To let people know the truth

[Iona345]

I've had a very traumatic divorce over the last few years. Exh left me for someone else but refused to admit it. He just reworked his story.

He lied about everything. He lied on his court papers. He lied about his plans to set up with OW. He got a larger settlement to allow him to move on independently. I could take him back to court but can't face more trauma.

He's now in a large property with OW.

The pain of my young children going there and returning with stories of the OW, the exciting big house causes blunt but short lived pain. I've made peace with it to an extent where it doesn't hurt like it used to.

Day to day I'm Ok. We had a couple of friends who now visit them. I've backed away from them but I just have this burning need to get in contact with them now. I feel I've been silenced throughout. I just want to be heared, for then to know the truth - maybe they figured it out but I'm not sure. I spoke to one joint friend that neither of us have been in contact with, they needed help on a work matter I could help with and got in contact, and I was astonished that they'd assumed what had happened, that he'd run off with someone else. I felt so much better.

But it's these two friend couples that I was close with too, that I can't shake wanting to get in contact with.

I don't want to blow things up and think they'd be discreet, neither of them are volatile, but I feel sad about the loss of their friendship and bring cheated out of the truth.

It's not revenge, I'd hate for Exh to know I spoke to them and to be honest I'm really scared he'd find out I did. It's not easy to know how it would go. But I can't shake off the need to do this.

Would it be the wrong thing to do to get in contact?

For context, OP, a divorced former friend bitterly blames DH and me for ‘aiding and abetting’ the affair that broke up her marriage and ‘siding with’ her ex and the OW, now his second wife. In fact, we knew nothing at all about the affair until long after she did— we were living in another country at the time, and the only time we saw her ex was when he stayed over with us en route to the third country where he was intermittently working, and where he met the OW. He was being slightly odd during those stays, but said nothing. We actually thought his marriage was enviably happy. He says he’d been miserable for years. She says everything was great until he met OW.

And yes, we did go to his second wedding, and both like his second wife, but we would like to have stayed in touch with both of them. We were, and remain, very sad they broke up, but we are perceived to have taken sides.

Just a random add.

But I keep seeing this phrase "my truth" and don't understand what it means?

Surely the truth is just that - the truth? Facts don't change dependent on who have them. If he's not giving the facts he's lying.

@SecretCiderCellar I suppose this is the problem with assumption. And awful you were caught up in this, sad that friends sometimes are.

Do you mind me asking if you'd have preferred her to have told you at the time she found out? Did you go to the wedding knowing it was due to an affair?

No judgement. I went to a friends wedding knowing she'd left her husband (also a friend) for the person she was marrying. I did feel terrible and actually lost touch with her shortly after, but mainly as I was more friendly with her ex husband anyway.

@itsgettingwierd well yes but people present their own truth and I'm sure my ex has. Whether the friends believe it or not I don't know, I expect they suspect something.

I refer to it as "alternative facts" a la Trump!

@itsgettingwierd

Just a random add.

But I keep seeing this phrase "my truth" and don't understand what it means?

Surely the truth is just that - the truth? Facts don't change dependent on who have them. If he's not giving the facts he's lying.

My truth = my side

How i see it from my point of view

So yes, I do deserve my truth, it probably will be cathartic
I wouldn't say that, exactly - telling your story might feel cathartic, but they are not going to think "Oh, this is the truth, and Tom was lying!" They will probably believe he had an affair, but they'll very likely assume that the marriage was on the rocks anyway, "there are always two sides to every story", or just choose to mind their own business and not judge either of you. Your personal truth - the way you see things - will always just be yours. Learning to accept that really is cathartic.

A friend had similar. Her husband left her because he was having an affair and she got pregnant when he and my friend after rounds of ivf were well into the adoption process.

The ow' s child was born 8 months after my friend left following an argument.
The exH still maintains he only "gave in" to his ow because my friend left after the argument. A LOT of friends are choosing to believe that an 8lb baby was miraculously conceived the first time they had sex and was born a month early, even though his sperm was of exceptionally poor quality.

Some people prefer to be lied to. In the case of the exH I think it's because the friends lived opposite the exH who kept the big house and because they have kids. Their life "fit" more with a liar and a cheat so they stuck with the exH and the bit on the side.

You've got to consider if you want friends who care about YOU or friends who want you around because of finances or lifestyles

It's not really Trumpian, though, is it? It's more like this:
He says he’d been miserable for years. She says everything was great until he met OW.
This might well be true on both sides. He might have thought the marriage was shit, and she might have thought it was fine. They might have different ideas of what is good and bad. They might each have got different things from the marriage.

[quote Iona345]@SecretCiderCellar I suppose this is the problem with assumption. And awful you were caught up in this, sad that friends sometimes are.

Do you mind me asking if you'd have preferred her to have told you at the time she found out? Did you go to the wedding knowing it was due to an affair?

No judgement. I went to a friends wedding knowing she'd left her husband (also a friend) for the person she was marrying. I did feel terrible and actually lost touch with her shortly after, but mainly as I was more friendly with her ex husband anyway.[/quote]
It was all made more complex by distance in that we lived abroad, and honestly, DH and I were probably rather naive. The friends who divorced are a generation older than us, locally famous (in our home city) for running a wildly successful, award-winning business, and I don’t think DH and I ever dreamed the marriage could be in trouble.

Would we have preferred T to have told us when she found out? The thing is, T thought we knew all along, and that when we let him stay with us, we were approving of him travelling to see the OW. So the way in which we actually found out was really murky because it was in a confused and aggressive email in which T accused us of months of collusion in an extramarital relationship which was news to us both, and which upset us.

Yes, we attended the wedding (which was about five years later and after we’d moved countries again and had a young baby, and had entirely lost touch with T, who had moved a long distance away) while knowing the relationship had started as an affair. It was a very small occasion, and it was the moment we realised how many friends R had lost after the marriage ended, because the guest list was so small — his second wife’s family were from too far away to travel. It was actually a slightly sad occasion. Their adult children were there, but not pretending enthusiasm. E, R’s second wife, is lovely, but I spent a lot of the day thinking about T.

The wedding was eight years ago now, and we accidentally reencountered T this past summer, and it was clear she still bore a grudge. Part of me wanted to clear the air, but I also didn’t want to be subjected to a tirade in the middle of a single-track rural road.

I’m still sad about it.

Did you attempt to clear up the misunderstanding @SecretCiderCellar or did she not believe you?

@ravenmum

It's not really Trumpian, though, is it? It's more like this: He says he’d been miserable for years. She says everything was great until he met OW. This might well be true on both sides. He might have thought the marriage was shit, and she might have thought it was fine. They might have different ideas of what is good and bad. They might each have got different things from the marriage.

Yes, I think this is likely to be true. On the only occasion he’s ever talked about it in my hearing, he described the (apparently enviable) life they had — a very successful business that won all kinds of awards and made them high-profile, and that was both their beloved project, a gorgeous old house, lots of friends, staff that were like an extended family, two brilliant kids, a lovely hippy lifestyle that saw them all taking off together to surf at weekends — as him ‘living the life T wanted.’ That he’d been unhappy for years but only realised how much when he met E by accident while working abroad, and that it was a total coup de foudre.

Whereas T says he’s retrofitting it, and that he was perfectly happy until his eye fell on someone young and new.

* I spoke to one joint friend that neither of us have been in contact with, they needed help on a work matter I could help with and got in contact, and I was astonished that they'd assumed what had happened, that he'd run off with someone else. I felt so much better. *

Some “friend”
Assumed your husband had run off with another woman but didn’t bother to get in contact with you until needed your help with a work matter

@ravenmum

Did you attempt to clear up the misunderstanding *@SecretCiderCellar* or did she not believe you?

Yes, we did. She never outright said she didn’t believe us, but it’s fairly clear she thought that if we weren’t actually lying, it was some kind of set-up where we implicitly knew, though he spared us the details so we had plausible deniability or something.

We should have guessed, I suppose, but we both had massive amounts going on in our own lives, and honestly, we lived in central London, and people passed through and slept on the couch all the time, all with their own drama.

Sorry for the detail, @Iona345. As you can tell, it’s still something I’m sad about.

It is a shame. When you find out that someone has been cheating on you, it can make you feel quite paranoid. I realised that my exh had told a friend of ours about his affair before I discovered it, and I thought the friend's wife had known too as she said something to me which sounded suspicious in retrospect. As I knew my exh had been telling people I was crap in bed and all sorts, I cut off all contact with the couple out of sheer embarrassment. A good couple of years later I talked to the wife after all and discovered she'd had no idea - we are back in touch again now. You might find that your friend is ready to talk again at some point.

@SecretCiderCellar how awful for you and really is true that affairs can harm people outside of the marriage itself. It isn't easy for the friends, it really isn't.

@ravenmum yes it does make you suspicious. Particularly through the legal element. You don't know who will say what to whom so another reason to back away until the dust settles.

If a long standing close friend had an affair, - it most certainly would not mean I would judge them or end the friendship.

In all likelihood, if they were a really close girlfriend, they would have confided in about the Affair and i would have known the issues in their marriage.

If they were a close friend but not really close and so didn’t confide in me but I found out after they left the marriage that they’d been having an affair - I still wouldn’t judge. If they still didn’t want to open up, I’d presume that the marriage had been very unhappy and that they’d had their reasons for behaving as they did

It might be cathartic. It's more likely to make you feel very exposed and a bit silly imho.

I missed that this happened a few years ago

Op - the moment has well and truly passed

Honestly op, they will Already know or suspect, in fact it’s highly likely he’s told them he left you for someone else and why, how he felt the marriage was. They will not take sides. They will just make the right noises,

I say this as we have this in our friendship group, none of us are judging, for the simple reason the marriage was beyond shit and we could all see it. Both of them think the other was at fault, in reality it was both of them, and yes one left for someone else. We give non commital sympathy for both sides but really we are not going to judge.

Telling them may make you feel better immediately, they will make the right noises “poor you that’s awful” and then carry on as before. I suspect that might hurt more, especially if they tell him what you’ve been saying.

If you need to do it, do it, but I doubt anything will change and it will ultimately make you feel worse.

Oh I’m sorry I missed you sepeated years ago, how many years ago was it?

I think op the better course of action at this stage would be to help you move on emotionally if this has been years now. 💐