Friend is in love with two men and nearly got into a fight with another woman over her fancy man?

[AvidOP]

Hello there. I’ve known this woman who is my friend for almost 2 decades. She a bit older than me but we’ve always been close. She’s had a hard life which I feel bad for that’s left her with a lot of issues. I thought she had settled down but this past year after a bout of pnd she has spiralled again. Things had become strained between her and her husband due to her pnd and families getting involved. During that time nasty things were said to her that she can’t get out of her head. If you’re wondering why I know all this it’s because she’s told me. She told me not that long ago things had settled down and I did think she looked generally happy. So this other man who’s a good friend of hers (I also know him through her) has been getting close to her. Last month she admitted to me that he was supporting her through her trauma and that they contact each other everyday even though they don’t meet that often or so I’ve been told. Last weekend we went out for some drinks and a dance as a group like we do now and again. She was there with some of our other friends including this other man. Her husband was looking after the kids. My friend has had a bad knock back last week so hasn’t been in the best place. She was all over the other man like a rash and was knocking back the drinks. This other man is a player through and through. He’s known for playing the field with the women and yes he deserves fun because she’s a single man. Eventually she got that drunk she tried to kiss him in front of us but he pushed her away in a nice way. There was some concerning moments during that night. They looked cosy at times like they had been together. I’m trying to work out whether it’s a one sided obsession on her part or there is a genuine full blown affair going on between the pair of them. They were holding hands and dancing like they were together. Gazing at each other also. I would say more on her part as I could tell that he was trying not to look too involved. They both got drunk. One drunk girl at a bar whom my friend got jealous over her because she felt that that girl was skinnier and prettier than her, spillled my friends drink over her by accident then kissed the other man in front of my friend. My friend was devastated. Another man started chatting her up and tried to kiss her and she let me feel her in front of her guyfriend to make him jealous because she felt they’d both made a fool of her and that he didn’t bother checking if she was ok after having a drink spilled over her and kissed the other girl. Again my friend told me this when she walked back from the bar as I watched it happen. She came back to the table we were sitting at while her guyfriend was still with the other woman. My friend started hysterical screaming and threatened to beat that woman up and rip her hair out (and other disgusting stuff which I’ll not post here) for taking him from her when she was going through a hard time and she needed him. I took her to the girls room to calm down that’s when she burst into tears and told me that she’s in love with two men and doesn’t know what to do.

she needs help. I’m honestly at a loss of what to do. I told her she can’t continue this affair/obsession with him as she’s married and he unlikely feels they’d both made same. She’s adamant she won’t give him up and says she’s going to lose weight and try to look like that girl to get his attention and be good enough for him like that girl is. She’s digging a massive hole for herself

AIBU to be concerned and considering telling her husband?

This all sounds a bit batshit. Don’t go out drinking with your friend. Sit her down and have a sensible chat ( without alcohol) and ask her WTF is going on.

I think the best thing you could do is offer to babysit so she can have a fun night out with her husband, that's the relationship she needs to work on.

You could just hit the back button and not comment, rather than make an arsey comment... it's not a requirement to comment on every thread.

No matter how you format it I'm afraid it's all a bit too much Take A Break really.

You seem extremely over invested in your friend and her shenanigans

Thanks for the clarification on who your friend allowed to feel her up, because in your first post it was you OP!
Stop taking videos, stop taking pictures, stay away from this drama....
All your social group can see your friend behaving like this and this can rub on you.
So let her to crash her own life while drank if that is what she has set herself to do.
If you want to help her, wait till she is sober and tell her what you think and that everyone could see her. She most likely will then push you out of her life.
It is better to be friends with compatible reasonable people. This is far too much drama!

I went with YABU simply because I always think it’s a bad idea to get yourself overly involved in someone else’s messy behaviour.

I’d talk to her (not the husband) once about it while she’s sober and leave it at that. Not your circus, not your monkey.

Oh, I don’t know. I could totally see Her Late Maj throwing punches and strangling while her ladies in waiting shout ‘’E ain’t worth it, Liz!’

If you are the one taking vids and pics of your friend when you know she is around a man not her husband then it is you that is sabotaging her life. Leave her to it, her morals are not your concern.

It may be PND, I wanted a divorce for about a year, nothing wrong with DH but I wasn’t myself. I didn’t fixate on anyone else though. When I entered peri I started developing extreme crushes on people. Obviously nothing like this because this is insane, I just quietly crushed away, I think it can be a symptom of much deeper unhappiness. It sounds like he enjoys the attention but isn’t interested really and your friend sounds like she’s troubled.

I honestly think she’s going to burn her life down to the ground and theres nothing you can do about it. If you want to be a good friend you tell her that guy isn’t interested in her and she needs to figure out why she’s so unhappy but it’s probably not actually this guy, theres a problem with her life and probably her own relationship. This sounds desperately sad to me and I’d be really worried about my friend. Also yeah stop taking videos etc.

I call reverse.
I think YOU'RE the woman this happened to. I think it's you who got drunk, and so drunk you outed your affair, and your friend saw, and now in a panic you're weighing up the odds of whether she'll tell your husband. You're too detailed in everything to be on the fringes. I think it's you.

Talk to her sober. Tell her you are worried about her and how she is feeling. Tell her alcohol clearly is not helping and she should consider time without it. Tell her this might be part of PND/PNA and she should seek medical/therapeutic help. Don't go on nights out with her, they aren't helping and they will just put you in a difficult situation in terms of what you see.

If she wants to rescue her relationship it would be couples therapy but after her own mh stabilises. Assuming that "nasty things said" by her husband aren't abusive things. She also needs to realise that with the other man in the picture it's hopeless and she doesn't seem to have any plans to let him go. Can't rescue something when she's one foot out the door. If that's the case SHE needs to tell her husband. But you are well within your rights to say I'm not discussing it when you're basically planning an affair.

Is her trauma childhood trauma? People can bond really strongly if they have been through similar things but it often doesn't work as the basis of a longer term relationship.

Thanks so much for all of your replies. Yes I do feel strongly that my friend needs serious help. Her trauma stems from childhood and early adulthood. She has a disability and was treated as less than because of it. She’s admitted all of this to me and I’ve seen her spiralling before. Her marriage while mostly good has been strained from the start by both of their families. She was in tears last summer to me and confessed that she can’t put all her eggs into one basket with the marriage as she’ll just end up hurt and alone so she attaches herself to other people to cope and to fill a void. I rang her the day after to have a serious talk with her about her actions. She was in tears and told me that her guyfriend kissing that other girl was like being stabbed in the heart as she truly is in love with him. She told me that they talk everyday. Send each other video messages and some of them suggestive etc. when he was last at her house they cuddled intensely etc. he even pulled her onto him and she liked it. She told me that when he’s really into her she feels on top of the world happy, she feels validated, loved and amazing but when he seems distant she’s moody, snaps at her family and feels worthless. She’s cheated on a previous serious partner in the past as that relationship was toxic. I told her that she seriously needs to rethink her actions etc that this isn’t ok and she’s only hurting herself and eventually her family

Of what? OP's friend sounds like a complete loon.

Last month she admitted to me that he was supporting her through her trauma

Is that what they call it these days?

she let me feel her in front of her guyfriend to make him jealous because she felt they’d both made a fool of her

WTF? Is there a typo there somewhere or does that mean exactly what it says?

Your friend sounds like a skanky, messy, attention seeking drunk. She should go home and concentrate on looking after her child. She's an embarrassment.

I meant to type him lol but basically she used another man to make her guyfriend jealous for kissing that girl. We talked again about it today and she told me that her guyfriend encouraged it and made a comment about her liking the darker men.

This is all a bit tawdry and immature, isn't it? It's depressing that people with small children at home engage in this sort of nonsense. Part of being ready for parenthood, one would hope, is that you are ready to leave all this sort of shit behind you.

It’s awful that she’s had such a traumatic childhood, but she is an adult and responsible for her behaviour. She needs to get therapy. Her behaviour is absolutely appalling.

I have in the past given a lot of myself trying to support friends who have had bad experiences in their lives. It caused me huge amounts of stress and didn’t actually achieve much to help them, in hindsight I was probably enabling their behaviour by not calling them out on it because I was allowing for diminished responsibility due to trauma. As I’ve got older I have finally learned that you can’t help someone who won’t help themselves, and these people will bleed you dry if you let them.

If I were you I’d walk away from this shit show and never have anything to do with her again. She’s likely to ruin her own life and several other people’s too, don’t let yours be one of them. Get away from her before she drags you down with her. Put yourself first.