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.

I am not sure the op is deep enough for that.

In spite of all the therapy.

No not at all. The desire to meet now being the opposite of how she felt at the time demonstrates that things have changed for her in the decade between.

Other posters pointing out that the OP is afraid and framing it as best interests of the other woman get more to the point I think.

You have moved on.
Youve used therapy to stop feeling as guilty as you were before.

Great that you’re feeling good about your life now.

But surely therapy has also taught you to have some compassion further her? For what you put her through?

It sounds like you are worried that seeing her, hearing how hurt she was would bring all the guilt back and you dint want that.
Still very much me, me, me as it was when you had an affair with your FRIEND husband

Fair analysis like I said I didn’t come here to argue or even really defend myself. It’s just a situation I wanted a bit of perspective that’s all.

That makes no difference to the point. These people think justice would be the friend (woman) getting all the heartbreak and the husband (man) getting cheating sex forever. So the next OW must be pure because she's only delivering "karma"?

What exactly did you want from this thread?
It seems to me that you don't give a toss about your ex-friend, so it's not about: 'how can I repair the damage?
I feel so bad.'

You want to be told you're a good person?
Not going to happen, either.
I'm not a rabid 'cheating is always wrong person' , however, the callousness indifference about doing this to an actual mate for shits and giggles does not incline me to think that you're somebody I'd want to know.

I've had mates madly in love with a married man cry on my shoulder about how bad they feel.
I see them as human but flawed.
I don't have the same sympathy for you.
You did all this for fun.

Insight?
Like she wants to see me again, what does she want?
Is that it?

Can't you work it out?

I strongly believe that her intentions are not good.
If she'd forgiven it all, she'd just wish you no harm but she wouldn't want to see you.
What would be the point? She'd be happily continuing with life.

If you genuinely cannot work out people's motives, my dispassionate advice to you is to be kind and good from now on.

Naivety and bad behaviour are not a goid mix.

I left my husband to be with another man. I also dont have any justification or excuses. It is something you have to learn to live with. My partner and I did not enjoy or get a thrill from an affair or find it exciting at all it was stressful on both of us. My AP never asked me to leave my husband but he found it easier to live with than I did because he didn’t know my DH and had no connection to him.

I knew immediately on recognising my feelings for someone else I couldn’t deceive my husband long term as it would eat me up and destroy both relationships so I left very quickly, within a couple of weeks.

The stress of divorcing puts a lot of strain on a new relationship, it hasn’t started in an ideal way. This is not for sympathy, when you make your bed you have to lie in it.

Owning your own decisions is one thing but all you can say is sorry, it’s probably never enough to explain all your reasons because it’s unlikely to make the other person feel any better about themselves. If you discuss this, all that can be said is that you are sorry but when it’s clear you don’t regret it, that’s not going to give his ex any healing, I know it wouldn’t mine. All I can wish is that I had never met the man I did because I tore my whole life apart for him and hurt another person, but then I am happy that I did meet him because I love him. I will always carry this guilt but that doesn’t mean I can take my exes pain away.

There has to be some kind of Venn diagram for this: you know.....the overlap between people who think Princess Diana was a saint, and people who are slinging such vitriol towards the OP. And then the third circle for people who are aware that the aforementioned Diana, lovely though she was in so many ways, also strayed outside her marriage.

Oh but that's different! He was so cruel. He was so cold. He was fucking Camilla (not slander; see Dimbleby)

It's a butterfly's wings, guys.
It's the million tiny happenstances that lead people to where they are and what they do.
It's everything, everywhere, all at once.
It's there but for the fucking grace of God go I.

Until you realise that, you are always going to be the kind of person who froths because a woman wears pyjamas to the corner shop despite the fact that she is broken inside.

You're always going to be the kind of person who scans the newspapers, desperate to swallow & regurgitate more news about people who have been dispossessed by our terrible shared history having the audacity to demand better for themselves and their kin.

Look I'm a complete fucking thicko and I don't know anything.

WWAD? (What would Arundhati do?)

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."

ahaha

laugahble.

I that's properly properly laughable.

There was no twisting of words. That's why it got deleted.

I won't be replying to you further.

I certainly wouldn't meet her six months pregnant, OP.

I honestly can't see what she would hope to get out of a discussion with you which would be helpful for her and I also struggle to see how the friendship would be revisited. Even if the affair hadn't happened - huge red flag enough - it was as you say over a decade ago that you were close. Surely, there are other, healthier relationships available to her?

It's very odd, all around.

Ew, you sound like a horrible person. You destroyed another person’s hope of their future and clearly have no remorse. She’s probably hoping you have some sort of conscience, but it’s clear you don’t. Don’t meet her, reply and say you’re still the same woman that took her husband, not her friend, and save her the additional disappointment.

@Greenehamfirstly I’d like to say I have read all your replies and you have been justifying yourself to online strangers since you posted this. Stop.
You made a terrible mistake at a stage in your life I’m sure you have grown from. As now an older woman with hindsight who is now a wife and a mother your view has changed. I can’t imagine you went into your situation deliberately and intentionally. Things happen and spiral in the moment without us realising how much until we look back.
you can’t keep beating yourself up about it.
life happens and sometimes in life we make the wrong choice. We all have a great love and unfortunately for your husband’s ex, his wasn’t her. It was you.
sometimes in life there’s a shit way to find your love and unfortunately that’s the road you both went down.
congratulations though to you both for making it worth while and creating a life together. Happily married a child and another on the way.
Sorry to say she is divorced again and again no children from that marriage maybe that is the life destined for her. Your husband clearly wanted more out of his marriage and saw that in you. The life he has now.
going on a tangent now but hoping you catch my drift.
bo your children will not hate you growing up they clearly are loved and cared for that’s all they care about not how mummy and daddy got together. When adults they will understand it doesn’t have to be some seedy brushed under the carpet never to be spoken about thing. Daddy was married to mummy’s friend and we fell in love trying not to. It’s just a greater dangerous love story that other people are too afraid to entertain. Show them it was worth it.

on the friend situation… so all this aside sounds like she just genuinely misses her friend and you may miss her. She’s divorced again had another life inbetween one that involved you and it keeps circling back to you again.
maybe she just genuinely misses you. As for going back into friendship with her… yeah I don’t think that will work imagine inviting her over for a coffee. Her in the same space and you your husband and son. So awkward. Not happening but as far as a text here and there how are you checking in sharing old times I think it would be nice to have a positive narrative after all this time.
maybe think about meeting up. A quick hour coffee I think you’ll find she is over the talking of what went wrong and maybe just wants to get her friends back. You said she moved out the county - the wrong doing mustn’t have just changed her location but probably all her friends too. If they are still your friends she probably did lose a lot of them too. Maybe she does genuinely just want to reconnect and check in. I urge you to rethink this not just for her but sounds like you too. As per your replies whenever you have answered your talking about karma and repentance etc. this is a chance to correct things moving forward.
I hope you understand the advice I’m giving and it’s not all over the place as trying to get a lot out in a very short writing space.
going there while pregnant is also a great icebreaker too. I’d use it. Be kinder on yourself and sometimes shit happens in life we just make the best of it xx

I have been honest and told her it would not be healthy. This was based on her messages I’m not really sure how to take it, maybe she has forgiven me maybe not that is up to her to decide. There’s nothing I can say that can fix this and I can’t go back in time.

I know nothing about her now apart from the things she’s told me ie she’s separating from her current husband and they never had children. After that I certainly can’t show up meeting her 6 months pregnant as much as everyone thinks I owe her this that’s not what I’m going to do. I’ve hurt her enough as it is. I’ve said we can have a phone call as I think that would be better. We haven’t seen one another in 11 years you don’t just turn up for coffee like it’s all normal. But then again everyone is different.

Okay :)

Yes there was, only YOU said murder I didn't , nobody else did , just you.

‘Destroyed another person’s hope of their future’ - seriously?

The ex had and has a future. Things happen in life - as an adult she should surely know this.

If people are in a happy marriage, they don’t generally cheat. I know it’s an inconvenient concept to those who choose to believe that they had the perfect relationship until some evil woman came along and ‘stole’ their husband, but there you go.

I'm really curious what you think the OP should and could do, over ten years down the road, married to the guy, nearly two children in?

What would be sufficient?

I don't mean to be goady.

Of course it is unfortunate for the woman but I can't see a pathway that makes anything better for her, which is open to the OP?

Hope she realises she is best rid of both of you

MN obviously didn't find it acceptable either.

If people are in a happy marriage, they don’t generally cheat. I know it’s an inconvenient concept to those who choose to believe that they had the perfect relationship until some evil woman came along and ‘stole’ their husband, but there you go.

Oh come on. If people are in an unhappy marriage then they should end it. There's absolutely no excuse for systematic lying and cheating over a period of time behind someone's back. And OP did this to her friend!! Or was her excuse it was an unhappy friendship so her friend should have seen it coming? Things happen.

You're a awful person. You owe her an explanation so she can move on this is obviously effecting her mentally all these years later.

Aha no excuse I was just selfish probably insecure too I was in a relationship I didn’t just hurt here I hurt my ex too instead of just ending the relationship. We’ve since talked, he has children and a is married, we’ve run into each other so many times sometimes I’ve been with my son and we always say hi of course we aren’t going to have an in-depth conversation but he’s moved on with his life and is quite happy.

I thought you weren't going to reply any more 🙄