Friend having affair - utterly sickened by it

[NewcastleNancy]

A friend has been married a long time

Her husband is getting older now and struggling to find work and then have big money worries. He's 10 year older and wants to retire. But can't as they can't afford it.

They have also both had health worries. Him at the moment. Her in the past. Because he isn't earning much she has had to work full-time and is angry about it.

She told me she is having an affair and wants to end the marriage. But only if affair partner will rescue her. His wife has found out and he ended it but then he started it again.

She has always been unfaithful and lined up the next one before ending the current relationship. This will destroy her husband.

I am finding this so hard. I ended my marriage and went through much pain. Never once did I consider another relationship until I was free and single.

She and I just seem to have different morals.

AIBU to distance myself from her?

Not necessarily. It might just be that while OP's friend's morals have remained consistently non-existent, OP's tolerance has is now decreasing.
It's perfectly possible.

Posters who have been dumped by their husband who is now happily rebuilding his life will tell you she's the lowest of the low and go into a rage

But I agree with above:
She has always been unfaithful and lined up the next one before ending the current relationship.
so why now?

She's not confident enough to be single apparently. So why is that bothering you now?

so OP’s moral objections now are as a result of less tolerance for the multiple affairs of the past?

As with any relationship you can step back or end it for any reason.

I’d not want to spend much time with someone I knew to be cheating on their spouse.

But I too don’t understand why this wasn’t a problem for you in the past.

I may have been more tolerant in the past. I’m not now. I’ve seen first hand and experienced the utter trauma that cheating causes the betrayed spouse. Why is it so beyond possibility that OP has also seen the damage it has caused and changed her viewpoint in recent years?

I agree that if the friend was a man there would be calls to burn him at the stake!

I wouldnt want to be friends with her either, as they saying goes "judge a man by the company he keeps" and I wouldnt want people to think I condoned that sort of thing. You see it on here were a man acts as alibi for his cheating mate and it makes his wife look at him and wonder if he is capable of doing the same to her.

But I am also, like others, a bit puzzled as to why its bothering you now when you say she has always been unfaithful. If its against your moral code now then surely it always has been, so why not drop her before now?

I have an ex friend who did this. We aren't friends any longer but not due to the affair. It is due to her out and out selfishness and only caring about herself and her own rich tastes. I guess people feel aggrieved at the unfairness and wrongness of it all. Especially when you try to be a decent person. This woman had an affair with a man she met on holiday while with her newly married husband. She eventually left him for the other man, who also had a partner and is now living the highlife after causing much heartbreak. She didn't even bat an eyelid and when I asked her last year if she had ever heard from her first husband she coldly says 'oh that was years ago I barely remember it'. Coincedentally, both men were extremely high earners. It does leave me questioning why people strive to be decent and work hard at relationships when she tossed this first man aside after a few months of marriage, because the next guy was seemingly better. She also walked away with a lot of money after only being married for 6 months.

I dropped a friend that had an affair and was expecting me to be her alibi, she was my bridesmaid so she was a very good friend once upon a time. Can’t be friends with someone who has shitty morals.

People’s lives are messy. They make mistakes. You obviously are not compatible as friends any more because this is a mistake too far for you personally, but coming on here to complain about her makes it seem like you’re relishing your moral superiority.

I wouldn’t end a longstanding friendship over this. But you obviously would, So do.

Why are you her friend?

She’s a horrible person. I would have ended the friendship over the first infidelity I found out about. Stop wasting your time and emotional energy on someone who is morally bankrupt.

Agree with this.

I would also say that what appears to be the primary reason for ending a marriage often isn't the entire or only reason.

The only people who really know what's going in a marriage are the two people in it, and they will often disagree!

I would have distanced myself a long time ago. She's one of those women whose main focus is men. They only need women to complain to and give them alibis. I wouldn't even bother with an explanation, she probably won't notice.

So she has always bed. Like that and it’s only now you have an issue with it!!!

I called out my friend in what was becoming an emotional affair she was single him not so. Affairs can destroy the cheated on.

No one, who’s happy, ever gets dragged out of a marriage.

It’s her business, not yours, but if you want to end the friendship, then you can do so.

I totally get this OP. Our opinions on people, and their behaviour, matures as we get older.

people make lots of silly decisions when they are young, but I think that if they are still behaving like idiots when they have kids, it starts to look much more selfish.

It’s like people getting drunk on nights out- almost ubiquitous behaviour in your teens, but I’d distance myself from a 40 something person still behaving like that every weekend. So I can see why you no longer want to tolerate her behaviour in relationships.

Lots of pps saying you can’t judge a person’s relationship. It’s true- she might be miserable. But she’s a grown up who can make better choices. She can just walk out.

Odd thing is if this was the husband cheating it would be a completely different thread of comments.

This. Lots of MNers seem to think like this. Friend’s DH cheating? Tell her. Friend cheating on her DH? Support her. Such hypocrisy.

You don't need to come on here and ask us (I say this nicely). If you want to distance yourself from your friend because of this, then that's your right. Maybe don't cut her off completely, but you're allowed to create some space between you and ask not to speak about the affair with her x

Absolutely!

It’s a ridiculous double standard as is the old age ‘must be sooooo unhappy rubbish’.

There is so much research base now showing that cheating is not always because of unhappy relationships but something inherently flawed in the cheat but let’s all ignore that and continue to find a way to blame the betrayed partner who is a victim of the abuse that cheating causes!

Maybe not hypocrisy so much as a different group of posters.

I bet a large number of the ‘it’s none of your business. Don’t judge, she’s just unhappy’ crew are women who have cheated. They are attracted to these threads because it resonates with their experience.

when a posters DH has cheated, it attracts all the women who have been cheated on. And they have nothing positive to say about the cheating men.

MN is predominantly women, so you are less likely to get balanced responses from men who’ve been cheated on/have cheated.

Yabu to discuss her situation online. Just distance if you don’t like it.

OP has less tolerance now because people grow and change; something she likely assumed her friend would do. Only, it turns out she was wrong, so now wants to distance herself. Not sure what part of that people seem to be struggling with!?

OP isn't the one at fault here. Nooo, that would be the person having the affair...

You can love her and hate what she's doing. You can also love her, hate what she's doing and state a boundary that you don't want to hear about her affair. If you don't love her then there's no friendship to lose.

Slightly off the subject but......I'd be a rich woman if I had a pound for every time I've come across women who are 10+ years younger, who ditch the husband when he becomes a bit decrepit. They are the same women who run off with married men in the first place. There's a pattern. Dont these stupid men realise that when they get ' a younger model', the very same motivation. that drove the women to go for a richer, older more established partner in the first place is exactly the kind of motivation that also propels the woman to ditch them when they become slightly hard work. Duh !!!