Best friend affair

How would you husband feel when he finds out? Would he feel you have lied to him? Would he cut contact with your friend to be loyal to the husband his friend. I appreciate she is your best friend but in honesty I don’t think you are hers as she has told you so you bear the burden rather than she does. Which is just as selfish in my opinion as her having the affair. I’m sorry I couldn’t be friends with this person going forward.

Exactly. Avoid socialising with the, both, and tell her you no longer want to hear about the affair. If you’re not planning to tell her DH, what else can you do?

I would buy her several books.

Not just friends by Shirley Glass

Cheating in a nutshell by Mitchell

How to help my spouse heal from my affair - can’t remember the author.

Plus chump ladies book.

I would direct her to post on the surviving infidelity forum as a cheater. To get advice from people who have been there.

When / If this blows up it’s likely her husband will ask you, did you know? Now that might be okay, you say yes, he cuts you off, all is fine and dandy if they split. If he tries to create a new marriage with her, he is likely to ask her to cut you off (you may even be being given as the reason she is going out) as a condition of remaining friends. As you covered for her.

She has put you in a crap position op. And that is because she is selfish. Her spouse, you, her kids are behind her need for validation, dopamine etc.

Should you tell him? At 20 I’d have said no. As a fully grown adult, I’d tell her she has until Sunday to tell him as you don’t want to lose her as a friend and if he finds out you were covering it’s likely over anyway.

As for those saying she must be unhappy. Look at the books I’ve mentioned. Look up limerance. Often cheats have other addictions or inability to communicate or inability to self soothe or lack of empathy. The first person they lie to is themselves. It’s about entitlement and them having a but in their vows. I’m faithful but not if work is stressful. I’m faithful but not if it’s great sex with a hot man. I’m faithful but not if husband won’t find out.

The dopamine ride can cause her to feel like she is going crazy. She has two men wanting her yet she knows she’s a liar and has acted without integrity. It will mess with her head. She has caused that.

You care for your friend. I am sorry she has included you in her mess. Read the books if you can.

Agree with this - tell her the time she spends with her lover would be better spent in therapy

but You also need to stop being so naive - of course she knows how to stop the affair - she just doesn’t want to

Encourage her to seek therapy - she must be deeply unhappy to be behaving in this way . Feels hard on you having to be around them as a couple , must feel v conflicting and uncomfortable

She’s compromised your integrity. All the excuses about stress and kids? Absolute bollocks. Walk out of Sainsbury’s forgetting to pay for your wine maybe. Choosing to have sex with another man. No. That’s not a mistake.

Tell him/don’t tell him either way she’s killed the friendship.

I’d tell him, end the friendship and keep my integrity.

The thing about secrets is that’s she’s broken it because she couldn’t cope with the burden of holding it. But she expects you to keep it and carry her burden for her.

it’s clearly damaging your friendship if you don’t want to socialise with her. It’s going to explode in her face at some point. Did she tell you because she needs your help bringing that forward and deal with the consequences. That’s also a ridiculous burden for you to carry

She can't stop?
Why not? That's a ridiculous excuse... personally I've never had difficulty not sleeping with someone who wasn't my husband.

You can't stop socialising with her & her husband?
Why not? It's easy to say "Hey Jane, I'm not comfortable blatantly lying to John's face knowing you haven't stopped snagging Peter, so please don't invite us anywhere as I will decline"

She's your best friend?
If you knew that she was a cheater and would be the type to happily put her family through such turmoil (especially 4 young kids) for cheap thrills.... would you have befriended her? You don't need to stay friends with someone who isn't actually anything like the person you thought they were. If you found out she was a bank robber, or a racist etc... would you still just keep saying 'she's my best friend'?
Also, as a friend she absolutely should not be putting you in this position. Good friends don't do that.

Same here. I wouldn’t tell him, but I would say I don’t want to hear about it anymore.

She’s so messed up by it and doesn’t know what she’s doing or what’s going on??? Don’t fall for her little-lamb act. She’s a bad person.

Since the poor thing is so confused, maybe you could explain to her that what happened is she took her clothes off and let another man fuck her even though she has a great husband.

Your friend is a horrible selfish git. Some of us have never been married to a great guy. Tell him and then give him my phone number, lol!

I think you need to tell her that you don’t want to hear any more about it and hold that boundary. It will probably put a distance between you but she should never have burdened you with this.

I don’t know if I would feel the same way about my friend knowing this about her. It’s one thing to have an affair if your husband is shit, but cheating on a great guy bc you just want more really takes the cake. It speaks very badly of her character. I hope she gets found out and lives all the consequences. And I would focus more on other friendships. You’re best off being friends with people who have more principles than this one.

I have two best friends and both had affairs in their mid/late twenties (both married with kids)
it was a different situation but both had crap husbands, one was abusive and whilst I thought the affair partner was also a bit of a dick I hoped it would be her way out of the situation. (It wasn’t unfortunately despite her dh eventually finding out). The other despite having known her dh since childhood i didn’t particularly like him and felt friend should leave him (he use to put her down a lot and try to limit her life) She did leave and went on to marry her affair partner. She did go on to start an emotional affair with someone else and I told her in no uncertain terms she was out of order and risking blowing up her life for a bit of flirting.

id question why she is doing this no one’s risks a happy situation for no reason.

You are accountable and responsible for your actions though. As long as you can comfortably stand by withholding such information from her husband, then I guess that's good enough. I couldn't.

Whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

You're still lying, by omission.

It will all implode sooner or later. Affairs never stay secret for long.

OP You are her best friend but if it were me I would not tell her husband under any circumstances. You will be opening up a veritable hornets nest. Yes, support her but if her husband asks you then all you need to say is speak to your wife otherwise this is going to get messy.

Agree. I would add that she should stop spending time with the husband until the affair ends. If she considers him a friend then she should tell him. So, logically, she should stop being his friend until it stops. Maybe even full stop. Because if he finds out in future about the affair and finds out his 'friend' didn't tell him... Their friendship will end anyway.

What does your own DH think of all this? Have you even told him? I discuss pretty much everything with mine, especially stuff that is burdening me and making me feel uncomfortable.

Guarantee as the children become teens this selfish woman will show you her true colours more and more.

She puts on a front and lies to hide her real devious self from everyone else and unburdens herself onto you. Not nice. This friendship is doomed because it’s one way and she is using you.

Been there OP and yes, it hurts

Sorry, to be clear, my question was why isn't it OP's place to tell the husband?

Shes just gas lighting OP and taking advantage of her.

Why not?

People have affairs for so many different reasons, it’s never right but I would try not to judge her, but would not want to be any part of it either. I would feel sullied.

I have been listening to ‘the affair’ podcast over the last few months and the destruction they cause for YEARS is incalculable.

I’m also totally astounded that she has the time or energy to hold down a job not to mind cheat!

Anyway she definitely has an Employee Assistance Program at work if she has a good job, tell her to get counselling there and try to figure out why she is doing this before she does another thing.