is this unforgivable in a friendship?

[pam72]

I was in a close friendship with a group of other mums. over lockdown, I became close to the DH of one of my good friends. I'm a single mum - which can often be a tricky card to play...While nothing physical ever happened, we both admitted we had feelings for each other, but also agreed it would be catastrophic for so many people if anything further developed. Nothing ever did, but when he's drunk he sends me very full on messages about how life is cruel and how much he wishes we could be together. I don't fully shut them down - to do this I think I'd have to say I would tell his wife? but I don't encourage them (I'll tell him to go to bed / stop messaging) its incredibly hard to ignore and I think about him constantly. I also feel it's very unfair of him to send these messages. he seems totally able to compartmentalize and act like nothing weird has happened. but to me, it's all consuming, It honestly feels like a drug. Nothing happened, I distanced myself, from him and his wife's friendship, I moved house, I left my job. I questioned everything about myself, unable to believe the feelings I had for him didn't just trump, but floored any feelings of guilt I had for his wife. Never ever ever thought I'd be this person. Totally thought I was both stronger and way more loyal to the sisterhood.

Recently his wife has blocked me on every social platform, removed me from group chats etc and I feel (but don't know) that she is trying to get our mutual friends to distance themselves from me. If she knew the truth I totally get why this would happen, but if she knew the truth, I also don't think she'd stay with her husband, but she's still with him. I understand we can no longer be friends, I don't want to be, but am I being unreasonable to feel angry that the husband, who 1000000% drove every single interaction, is coming out smelling of roses, while I'm the scarlet women who tries to steal my friends' husband? I don't know what he told her, but it's clearly something that isn't true (I won't be in contact with him as I feel this just looks like I'm causing trouble)

NB - appreciate this is a hugely triggering post for lots of people, and I fully expect to get torrents of abuse - but I'm being truthful about a situation and a position that I don't think gets shared too much - but probably is more common that people realize.

I was in a close friendship with a group of other mums. over lockdown, I became close to the DH of one of my good friends.

Honestly you could have stopped here. Regardless of whether you are single or not, don't be getting close to your friends' husbands. If you do, your friends would be crazy not to cut you out of the friendship group.

Start over, make new friends, and this time keep an appropriate distance from their husbands.

You should have blocked him as soon as he started flirting. You say that this bloke's wife was one of your good friends - you're not being a good friend to her, though. You clearly love all the attention. Find your own man and let this one sort out his marriage.

but am I being unreasonable to feel angry that the husband, who 1000000% drove every single interaction, is coming out smelling of roses, while I'm the scarlet women who tries to steal my friends' husband?

That hasn’t been said by anyone, least all the friend.
You have no idea whether she has forgiven him, is working through it with difficultly or they are planning a split.
In any of those 3 scenarios I would cut off the “friend” regardless, that’s seems pretty obvious for most people.

As a side note, being a single mum is not “a tricky card to play” if you view people within marriages as off the table.

Na, sorry but you are as responsible as he is for not shutting down the conversation/relationship. You didn't have to "threaten him", you could have just told him to f off and block his number.

You don't get to play the victim here.
And whether she stays with her husband or not is none of your business.

A tale as old as time.

Married man gets bored. Starts sending signals to everyone to see who will pick up on it. Woman who does and thinks its like some Mills and Boon novel where they would be together if only the universe wasn't keeping them apart. Man gets caught somehow and blames the woman. Woman gets ostracised.

I've seen this exact thing a million times over.

I'm also confident that if she does kick him out he will come crawling to you, not because of some passionate love story, but because he will need a home and some idiot who washes his socks until he gets bored in a couple of years and starts flirting with everyone again.

You fucked up. The only difference is that its easier for her to get rid of you, she has ties to him.

ETA: my mistake didn’t mean to quote the entire OP 😂

OP you’re not going to compare your friendship in a mums group to someone’s marriage are you? And it doesn’t even sound like a very long-standing friendship by the way you’ve described it.

It’s very simple what’s happened here, she has either found the texts or been told by her husband that you have feelings for each other. She’s obviously going to want to block you from her life after that, you know that right? And some of her married mutual friends will probably be a bit wary of you now as well.

Whether she stays with her husband or not is up to her - I wouldn’t - but it’s obviously a massive deal to break up a marriage especially if you have kids. But that doesn’t mean he’s come out smelling of roses! The other women in the circle are probably wary of him too now and no doubt she’ll be having very strong words with him too and their marriage may eventually break up as there’s probably other women tbh.

I had a friend who had invited one of her best mates to stay with her and her partner /father of children. So her best mate who had never met her partner before traveled down to Brighton to stay with my friend.

On the third night, she ended up being caught with friends partner in the kitchen at midnight (they had both got out of bed) standing close chatting intimately and jumped apart when they saw my friend. My friend threw her former bestie out the next morning and had rows with her partner for weeks. They both denied anything happened but it was clear there was an attraction and something was going to happen.

a decade on from that she is still with her partner but has never spoken to the “bestie” again. As she justifies it - she didn’t have kids with her former best mate, but she had kids with her partner. There’s no competition- it’s a no brainer to end the friendship with you but much more complex to end a marriage.

That said you didn’t act on the feelings, and that is something. But what worries me is you’re not showing concern that your friends marriage has been destroyed and how she’s feeling. you’re just worried about looking bad and being turfed out the friendship group and the fact he isn’t being “punished”.

I have to disagree. There has been some kind of emotional relationship and op nurtured that and allowed it to grow to the point where she is now obsessed with this utter sleaze.

We are not blaming her instead of him. IMO op has to take responsibility for her part in this. She states herself that her actions are despicable. I agree.

How do we expect her friend to react? Poor woman must be so upset.

Ever heard of divide and conquer? That is exactly what this man has done to these two women. They should probably both get rid of him.

It’s absolutely pathetic that you’re attempting to paint yourself in an innocent light here. Yes he’s the one who had the commitments to his wife, and he wronged her deeply, but you did too. You encouraged his attention and gave a platform to the feelings you had towards your friends husband. Scumbag behaviour, even if his is worse. Say what you need to in order to sleep easy at night but if I were a mutual friend in your group, I’d want absolutely nothing to do with you either. I don’t believe you’d be a threat to my marriage personally but I don’t make a habit of being friends with people with morals like yours.
Whether she stays with him or not is her call but there’s always far more investment and complications in a marital relationship than just a friendship, it doesn’t take a genius to work that out and I don’t believe you really need that explaining to you.

I think OPs friend knows nothing physical happened or she’d more than block her. So I don’t think it would help for Op to say “nothing physical happened but we did say how strongly we felt for each other but it’s ok we didn’t act on it ” 🙄

I’m sure that is pretty much what she already knows anyway, but it’s still so devastating to know your friend did even that which is why she’s blocked her.

If she wants to have closure with the friend she could maybe offer to answer any questions she had and share any texts if that’s what friend wants.

But no it’s too late now for her to dump a load of screenshots on her former friend. And the friend has likely seen the texts anyway.

If she’d came clean and went to her former friend to share everything, before her husband was exposed /confession, she maybe could have showed the texts then but not now.

OP, you just have to move on from this and do better next time .

If you really want to say something send an apology note expressing how sorry and disgusted you are for your actions and that you understand how betrayed she must feel. And end it by saying you hope that she heals and has the best life ever. And then I’d leave her alone to figure things out.

I think the love and trust in their marriage has gone and the friend would be better off getting rid of her husband. But it seems like a bit of an extreme overreaction over a few messages. If he'd had a proper affair she'd have all the justification she needed to kick him to the curb.

Yes the OP could and should have shut this down properly. But the responsibility is always, always on the married person to respect their marriage vows. I say that as a married person.

Presumably she found his messages which based on what you’ve said here, would show that he was chasing and being full on with you, and your messages sang go to bed and give it a rest.

Many cheated partners find it easier to insist that their disloyal husband cease contact with the woman rather than going straight to splitting, divorce etc. Yes it feels like you’re being punished but if you’ve behaved as you have said in trying to push him away and stop it going further, then you can take some measure of satisfaction in that and hold on to that. Obvs either way you’re not going to be top of her Christmas card list. Her real problem is her unfaithful and cowardly DH but that’s up to her how she deals with that.

100% this by pp

the responsibility is always, always on the married person to respect their marriage vows.

If he wants out of his marriage then he should get out in a honest way without first trying to line up the next wifey.

You’d have shut him down by blocking him in the first place, not allowing it to get this far.
I was a single mum, never had this problem because I respected my friends and treated their husbands like the husbands of friends - not potential shagging partners.
He’s made a big mistake. You’ve made a huge mistake And yes, you’ve become ‘that’ woman, the one not to trust.

Also this.

When I was a young single mum freshly out of an abusive relationship. I flirted with some of my friends partners because I was so insecure and desperate for a bit of positive attention. One of them decided to pursue me. I shut it down instantly but lost the friendship group and yes they stayed together. I learnt a valuable lesson and fully accepted my role in what happened.

Obviously it's crappy he gets off Scot free but they won't trust u now so yes you will be pushed aside

A simple ‘do not message me again or I’ll tell your wife’ would probably have stopped it. I wonder why you didn’t think of that?

I know a woman who was married and had a very shortlived affair with a man who was married, they socialised in a large friends group of married couples. He pursued her relentlessly. Because she had been married for many years and her husband was consumed by his work I think she was more vulnerable to the flattery of his interest in her. Of course when it all fairly inevitably went pear shaped the fall out was that she was the evil one and he carried on as normal. She was thrown out of the friendship group and pilloried. Her husband was also excluded from the friendship group. (They eventually after some time got back together and are still together.) At the time I thought it interesting that even though both had acted badly it was the female of the couple who was the one who was the tart ho etc etc . Obviously his wife had plenty to say but within the friendship group she was the real bad guy.

Over the years he has continued to push his luck with other women and his wife struggles on it seems.

To answer your question.... Yes, it's unforgiveable!

Is interesting to me that 25% of voters say YANBU, but the posts are nearly 100% that you are. Or is it a misreading of the question?

Hit the nail on the head.

How you have created a narrative in your head that you are some kind of innocent victim in this is astounding.

Did you honestly think any of this group would continue to be friends with you after this? 🤯

And no mention at all about worrying about your friend? Feeling awful that you have had a hand in blowing up her marriage? Concern or empathy about her feelings? Unbelievable.

She has found a message and he has blamed you. He's probably told her that he felt sorry for you.

the responsibility is always, always on the married person to respect their marriage vows.

So single people have no social responsibility to respect their friendships or the marriage vows of others? How psychopathic!

Only people with weak morals and poor self-respect entertain the possibility of romance with someone who has taken themselves off the market, and particularly so for those who are the partners of friends.

Yes, what you did was unforgivable in a friendship.

And for those saying you didn’t act on it - actually you did act on it because you had a discussion about feelings. You allowed yourself to go there with a friend’s husband. And you’ve entertained inappropriate contact since. How on earth could you imagine that wasn’t treacherous behaviour for a friend to engage in?

As for this bollocks some people come out with about it all being on him because it’s his marriage vows: I’m pretty sure friendship involves an implied vow not to engage in romantic chats with your friends’ partners. It’s pretty shocking that you don’t seem to know that. Surely this is obvious, OP, and really doesn’t need explaining.

But God knows I have made some very serious mistakes in life - most of us do. All you can do is learn from this.

Re the you are enjoying it comments.
I dont know if you are consciously enjoying it...But this is definitely meeting a need that you have.

Fwiw if i was one of the friendship group she wouldnt need to "turn me against you" I'd just want nothing to do with you. And it wouldnt be because i was scared you'd steal my husband it would be because of your poor morals and because you are a truly crappy friend.
Her shithead husband wouldn't be getting off scot free either.

My reaction and decisions relating to my DH would be separate to my decisions about a friend who was in your place. Yes, I'd find it unforgivable. A friend would tell me what was going on rather than let me be made a fool of by my husband.

If a friend told me a mutual friend was having a flirty relationship with her husband, I would lose respect for the friend and back off that relationship too.

I think you are being unreasonable not to expect fall out from this.