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.

You've got admit, though, that twelve years passing from your late twenties to your early forties, is extreme.

If i met a friend.I hadn't seen since my late.Twenties, now I wouldn't know what to say to them.I'm such a different person would likely have nothing in common anymore.

The most annoying thing about this post is your faux concern for her wellbeing when you’re clearly not arsed. You really need to be honest with yourself that not meeting is for your benefit not hers.

This is about protecting yourself, avoiding accountability and controlling the situation - continued selfish actions that you claim to have worked through.

Surely you can understand that her timeline for processing this all has been different to yours? You've been in the driving seat, calling the shots throughout and you’re refusing to relinquish any control

• You decided to betray your friend
• You decided to blow up her life
• You decided the appropriate window she could speak to you about it
• You decided you’d apologised enough
• You decided this would hurt her and open wounds
• You you you

Ok she didn’t want to speak to you years ago when the hurt was too raw when you’d betrayed her and blown up her life? Oh well tough shit for her because she wasn’t prepared to speak on a timeline that suited your self-forgiveness journey? Give me a break. And I’m directing this at you because this is your post but of course your husband is incredibly selfish too.

You have to live with yourself so I can see why you’re building a false narrative but others can call bs when we see it. Owning it doesn’t mean you’re proud of it but it makes you a person who acknowledges the damage you’ve caused and tries to make amends on the victims timeline not your own.

You do still seem to be rather selfish so if it appeals to you more, I do think this could potentially help you too. I don’t think you’ve grown as much as you think you have.

Given the scale of the hurt and betrayal, I'm not surprised that it might take someone 12 years to be ready for the conversation.
I get that it might seem more convenient for OP to have got the hard conversation over with at the time, but understandably her friend wasn't in a place for that. Again, I don't think it's much to ask to have that 12 years later. It's just a conversation. OP got the happy marriage, the kids, the life - she took it all. If a difficult conversation 12 years later is the price, so be it. She was deceptive, she was disloyal, she lied to a friend over a sustained period of time and betrayed her in one of the most hurtful ways.

The ex wife won't get closure from the meeting it is a bit of a red herring.

But how do you know that?

Not an ex, but in a comparable situation of profound emotional betrayal, I meet with the person 15 years after the fact.

That closed it for me.

15 years later.

Not only, but the meeting was not filled with what ifs, or why's, or anything at all like that.

Interestingly, it closed for me but reopened for them...

(I took no satisfaction in that by the way).

If the former friend wanted a conversation then it should have been requested before. Even if the OP had answers to give, it’s pointless as memories aren’t likely to be that accurate 12 years later.

You keep saying this as if it's a reason to say no now. I think that was a fairly reasonable reaction from her at the time, and also reasonable now that she's had time to process it that she may be ready to discuss properly to get whatever closure she feels she needs. It's not about whether you think there's anything else to say - I assume she'll have questions for you rather than you having to think of things to say. It's also ok to say no, but at least be honest with yourself that you're doing that because you think it sounds difficult and unpleasant for you, not because in the heat of things she said she never wanted to see you again or because you don't think it will help her.

She didn't stab her mother.

Generally, an affair should not take twelve years to get over, particularly not when you're only in your twenties. You just moved move on.

I think there’s lots of assumptions happening here. I don’t mind being called a sociopath told to suffer or that I deserve to be in misery etc I know myself and I don’t need to act a certain way to atone for my sins it has been 11 years this didn’t happen yesterday I’ve had a lot of time to think about things. There’s lots of more nuanced to things life isn’t linear nor is it black and white. There’s terrible people out there, people who make selfish decisions I’m not the first and I certainly won’t be the last.

I agree - I have had somewhat similar conversations years later and found them helpful.

I am great at holding grudges but I wouldn’t want to speak to the person who hurt me ever again. I never forgive or forget but that person just ceases to exist for me.

I certainly wouldn’t suddenly suggest a meeting 12 years after it happened.

Yes it's quite likely she was far too angry and hurt to want to talk about it at the time. With time and distance perhaps she realised she does have questions and I think you do owe her to answer them. It might be that putting those questions to bed is the final step for her to 'move on' just like you have. Why would you deny her that peace when you took so much from her?

Sure, but that's you. Not everyone is the same and heals in the same way. That's ok.

Well we’ve agreed to have a phone call. I’m pregnant and would rather not meet up at this stage in my pregnancy that’s my choice.

May I ask in what way? Its not a snarky question, I just wonder how meeting years later and discussing something that was serious enough to cause such stress can help.

What's your pregnancy got to do with it?

Of course it's your choice. As it was your choice to sleep with your friend's husband behind her back.

No me neither, as per the story I shared upthread

Are people missing that it was TWELVE years ago? Perhaps she would be better off with some kind of therapy to help her as she doesn’t sound like she has been able to put it behind her.

I wouldn't meet her. Her missing the friendship is mad as it was never what she thought it was. Your husband was never who she thought he was. She has had long enough to process that.

I suspect she has done that practice speech in the mirror for whenever the two/three of you meet again. She must have felt devastated by the betrayal and loss of her husband and best friend but she seems stuck. I know these things are life altering, all loves and heartbreaks are but I genuinely don't think meeting will help her, not after all this time.

In the 90s I worked with a woman and her husband had left her for someone she knew. There was an upcoming court case about a joint business and she went on this wild mission - lost 4 stone, went blonde. She said she was going to win him back but he told her she looked good, that he was glad she was moving on and went home to the other woman. She fell into a deep depression. It was so sad and yet relatable.

Based on the messages she sent I don’t think me showing up pregnant will be a good idea.

Nobody mentioned or suggested murder except YOU.

It was meant to make OP laugh, if you're offended by humour that's on you, but don't twist words that aren't there. It's called banter stop clutching your pearls.

I think the issue in this case is that that the OP had an affair with her best friend's husband.

Presumably, her best friend did what we all do when in need - turned to her friend for advice and consolation?

Will she have said "I think dh is seeing someone?"

What will the OP have done in that situation?

A little imagination will show how the wounds from the the op are different from the wounds of the dh.

Oh I see, so it's to protect her from any further hurtful surprises?

Edited to add quote.

Greeneham · Today 14:09
“I think there’s lots of assumptions happening here. I don’t mind being called a sociopath told to suffer or that I deserve to be in misery etc I know myself and I don’t need to act a certain way to atone for my sins it has been 11 years this didn’t happen yesterday I’ve had a lot of time to think about things. There’s lots of more nuanced to things life isn’t linear nor is it black and white. There’s terrible people out there, people who make selfish decisions I’m not the first and I certainly won’t be the last.”

Life isn’t black and white but this situation is. Your reasons may help to explain your actions but they don’t excuse it. What you did was wrong and the passage of time doesn’t change that. You could be a completely different person now (though I suspect not) but it doesn’t erase what happened then.

The way my brain works, I find it difficult to properly get 'closure' without hashing things out a bit with the person in question when we've both moved past the very angry/sad stage and have a bit of distance. I've described it before like the other person being like an unexploded bomb walking about, and that's the only way it feels 'diffused'. Obviously it's not always possible and that's ok, I can still live my life fine, but it feels much better and 'done' to have cleared the air and hopefully leave things in a more amiable way, even if I then never see them again.

Interesting inconsistency. You have an earlier post saying you don’t know if she’s in a new relationship but she congratulated you on your son then a later one saying she updated that she’s recently split from her husband and that update is when she congratulated you on your son.

it’s also a bit odd that the detail about you being pregnant came in quite late but is now a core reason you don’t want to meet up.

Anyway, ignoring that and taking what you’ve said as true, if she’s going through a split it does make sense that she’d be reaching out to old friends, also clarifies that she has moved on from first marriage (even if still hurt, naturally). I’d be inclined to take her at face value and meet her (after warning that you’re pregnant). Phone call is a reasonable compromise to offer, and continue messaging if she wants to. I actually think it is possible that she’s forgiven you and that you could be friends again eventually. Even if you’re not bothered about that it might be something that helps her enormously and why wouldn’t you want to help her?