop it into conversation when you were young, and it wasn't significant enough either.

I always think anyone who gets in their feelings about the idea of their partner previously having sex with other people - including other people they know - is manifesting some sort of weird ownership over them.

I'm not a man. Where's your evidence that I am?

No woman I know has ever kept an ex hanging around whether it's her husband's mate or not.

It's not assuming anything, I was talking about his best friend.

And yes you shouldn't sleep with an ex girlfriend when you are also talking to your best friend about how to win her back and how much he regrets breaking with her.

This is assuming that the girl feels the same. Just because he wants her back doesn't mean it's mutual. Should she never sleep with anyone else just because her ex still wants her? (Not quite the point in this case, but it still stands)

Hey OP - I'm sorry you are going through this.

I'm not going to comment on how you feel - whether it's too much or perfectly justified - because you feel how you feel and that is valid.

I'm going to make some suggestions for moving forward - they may resonate, they may not.

1. Meet up with friend. Ask them why they felt the need to tell you now. Their answer may give you some clarity. They probably (wrongly) decided that enough time had passed that they could safely offload their guilt without too much fallout. This is selfish obviously, but there may be another reason. Find out.
2. Talk to wife about how it has made you feel: a fool, vulnerable, unsafe etc. Try to make her understand that what has happened is all the trust and security you have always felt is in danger of crumbling. Not because she slept with someone on a break, but because her and your BF have had a big secret for decades. You have been excluded and not given the chance to process.
3. When either of them try to play it down, remind them that this is old news to them but new information to you. It has shocked you, Also ask them why, if it's not a 'big deal' have they kept it from you?
4. Take a break from friend - a month or whatever you need. Process.
5. Get counselling. Talk through all your feelings and hurt. Only then can you decide how you want to move forward.

My HONEST opinion is that your feelings are valid but this doesn't have to be a death-knell on the trust in your marriage or your friendship. What is needed is for your wife and BF to acknowledge your feelings and how deep this has cut you and explain to you why they kept it from you and why they have no revealed it. They then need to allow you to process it however you need to. I think that if they can show you empathy, respect, kindness and support in working through your feelings, you may all come out the other side just fine.

It was a long time ago. It clearly didn't work for them. They almost certainly kept it form you initially for a number of reasons:

1.To save themselves
2.To save you from hurting
3.To save the friendship
4.To give you and wife a chance at reconciliation.

Apart from reason one, they are not awful reasons.

Take some time
Breathe
Process
Repair (whatever that looks like).

I wish you luck.