AIBU for refusing to meet my husband’s ex to discuss the affair? It’s been over a decade now.

[Greeneham]

12 years ago I started sleeping with my friend’s husband it was casual I just thought it would fizzle out. About 9 months into us sleeping together, seeing each other, going on trips (he would tell her it was work trips abroad) he decided to leave her and try to see if we can have a relationship. We have since married and have a 5 year old boy and life’s moved on really.

Last week his ex wife messaged me and asked to meet up and talk. She told me she was still quite hurt and it’s something that has affected her a lot. I responded and told her I’m not sure if meeting is a good idea but I’m sorry for how things happened I accepted my part to play in the affair and I did tell her I’ve moved on I can’t keep apologising and she also doesn’t need to forgive me.

I don’t really see any value in meeting up. What I did was wrong and karma will probably get me for it at the same time I love my husband he makes me very happy we have a lovely son who makes us both very happy. I’d rather just move forward. 8 years isn’t a long marriage but it’s been the best 8 years of my life so far I’d rather just continue the life that we have. We both did a terrible thing I’m not excusing that but also it’s been over a decade now. I don’t want to meet up and talk things out.

Deleted because of unwanted gif.

You have absolutely no idea what she wants.

OP doesn't actually have to listen to stuff from her for the rest of her life. As much as some people on this thread want her to. She's ok to say no.

Sorry, another unwanted gif.

It's not, though. It's not morally the lowest of the low. There are much, much worse things. People are talking as if she killed a child or threw a dog off a bridge.

Isn't that her choice, though, @Greeneham? She clearly thinks there are things that can be said face to face that will help her.

Given what you and your dh did to her, I think acceding to this request is the least you can do for her.

There are too many assumptions here. How do you know it's a one-off, how do you know she wants closure? Without knowing something about the former friend's motivations for meeting I would keep it to the phone call.

Nah an affair definitely isn’t the lowest of the low morally I can think of much worse things. Especially when you’re in your 20s and no one has children.

You continued need to minimise things with a blase attitude is really sociopathic.

No, you didn't make a mistake. You willingly, knowingly and sustainably cheated on your relationship and slept with your friends husband. A mistake is forgetting to get milk. This isn't a mistake but a willingness to only put yourself first and to be damned with anyone else for a long and sustained period of time.

Saying you didn't murder someone doesn't negate what you have done - it isn't a legal crime but it is morally the lowest of the low.

No you are right, your children shouldn't suffer but they will find out and judge your by you and your husbands actions. I know more than one kid who never forgave their parents for being so morally bankrupt.

It’s pretty bad in terms of stuff that is immoral without being illegal.

I’ll bet your ex isn’t asking to meet up with your husband now, either.

FFS

Of course its not just her choice. The OP and her husband have agency too.
I can't imagine anything good coming out of meeting/getting in contact for anyone involved. It will just dig up bad feelings imo and no one needs that.

OP isn't going to change her mind based on what is said here. She has rationalised everything in her own mind and moved on, so that's that.
Unless there is a tiny, tiny bit of her that wants to hear the 'big news' the ex wife of her current husband wants to tell her, maybe because deep down...well who knows.
OP, you have given perfectly rational reasons why you shouldn't meet your exfriend and held that position with rational posts. What are you actually asking for on the Thread. Validation of you position and decision.

Dear God in heaven give it a rest!

Whilst I feel very sorry for her I don't think you need anyone's permission to say no.
She could easily continue communicating with you by text, which would help break the ice and help you understand if an eventual meeting is a good idea?

But she wants to meet face to face and your gut reaction is that it is a bad idea. You have mutual friends, has that given you any extra insight into whether this meeting is a good idea?

Does she want closure or revenge, or a mixture of both?
I'd be sympathetic to the first aim but not the second.

What further level of atonement is she seeking? Would meeting up with you even help after a decade? Why you and not your DH? Ultimately he is surely more responsible? Could it be that he said no and she knows he'd stick to it so that you are the only moveable factor?

Only you and your DH enough knowledge to know if the original marriage and friendship was a happy one which would have continued, which case it is easier to see why the Ex is finding it so hard to get over, or if it was already in free fall and your arrival hastened the inevitable, so its guesswork to say whether this meeting would help either of you or not.

It makes me think it might be easier for exes that are co parenting to glean answers. In some cases they may have just enough contact to have the opportunity to see enough flaws in the other partner to make it preferable to be apart. How many OPs on here say that they are much happier having got rid of a cheating ex and have a better life without them. Having not had that contact for over a decade and been left wondering in a vacuum has perhaps made it harder for her.

Looking at it from the POV of the ex as an OP asking asking whether this meeting was a good idea -
It makes me think of situations where people gone NC with relatives having been badly hurt, emotionally or otherwise who might say that after a decade of NC any atonement/apology could be too little, too late.

But in this case she is not a relative, your connection was as friends. We don't know ( and I am not asking you to reveal it here) how deep or long term that relationship was, a childhood friend who was her maid of honour or a friendly work colleague. I think that would affect whether it would help the healing process or just reopen old wounds. I'm guessing that you were not close/best of/inseparable friends, but friendly enough to meet socially for a few years?

Not an expert, but could it be that this meeting is something a therapist would recommend to her? Meeting her doesn't give her back the time shes lost in a marriage... and I often see posters in the same position as the Ex advised that the best revenge is to live your best life. But i do feel very sorry for her and think that she probably needs some therapy to get over the hurt. Your DH is right that its your decision, but if you went ahead maybe he should be there too?

That’s my children’s decisions I can’t do anything about what they decide to do all I can do is raise them to be much better than I was. That’s all any parents can really do when they’re older it is up to them to make a decision on their parents and whether or not they’re like to continue the relationship with us. I hope I can raise children that understand life isn’t linear people do things that are awful sometimes and you can change. I believe that maybe some do not believe people can change but that’s just my view it’s not universal. I’ll love my children regardless.

Nothing I can say can fix things or fix your view so let’s agree to disagree I know how I feel and I don’t think I need to say verbatim exactly how I feel about my actions. Me saying is a mistake doesn’t mean it was a oopsy I forgot to buy milk situation. A lot of things can be seen as mistakes, mistakes doesn’t have a universal meaning there isn’t a line I’m not excusing the behaviour or minimising it by saying it was a mistake I’m just using the word in a literal sense.

This thread is so ridiculous that I’m expecting some of these posters to say they need to meet up with OP and talk over the damage she’s done to them, also.

Good grief 😳

It isn't OPs job to do things for the other lady that will help her indefinitely

That's not to minimize what she did. She did it. Knowingly, willingly.

But no decent therapist would tell the lady that this meeting is a good idea and neither would they tell OP that she needs to spend the rest of her life atoning to the lady in whatever guise she asks for. Just no.

FFS

It's shitty, yes. But it is not, by any sane or reasonable standard, the lowest of the low. It simply isn't. The fact that there are so many far worse things means it isn't the lowest of the low. Especially when young and with no kids involved and when it led to a marriage that's now lasted longer than the first one did.

I'm trying to be sympathetic to people who have been cheated on because it must be devastating, but some of the things being said on this thread, and which I've seen elsewhere, are honestly insane. It is bad. It is quite patently not the lowest of the low.

@WhyDontILearn - I am not suggesting that @Greenehamhelps indefinitely or needs to spend the rest of her life atoning, but one meeting doesn't seem a particularly unreasonable request.

Well I am 6 months pregnant at the moment.