To cancel Christmas plans

[cantbearsedwiththedrama]

Have namechanged for this for obvious reasons.

Friends have invited us for Christmas dinner this year which we were absolutely made up with. They are our closest friends. Kids are similar ages and play great together. Have known them years, for context I have known the husband longer than her and she had become a best friend through him.

They invited us back in September after we had some really awful news, and have previously been lovely to me through some really difficult times. We were happy to be invited and looking forward to it as lovely as mine and dh's families are, they have been a bit much this year and we wanted to prioritise ourselves a bit more on Christmas Day as last years was dampened by selfish family members we were bending over backwards for. Not ruined but not nice enough for us to fancy it again this year. Happy with invite to friends but had they not invited us we would have just had a lovely quiet day just the 5 of us.
Have spent the last few months having catch up chats about how lovely it will be and then popped in for a cuppa about a fortnight ago and she drops that she has cheated on DH. She's not remorseful, she doesn't care. She was proud she had planned it all and pulled it off. She has slept with another man and would do it again. She isn't interested in her dh anymore and doesn't seem phased by what she's done or how it might make her feel.
I didn't know what to say or how to take it, both dh and I are shell shocked. I've always respected this friend and I really didn't think she was like this, I've now seen her in a completely different light. She says she told her dh after it had happened but wasn't sorry as she doesn't want him anymore but he still wants her.
Dh and I both now feel really really awkward about going for Christmas and I feel so awful for her husband. She has since messaged (for the first time since) as if everything is fine and the kids are all excited for a shared Christmas meal but I just feel so uncomfortable and disgusted.
Has anybody been in similar situations?

I wonder why she told you about it? It could be potentially very awkward, especially if the husband knows you know about it, it will be the biggest elephant in the room in the history of elephants in rooms!

I always say that no matter how well you think you know someone, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

I couldn't sit and enjoy the day knowing what she'd done.

I went through similar with a friend and walking away from her was the best thing I ever did.

@SummerGems I don't get your reasoning... from my point of view, I'm friends with people that I like, that make me happy, that I admire, that add to my life. I get to decide if I don't feel they are the right type of person to fit into my life as a friend. I am staunchly against cheating in any regard, so I couldn't be friends with someone that had done it so brazenly and was calculated about it. I don't feel that I'm being self-righteous, I just have standards for myself and other people in my life.

I would still go. They maybe have problems in their relationship but they are still your friends surely?

I don't understand. You want to ditch out of a gathering that's been on the books for months & that you'd been looking forward to with someone who's been a very good friend and helped you through troubles because you disapprove of her sex life. It sounds like it was a one-night stand, her husband is aware of it (hence you aren't even in the awful position of being asked to pretend) and it's a matter that they have to work outor have worked outbetween them. Nothing to do with you.

If you no longer want to go she deserves to know why and to be indirectly warned about your outlook. If you're uncertain about going and aren't inclined to forego your moral outrage and behave normally, don't go and do her the favour of explaining why you're backing out.

I am 90% surevthat my dad has cheated in my mum when I was a teenager. I remember the argments and my mum distress at the time.

Many many years later, they are still together and very happy.

Should I distance myself from my dad because of that?
Or accept that he might well have behaved badly towards my mum BUT

• is still the same dad towards me, the loving and supportive one. The one that has always been there for me
• my mum has clearly forgiven him and has moved on. Who am i to judge my dad AND my mum for the way theybhave handle the situation? I mean the way they dealth with it was clearly the right way for them.

The bottom line is that you can judge people away as much as you want but that just makes you a judgemental person.
If that person was and has still been a very good friend, what tells you she isn’t anymore or won’t be in the future? Is one bad behaviour cancelling all thenother good sides?
If you are been a good friend to her DH for years, befire he actually knew her, are you happy to also distance yourself from him and to seen him?? Are you happy to upset him because you have cast a judgement on his dw, one that HE is happy to stay with knowing what has happened?

I don't think it's any of your business. Her husband knows and what goes on in their marriage is no concern of yours. Just tell her you don't want to know the details and enjoy your friendship unless you actually want to end it for good.

Bad enough to cheat, but that's the couple's business. What would harm a friendship for me more, is her boasting about it to mutual friends. So disrespectful to her h (who she is free to leave if he is so terrible). And so selfish to drag other people into it and make them feel uncomfortable.
If a cheater wants to unload onto someone, they should do it to a friend who isn't also a friend of the spouse.

If you cancel, you will lose this couple as friends and if you don't you will lose respect for yourself and have an awkward Christmas. Rock and a hard place because of her selfishness. I think I'd have to cancel.

I think the fact that you've had a shitty time recently and last Christmas wasn't great is enough to say that you don't want to spend Christmas feeling awkward in amongst that situation.

The morals and friendship dynamics are a whole other issue in themselves but if you think about the actual day, I don't think I would want the stress tbh.

So, if a woman posted here that her husband had had an affair, one night stand, had cheated in some way but they were trying to work things out, except their friends had now decided to end friendships with them because of what he had done, would posters be saying “well what did you expect? Your husband is a cheat, so if you choose to stay with him then the loss of friendships is no more than you deserve....” or would they say “your friends are twats OP, clearly they’re not your friends if you and your dh are trying to work things out and they feel the need to moralise over that decision.”

Honestly what would people say? Does the husband deserve to be punished by virtue of the fact he’s stayed with his wife?

If you find out your partner has cheated should leaving be the only option and if you don’t then you deserve the loss of friendships as well? Really?

It’s one thing to distance from the woman on the basis that she’s talked about her affair and not wanting to maintain a one to one friendship with her.

It’s quite another to then moralise over their marriage, to distance yourself from the husband and children and even be so arrogant as to think that they should want to hang out with you instead of him working on the marriage.

Cheating isn’t like murder you know. Everyone will know someone who has cheated on their partner. They just might not know about it.

This could be pointing to the end of their marriage, or just a blip. Would assume latter for now.
If you can disregard it as their problem to work out and still enjoy Xmas then go. If you cannot enjoy time with them at the moment you have to cancel, but it will probably cause I'll feeling.
You had a horrible time so look after yourself, people do stupid things but family and friends can get over it.

Oh Christ don't go

There's always a risk with alcohol and emotions running high at Christmas time (which they do) that it could all come out and kick off with you there

@Shoxfordian I'm angry that she did it. I'm angry that she told me with no thought for how it would affect everybody, that she's involved me at all.
But I'm more angry that she's treating him like this, that she seemed proud of it, openly laughing about how well she planned it with not a shred of shame or remorse.
I'm angry that she is openly like that at all, that she's acted like that but also that she was like that with me. Because clearly she thinks very little of me to be so smug about it infront of me, did she think I was going to validate her behaviour? Cheer her on? Allow her to treat my friend like this? It's insulting at best. Just want to handle it in a minimal damage way to make sure her dh has some support as he seems isolated at the moment.
He sleeps on the couch, goes to work, does everything with the kids and all of the housework. It just looks miserable for him.

it's not your business so why are you so angry ? I think you need to think about that her husband knows and has decided to stay with her it really has nothing to do with anyone else and it's no one else place to be angry. People cheat it happens for loads of different reasons and it's up to the cheated on spouse to decide what they want to do. If you don't want to go then cancel but what goes on in their marriage isn't any of your business

There's a massive difference between a cheater being genuinely remorseful and trying to fix the marriage and a cheater who doesn't give a shit about their spouse's feelings and brags about cheating to their spouse's friends.

Given that you (rightly imo) feel so angry about her attitude, I think it's best not to go. Once everyone has had a few drinks, I can see it kicking off.

I think you should ask her DH what he wants you to do. I think your priorities should be about supporting him and making it a nice Christmas for the children. It’s quite likely he’ll still want you to go. It may be awkward for you, but you may have to put him and the DCs first.

I’d ask the DH if he wants you there

Well tbh I’d be wondering what was going on for her that she has suddenly shown this side of herself when it seems that you weren’t aware of this side of her personality before.

Given how shocked you are at the brazen way in which she told you it seems that you see this as out of the ordinary? What could have happened which led to her being so disregarding of her husband’s feelings to the extent that she actually thinks she would get validation of her actions from a friend?

Affairs on either side rarely happen in isolation. There is almost always something more which leads to an affair, the person cheating is of course responsible for the fact they have cheated, but invariably someone who has an affair is not in a happy marriage, and someone who so brazenly cheats on their partner and then brags about it to friends is clearly not in a good place, even if they don’t realise it at that point.

What an awful dilemma and as a cheated on spouse (by my STBXH), I can guarantee that the cheated on husband will be feeling utterly miserable. But he needs to work through that and what he wants to do about the situation which isn't always an instant reaction. It took me 6 months to decide and then tell my ex that I wanted us to separate after I found out about his affairs. As far as your Christmas plans are concerned, I would be very clear that you 100% support the husband and will be there for him and their children but that given the circumstances you are not comfortable having Christmas together. There is no way this is going to be anything other than painful, uncomfortable and awkward for you, your husband and the cheated-on husband, even if the wife is merrily ignoring what's going on. Regarding the children, could you invite just them over for Christmas Eve instead? Or on Boxing day? It could even give the husband and wife a child-free opportunity to talk things over? But after that I would distance myself. By all means keep up play dates with the children and be there for the husband but you can make it clear you won't be doing joint family stuff any more.

I would go and have Christmas with them. Not for her- for her poor husband and her poor kids. I bet the kids are feeling the angst in the house. Having your kids around may help bring some Christmas cheer to their place

please talk to the DH. After I was cheated on this year, those who know have dropped us like a hot potato; the christmas calendar is bare save for thins i've been invited to solo - it's like people think they'll catch unfaithful or that we'll have a scene in front of them. Or that they would rather talk about us than to us.
It's miserable and it's like I'm being punished for what he's done.
(& yeah, it's like the pp speculating that the marriage was awful before and he must have done something to deserve being cheated on - it's all that shit that makes a shit situation even worse)

If she can cheat on her husband, what is she capable of doing to you?

This is someone I'd rather keep at arm's length than cosy up with on xmas day. Coffee or whatever, fine, but not as a couple, I couldn't lie to his face and pretend everything is dandy when it's not.

please talk to the DH. After I was cheated on this year, those who know have dropped us like a hot potato

This. The DH will need a lot of support - hats off to your DH for offering it - and the DCs may well do too.

And maybe order in a bit of extra food for them if the worst comes to the worst and DW ups and leaves before Christmas.

I don’t think you should completely write this woman off just yet. This sounds to be out of character. My take would be there’s something going on you’re not aware of. I expect your children are all really looking forward to spending Christmas together. For them and to support the dh I personally would put my feelings to one side.

The cheating is nothing to do with you (unless it was your husband she slept with of course). It's a shame she told you as she obviously misjudged you badly. If you really can't bear it then don't go but be aware that many of your other friends most likely do things you would not approve of, they just haven't told you about them.