Affair issue.

[Robadobdob]

A few weeks ago I discovered that my wife had been having an affair with her best friend.
She said it only became sexual a month before I found out and that as soon as i told her i knew she told her friend they could no longer have sex.

There's were obviously many reasons I was hurt but one was that they had exchanged sexual pictures of themselves which is something I'd suggested to my wife and she'd refuse because she "would never feel comfortable doing that with anyone" although the same night she said that she was doing that exact thing with her friend.

Despite this my wife says it wasn't sexually fueled and it was about love and feeling close to one another. Also to make her friend feel good about herself.

Her friend has recently gone through a separation from an abusive partner, something my wife and I encouraged and supported her in.
She has been struggling since the break up and my wife said the affair stemmed from there and my wife helping her through it.

Since finding out though I've been so angry and upset. I gave this friend all the support and help I could and this is what she does.

Am I justified in hating this friend of hers?
I keep finding myself wishing her ill.

Also, I've said this friend continuing to be in our lives is damaging to our relationship and so our family.
My wife says she understands my feelings but her friend is still struggling and she (my wife) is the only support the friend has.
The friend and my wife still exchange messages and meet up every day.
Am I being unreasonable to find this threatening?

I agree, it's not fair on you at all.

Do your kids know about the affair?

I’m sorry you’re going through this. You sound very gracious, all things considered and are handling it with your head held high. You obviously love your wife very much.

Your thoughts about her friend are normal and you’re certainly not a villain.

When I went through this myself I couldn’t have moved on if my dp had continued seeing the ow everyday. I’m not sure where you go from here tbh as it sounds as if your wife hasn’t quite grasped the hurt she has caused you by not only continuing this friendship but continuing it so deeply. It’s as if the affair never happened in her eyes.

Your wife is still acting selfishly by thinking of her own needs above yours.

Two things stand out:

• the friend texts your wife threatening self-harm, and your wife, like most people would in normal circumstances, wants to go and help her mental struggles. That's all well and good, but she's harming your mental health in doing so. Why is this woman's MH more important than yours?

• you don't want to remove this woman's greatest support but, quite frankly, it's her own doing. She obviously knew your wife was your wife before all this started. Whether she pursued her or vice versa she chose, at some point, to have sex with your wife. Therefore she has chosen to lose her support network.

If things are as you say then she is manipulating your wife by sending her crisis texts. If your wife is serious about your relationship then, the next time her friend tells her she wants to self-harm she should send an ambulance or the police.

I honestly think you should end your marriage, though. Your children will be far better off if you split. And so will you.

@ShatnersWig
She is. My pain doesn't make hers any less. Anger is easy. Storming out in a rage would be the simplest of answers but it's not what I want and it's not how I feel. I understand your frustration about this. There are times I feel it too but anger isn't going to give me the life I want.

@RockYourSocksOff

No,the kids don't know. The kids aren't telling on their mum. It's partly me fishing, "So has it just been you and Mummy all afternoon?" "no, (her friend) came round for a cup of tea" or "we went to (friends) house"
Since finding out about the affair my wife did promise to take one of our kids whenever she went to her friend's if possible.

I do love her. So much. I'm scared of what would happen without her.

I agree that my wife seems to think she can reign in the physical side of things and continue as if nothing ever happened.

I'm going to explain further my feelings and that I've tried for 6 weeks now to accept her friend remaining in our lives but I can't.

OP, I know it's off-topic but '25 sewer rats' just made me snort loudly and attractively in public!

I'm sorry but to echo previous posters,
A) women don't see sex with each other as an extension of their friendship and by telling you it's normal, she's gas-lighting you.
B) making you feel like the bad guy 'controlling and abusive for wanting her to stop seeing the person she's sleeping with, FFS?! Also gas-lighting.
C) she and her friend didn't make one drunken mistake. You say she realised she'd crossed a line as soon as she'd done it. But then she continued to have sex with her, indicating that she knew it was wrong, knew it would hurt you and possibly destroy your marriage - and did it anyway.
D) her friend is in emotional distress and your wife has made it 10x worse by sleeping with her and then either breaking it off or stepping back, leaving her more confused and distressed. If anyone is responsible for her self-harming or worse, it's your wife's behaviour not yours - and continuing this harmful pattern isn't doing her any favours.

If you can see your own value - the fact that you say it's been a tough year with your marriage and your own cancer scare and still use this as a reason why your wife has had a tough year, not you yourself(?!) says that you've been conditioned to place her value above yours.

If you can glean from all the above responses (believe me on MN it's rare to get such a consensus of opinion) that it's not ok, that you need to either get counselling or get out, I wish you all the luck in the world.

Your wife is a very self-centred person who won't change unless she has to. I'm not a fan of ultimatums, but she already gave you one, didnt she? She told you what she'd done but immediately made it clear that she wouldn't stop seeing this person. Your ultimatum should be for the good of your marriage and family, not for the mental health of some outsider or for your wife to continue to feel that what she's done 'isn't that bad'.

I'm not the one who is frustrated. You clearly are, though, but seem to be prepared to carry on feeling like that.

Your marriage is dead in the water. It will never recover fully. You may stagger on, but either she will go or eventually you will just completely fall apart and go, or you'll carry on being a cuckolded husband and know what's going on with your wife and choose to stick your head in the sand. It's your life. Good luck with it.

So you don't want to talk to your friends about this because they think you're an idiot and should have left. All us strangers are saying the same thing. You're going to run out of people to listen to and you won't find anyone who is going to say what you seem to desperately want someone to say.

As soon as they slept together, my wife realised she'd crossed the line. Yet, continued to do so for a further month, until she was caught?
The friend is blackmailing your wife with idle threats of self harm if she doesn't make herself available for her. That's manipulating and controlling behaviour. If the friend did do something to harm herself, then that is no-one else's fault. If you and your wife really want to work this out, then the friend has to go, she is a cuckoo in the nest.

@QuizzlyBear
Glad it made you laugh. sorry it was a snorty one 😂

I've maybe not bade it clear before. My wife doesn't think sex between female friends is normal. Flirting and closeness she does but not sex. She believes experimenting between teenage girls happen but not into adulthood. And she believes the sexual side can end without emotional pain.

I do see that I'm in the right in asking her to stop seeing this friend, regardless of her circumstances, and that this is the only way to go if things are to be repaired.

Oh, it's not my wife that's conditioned me like this. I've always tried to put others before myself.

@ShatnersWig

I don't know if I'm frustrated; frustrating certainly.

Why are you so sure my marriage can't be salvaged?

I've perhaps not got the responses I was hoping for, that these messages were ok and that this friendship could coexist with my marriage.

However, I did get the responses I expected and that agreed with my position. "No, these aren't acceptable" and "no this friendship has to end."

I've also got responses, such as yours, which although we'll meaning, aren't options I'm willing to take at this point in time. I've got to give my wife a chance at redemption. If she chooses not to take that chance, by continuing the the friendship, or hurts me again then that will be it.
Obviously I'll be far more vigilant for signs from now on and if anything did happen the kids will be old enough to understand what has happened.
At the moment my daughter still cries if her mummy is away for the weekend.

I am so sorry this has happened OP. But please bear in mind that had you not found out your wife was having sex with your friend she would likely have carried on doing so. She only stopped because you did find out. And she still won’t break contact with this person. She has no real respect for you.

It does feel from your last post that you are looking for excuses for her behaviour

I'll help you out with that THERE ARE NO EXCUSES she made a choice there are consequences to that and if she values your marriage and family the friend has to go

I'm sorry I've got close female friends I've never "accidentally" shagged them being bi doesn't mean she can just shag whoever she likes

Your wife destroyed her friendship by allowing it to progress into an affair. She will destroy your marriage if she doesn't show a willingness to put it behind her - you'd never be able to trust her again if she's still seeing the person she betrayed you with.

As others have said, it's no different than if the woman was a man. I have close friends (both male and female) whom I hug, and are emotionally close to, but it's never approached anything sexual, not even flirting.

It's also completely different to her past example - she wasn't married to you, and expecting you to be OK with her spending time with the person she had an affair with is sickening.

However, given that her past example also had her having sex with someone she knew was in a relationship suggests that she doesn't take monogamy seriously. You have to decide whether you can live with that, because her unwillingness to let her extramarital sexual partner go suggests that it'll happen again.

You're being a doormat. The friendship needs to go and you need to stop making excuses for her shitty behaviour.

@Figgygal

I came looking for support for her excuses. I didn't expect to find much and haven't found any so...
I wanted to be able to believe her and didn't. That said it'd be wrong of me to dismiss what she was saying just because I didn't relate to it. I need back up.

The actual sexual side I knew from the beginning was unacceptable regardless of gender but the emotional bond between friends I couldn't be sure of. Now I am.

C wasn't in a relationship at the time they were messing about. They lived apart for a few years and C got her partner during that time. I don't know what led to C telling my wife they couldn't have sex anymore once they met up again, whether my wife tried to initiate something or not. It may just have been a comment just in case.
This one is me making an excuse for her. I don't know what happened so it'd be unfair to assume the worst.

This really isn't fair on you or the other woman.

^Who cares about the other woman? I got no respect for anyone who knowingly has an affair

Oh my, OP, what a mess

You say she is perfect for you and that you don't know what would happen without her

She's had an affair. She's cheated on you. You're concerned with her pain??

I would ask her to leave and get on with your own life. There are plenty of women'swbo would be perfect for you and wouldn't cheat on you.

I didn’t have respect for the ow either and yes, I realised dp had a choice but she did too and knew all about me. 50/50 blame in my eyes.

You can work through an affair, I’m proof of that but your wife doesn’t seem to be making the necessary efforts to repair your marriage. Does she say she loves you? If she does she needs to prove it, actions speak louder than words.

Prove it by backing away completely from this friendship.

LTB!

I'm afraid I agree with the consensus here.

Your wife needs to choose.
Yes, it's a difficult situation for her, but it's all of her own doing.
It's not your responsibility to make this easier for her.

Because if you leave things as they are, you'll never know they haven't started up again. The opportunity will be there for them regularly.

It sounds like your wife and her friend were having an emotional affair long before a physical one. Flirting and cuddling isn't normal in platonic friendships, because then it's no longer platonic.

Her friend is being Manipulative, her self harm is on her and nobody else and I say that as someone who self-injured for 12 years before I got treatment for it. I never used my self-injury as a means to control people because that's wrong and against my nature. A person who threatens self-harm in order to control others is probably not really a self-injurer in the first place, they are just a manipulative, emotionally abusive, controlling twat who happens to hurt themselves occasionally If they don't get their way.

When a partner cheats, gets caught, and ends it in order to save their relationship, the very first thing they do Is Cease ALL Contact with the person they cheated with. Their relationship has no hope of recovering otherwise. Your wife being unwilling to do that shows a complete lack of respect for you and your marriage and a lack of commitment to healing your relationship. And I say that as someone who was cheated on and later found out they continued to talk to the person (also a manipulator) they cheated with because they were worried about them. Hey but it was just talking and if there's one person you can trust on that it's the person who broke your trust in the first place, right? 🙄

I do not blame you in the least for your anger at either of them. It was a slap in the face for her friend who you thought was your friend as well to do that after all you did to help her.

It being a female friendship there are apparently things I don't understand.

Sorry but this is bullshit.

Your wife is a liar and a cheat. And she is continuing to lie to you with bollocks like this.

I understand you want your marriage to succeed but I think you are fooling yourself. This wasn't a one-off. She lied and planned and went behind your back for a month.

Is she willing to go to marriage counselling? I'm just concerned that she's pulling the wool over your eyes and this will happen again. You deserve better than that.

Also her downplaying it because they are both female is ridiculous. It's basically saying "It's not a real affair or relationship because we're both women." I think many lesbians might disagree with her on that point.

@AmIthatbloodycold
Thanks. There may well be other women out there. I'm thinking they may be in new Zealand though...

Fun, "Rob is a loser" story for you.
There was a woman who worked with me when I was in my early 20s whom I had a huge crush on. Everyone knew it. Including her.
We were all at a staff party one night and I saw one of my best mates kissing her. The next day he apologised, said he knew I liked her but he'd not even kissed a woman in 3 months. It'd been 2 years for me.

@RockYourSocksOff
My wife is making some effort. She agreed to reduce the amount of time she spends with this friend. She has arranged more date nights. She's made a huge effort to show more affection towards me.
But that shadow is still lingering over us and her continuing friendship is casting it.

@DiscontinuedModelHusband
Agreed. Thank you.

@RedDrink @GreenFingersWouldBeHandy

Thank you. I'm really starting to think that these "normal close female friendships" were actually unlabelled relationships. She says that the times she's had these sort of friends they have been with straight women but I'm wondering it that "I'm straight" is what has prevented them becoming sexual. Bar with C and this one.
This is the only friendship she's had where she's felt this bond since we've met.

She did continue the affair for a month but claims it was because she didn't want to hurt her friend and hoped things would end naturally between them before I'd find out.
I believe her that she didn't want to hurt her friend by stopping but I'm under no illusion that she wasn't also enjoying herself too.

I'm going to tell her that the friend needs to be out of our lives. If she agrees but there are still issues agreeing to counselling will be the next step.

@RedDrink
She's not downplaying anything once it became sexual but prior to that she just sees it as normal female friends.
As I said in my previous post I'm starting to think these previous friendships were actually closer to being unlabelled relationships.

She claims she continued the affair as she didn't want to hurt her friend?
Seriously? Who jumps into bed and has sex with someone because they're concerned for their MH? Who starts an affair because of concern over MH issues? Your wife is your friends puppet and you are your wife's puppet. Today, it has to change. Not tomorrow or next week.