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.

How would you like her to say them so they don't sound hollow on a faceless forum? Why do you feel her words owe YOU anything?

Again, it’s the lie that women tell each other to feel better.

People who are happily married to their soulmate don’t cheat. The fact that someone has cheated in the first place shows something missing in their original relationship

Fair enough I’ve spoken to her via text and we are planning to call she seems to have a different view I suppose

She didn't 'steal' anything. What a toxic view to have. I suggest you examine those feelings in therapy.

My BFF didn't 'steal' my ExH when they had an affair, she gifted me a much freer, happier life that i wouldn't change for the world.

If you feel the OW 'stole' your life, that says more about your inability to move on than it does about anything else.

Yes, I know. I suggest you read her posts.

And what will he learn? And when? Or does she get heartbreak, he gets more cheating sex, and that's the end of your tale of justice?

“ You suppose”. You’re not sorry Op because if you were you wouldn’t have oh so casually ended up in bed with her DH and then built a life with him. You’d have shown you were sorry by walking away.

Some of you seem more upset than her. You know we have spoken over text and we have planned the phone call

The only person mentioning your child in any negative context in this thread is you.

Because people have said I need to suffer. Anything that to my child would make me suffer

I'm not that sad, nor do I have the time nor inclination, to sit and go through a thread of 40 pages worth of posts, to find every post from a specific poster. Hence why I asked you what you meant? As in is there a specific reason I should be trawling a certain persons posts on a thread.

Oddly OP a group of mainly women don’t respond well to a women who has slept with a married men & seems devoid of empathy, or frankly morals. You’ve zero idea how upset she actually is, nor do you actually care because you want to move on with the life you built with her DH.

I repeat, nobody has said anything about your child and you suffering something horrible relating to him. That’s all on you.

It’s just that most people don’t like it when the villain gets a happy ending. Human nature.

You might not know what to say, but it sounds like she has questions she wants answered or there are things she wants to say and it’s taken her 10 years to be ready.

You say that life has moved on, it is possible that for her it’s still raw, or that she hasn’t t had closure, it might be that she is looking for. Or It might be that there is something that she never had the chance to say and that she needs to say that.

You’ve had a wonderful 8 years, but you have to face the fact that they were at the expense of someone else’s happiness, I know that sounds harsh. I think you owe it to her to meet her and maybe help her to
move forward from what must have been pretty awful.

Fair enough the only thing that would make me suffer would be to do with my child.

Lots of people here seem to think because you make an awful decision you’ll suffer or be miserable for the rest of your life that’s not always the case. It’s not a movies ‘villains’ don’t always suffer and that is life in a nutshell

I hope so too

What is the lie women tell each other?

You seem like an highly emotionally manipulative person. Leave your child out of it and stop trying to use a child to deflect from any level of personal responsibility.

You would suffer if you had an active conscience because I’d like to think no one I know would rest easy building a life on the back of a woman’s heartbreak.

I think it’s really odd and unhealthy that she wants back in your lives now that her marriage has failed. If anyone owes her a conversation it’s her ex-H, but he turned her down previously and now she’s gaining access through you. If she has had any fertility issues in the past herself, finding out you are currently pg could send her right over the edge. Of course , she may have heard already through previous friends. In any case, I can’t imagine any therapist (yours or hers) thinking this was a great idea and I think you’re inviting trouble with this whole thing. As you have arranged it and seem determined to proceed with your phone call, shut it down, that would be my advice. Tell her it doesn’t feel healthy to go backwards to that troubled time for any of you. Good luck.

Alright

Eggybreadwithnuts I’m with you, if she’s still angry about it who knows what she’d do.
she may miss your friendship but that will never come back. I’d be very careful if you do meet her.

I think you’re getting a really hard time OP.

You know what you did was wrong, you have been to therapy and you have apologised to her. You are probably a different person now to the one you were a decade ago. And now you are both married and have a child, you (hopefully) understand how devastating it would be to have someone to do that to you and take away your family.

I don’t believe once a cheat, always a cheat and I genuinely hope that you both remain loyal in this relationship.

Your friend wanting to meet up after all these years tells me a few possibilities:

1. She may have information on your DH and surely you’d want to know if that’s the case/rule that out.
2. She is going through therapy and it’s been suggested to her that having a conversation with you will enable some form of closure or forgiveness (whether you want the latter or not, she may want to give you that).
3. In the years following her marriage ending she has really struggled to trust in new relationships. Please don’t underestimate the lasting impact your and your DH actions had on her ability to trust again. Although she may have done nothing to “cause” the affair, she will have blamed herself at some point, she may want to know what she did “wrong” from anything you me DH may have told you at the time.

OP, I know you think that meeting up won’t gain anything but that’s your narrative, not hers. You’ve been in a settled, safe, happy marriage with a baby for the past decade. She may not have been. A conversation with you may be the final part of her healing.

I really think you should give her this.