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.

Just a question - this is harsh, and I might be wrong. But did part of you enjoy the power of the deceit during your affair? And is part of you enjoying the power you have over her now? To meet or not... to keep her dangling? Because there is something oddly cold about the tone of your writing in your posts. You say you take full responsibility, that you don't seek to justify it and that karma will get you - but the way you say it feels like it's water off a duck's back. And when you are presented with an opportunity to fulfil a very simple request from her... you don't.

I am going to sleep. Thank you for the perspectives and insights I’ll have a think about things I just don’t think it’s healthy for us to meet but maybe I’ll change my mind once I’ve had a good think about it. I certainly do not think it would be healthy to rekindle there’s no trust there’s she was a great friend I sadly wasn’t.

I wasn’t here to say I’m a good person for what I did I know I’m not but I’ve had 11 years to work on myself and be honest about why I did what I did etc.

Anyways Goodnight all :)

Absolutely would not agree to meet face to face. Definitely a risk of emotions being stirred up from seeing you after so long.

She also hasn't had kids (how old is she?) and she may harbour resentment to you for that.

Never been in this situation but I would certainly agree to a telephone conversation if she has questions that will give her closure.

Ending the call with a firm, let's move on, I can never atone for what I did to you as a friend, wish you well, etc

Use a burner phone/PAYG sim so she doesn't have your number.

I hope not. She deserves to find someone with far more integrity than her ex husband.

Wounds that you caused. Just remember, when a mistress becomes a wife she leaves a job open.

No good will come of any contact. Just leave it. Karma isn’t coming for you. That’s just absurd. You’ve done what you can to work on yourself. She needs to sort out her own life. It’s not remotely healthy that she wants contact with either of you and honestly she very well may want revenge. Block and move on.

This. All of it.
All this tired 'you've left a vacancy' is bollocks.

You can't spend the rest of your life flagellating yourself.

The cackling 'maybe she can't wait to tell you he's having an affair' is just downright pathetic.

Ridiculous.

I would be considering if she was so traumatised, that she never found anyone else because she couldn't trust them and is now at age where she's given up on having kids, so seeing the people who so devastatingly betrayed her playing happy families is getting to her. Therefore having her inch her way into the OP's life, first with a meeting, may be problematic!

Karma and all that but there is an innocent child involved.

So, you cheated on your partner
Betrayed your friend
Your husband cheated on his ex-wife your friend
now you have had the child she probably thought they would have.

I wouldn't meet her ever and I would hide in complete shame. She won't get what she wants from you as you don't seem to have the character or self-awareness of the damage you have cause because well you apologised. I don't believe in Karma but I do believe when you do shitty things they have a way of coming back at us.

OP has gone to sleep, wishing is all a hearty goodnight. I doubt the poor ex wife has slept properly since she was betrayed.

I'd say that nothing good will come of meeting as OP is a liar and not very nice. Leopards never change their spots and I think her and her husband deserve each other. I pity the poor child for having scumbags for parents.

There is nothing OP can say to make it better for the ex. If anything she'll likely delight in making it worse.

Having been in a similar situation as the ex wife, I never want to see, think or hear about my ex, his new piece, their life or any of our so called friends ever again. I hope the ex wife manages to get to that point soon.

If I were you OP, I'd not engage any further. Apologise and explain that its better if there's no contact. She doesn't need you in her life. If you're truly sorry, you'll be able to find it within yourself to protect her from more pain.

THIS. Casually cheating.....I just can't understand that. the pain this causes people is just enormous. OP I really hope you don't' have to go through that especially with kids though I think a lot of people are rooting for that for you. The pain NEVER goes away.

As someone who was cheated on, I can empathize with the ex. I am pretty sure that what she hopes to gain from the meeting is closure. I never got closure. He refused to speak honestly with me about the affair (and all his other affairs), arguing that we'd all moved on and nobody would benefit. That wasn't true,of course; I would have benefitted, but then again, I was also the person nobody wanted to think about, whose feelings nobody cared about. I was just an obstacle in the way. To this day I don't know what was true and what was a lie about our 25 years together. It's not easy looking back at your own past and seeing nothing but this great big question mark. Moving on when you don't have closure can be really hard.

Is it true that nothing you can do or say will make it better? Maybe. But what if you could make it a bit better for her? Would you want to do that? Maybe if for once in this whole business you put her first and gave her what she wanted for an hour, you yourself would be a better person for it.

Do you owe her closure? Only you can decide.

I wouldn’t meet her, not after such a long time.

It's easy and glib to say "let's move on" when you're standing on the solid ground of a relationship. Less easy when you've been stuck in morass of cheating and lies and can't find closure.

Only read your replies @Greeneham so someone else might have had similar to say.
When you are betrayed on such a level by not one, but two people, who are supposed to love you it destroys you. It changes who you are as a person, it changes the way you look at the world and people in it.
I am of the personal opinion that someone who embarks on an affair (with all the lies, gaslighting and the rewriting of history) is an abuser. It is an incredibly abusive act to destroy another human being like that. You were complicit, if not more, in the abuse.
I can easily see it taking so long to recover from such a betrayal, if she even has.

I don't think meeting her will be beneficial for her in any way. She should not put herself in the position of facing her abuser/s. She may think she is strong enough but I doubt it. So, I would decline if I were you but tell her why. She does not need to be around someone who hurt her so much.

I, like at least one other poster, have seen the devastation affairs can cause. I have seen them turn people into shells of themselves. They never fully get 'them' back again.

I hope she is ok.

"She hasn’t had children so I don’t think It would be healthy for her at all."

Why don't you let her decide that for herself? And don't pretend to care about her welfare. Can't you just let her have a bit of agency, and respect her efforts to find peace in her own way? An hour's discomfort isn't much to suffer in repayment when one thinks of all you took from her.

I’d rather just move forward.
LOL.
i ain’t about you love. You destroyed someone.
the least you could do is oblige, even if you don’t want to.
and yes karma will get you.

I don't really understand why you're so sure she wants you to apologise again.

Didn't you even ask her why she wants to meet or what she wants to talk about?

It may be that she's still plagued by unanswered questions, sudden recollections of things that didn't add up. It happens to a lot of us - remember, you were both lying to her so you know what happened, but she was in the dark and trying to make sense of it all.

It would be nice if human brains didn't work this way. But they do. I still get these angsty thoughts 25 years on and after lots of therapy!

Or it may be that, for reasons entirely of her own, she's trying to reconnect with old friends. She may be wanting to establish cordial relations on a more realistic footing. She sent you congratulations on DS, after all.

She might have something important to tell you about or to discuss with you, and it may have little to do with what happened between you.

Just bloody ask her!

It isn’t about « constantly repenting « though. It’s about giving a former friend, that you wronged terribly, a bit of closure. Don’t be thick and don’t be cruel. Throw her a bone. Give her the closure she needs.

No it won’t. Karma isn’t really a thing.

Sometimes things happen and it’s just how life is. No lightening bolt will strike OP down, her DH may/may not cheat, her kid might be pigeon toed. It won’t be Karma though, it’ll just be life.

The whole karma thing makes me laugh.

Agreed and i also cant believe the friend has so little self respect to do this after 12 years. Ive been cheated on and hell would freeze over before I let them know how badly it upset me.

It's been 12 years she ought to moved on.