I found out my wife and my best friend had a physical relationship before we got married, I don't know how to react

[jhkyg]

I genuinely don't know what to write or how I'm supposed to react to this.

My wife and I are both in our mid 40s. My best friend is also the same age. He has been my best friend since childhood. He's the godfather to our children, and my wife and I are godparents to his children.

For a bit more context, my wife and he are also very close friends. They actually knew each other before I knew either of them, and they've always had a very good friendship

Our families are extremely close. We normally see each other every week for breakfast or a BBQ in one of our gardens. We go on family trips together, celebrate birthdays and holidays together, and our children are all teenagers and are basically like cousins.

My wife and I have a genuinely good marriage. We've been together for decades, we love each other, we're financially comfortable, and as far as I knew there was absolutely nothing wrong between us.

Then on Friday night, my best friend told me he needed to confess something that had happened a very long time ago.

He told me that when we were 18, during a six month breakup between me and my now wife, he and my wife had a sexual relationship for around 2–3 months.

I honestly felt physically sick when he told me.

I didn't know how to react. I cried. He just stood there and kept telling me that it ended years ago, that nothing had happened since, and that I shouldn't be angry with my wife because we weren't together at the time.

I got angry with him and told him I didn't want him to contact me again. Then I went home.

For context, yes, I broke up with my wife when we were 18. I was an idiot teenager and I broke her heart. That's on me. We were apart for about six months, then eventually got back together. We've been solid ever since.

In all those years, I've never had a reason to believe she was cheating on me. Not once.

Yesterday, I told my wife what he'd confessed. At first she said she had kept it from me because she didn't want to lose me. She apologised for hiding it.

She confirmed that they had been together for around three months while we were broken up. She said they eventually stopped because they realised remaining friends was better for them, and then around three months later, she and I got back together.

But then she also told me that technically it was none of my business who she slept with while we were broken up. It was her body and she was single. If this had been some random person she slept with during those six months, I probably wouldn't care now.

But it wasn't some random person. It was my best friend. The man who stood beside me as my best man at our wedding. I've trusted for most of my life. I've allowed into my home every week. That man who is godfather to my children.

And they've both known about this for 26 years while I had absolutely no idea. That's the part I can't get past. I keep thinking about every BBQ, every family holiday, every time the four of us have sat together talking, and wondering whether they were both looking at each other and remembering something I didn't know. My wife keeps saying that nothing happened during our relationship and that she has loved me all these years. And honestly, I believe her But something has changed in my head. I can't look at my friend the same way anymore. I can't even look at their friendship the same way.

Part of me wants to completely cut him and his family out of our lives. No more breakfasts, no more BBQs, no more holidays together. I don't want my children caught in the middle, but at the same time I don't know how I'm supposed to carry on having him around as if nothing happened.

And then there's my wife. I know technically she didn't cheat on me. We were broken up.
But she deliberately kept this from me for 26 years, and so did he. I'm struggling with the fact that two of the people I trusted most in the world knew something incredibly significant about my own life that I didn't know. I don't know whether I'm overreacting because it happened so long ago, or whether the fact that it was my best friend and was deliberately kept secret makes this completely different.

But right now I feel hurt, betrayed, embarrassed and honestly a bit stupid and Jealousy so much

They didn’t cheat, you dumped her! She didn’t need to tell you anything that happened while she was single! They decided that they only wanted to be friends and ended the relationship before you both restarted the relationship. I personally wouldn’t have ever told you either because you would get upset and make it about you. I wonder why he told you now?! How strange of him! He must have known you’d cut him off. Your wife knew It would cause arguments and fall out, over something that happened before you got together. You’re massively over reacting.

It’s worse than that though. Th whole time OP was confiding in the friend how much he loved his ex and wanted to get back with her, and the friend was shagging her behind OP’s back.

I just don't understand why it 'was on his mind' now after all this time.

I wonder what the friends wife's take on it all is - apologies if I have missed that bit.

Well, it's entirely down to you deciding whether to allow this to derail a marriage you say has been stable and happy.

Free your wife...she will be so much happier ...this is the perfect reason

You can then build a perfect life on a magical isle where no-one lies to protect other people's feelings (ego)

Honestly you were teens, you didn’t bet on being married with children. It’s ok to feel a bit awkward and upset, but I’d probably let it lie. I would question why your friend told you now, however. And why would he hurt you like that? It was better left unsaid .

my friend slept with her husbands brother before she and her now husband got together in a serious relationship. He doesn’t know. And neither my friend or her brother have a remote interest in each other that way. They were just teens. It’s not some mad big secret, it’s just something that’s buried and doesn’t mean anything

If they wanted to be together they would have been together ffs. Your wife didn't tell you at the age of 18 because she knew you would throw a hissy fit and didn't want to deal with it. Given you had dumped her for comments about your football team that is hardly surprising.

I can understand why you are upset and think you are getting a hard time overall. BUT I think you are shocked and spiralling and seeing this as bigger than it actually is. Obviously I don't know why neither of them told you at the time or why he has told you now. But it also sounds like those relationships are good and happy and solid overall and I'm not sure that this relevation means that all of that is devalued/a lie etc. Maybe let the dust settle a bit and see how you feel then.

My DH and I are still very close friends with one of my ex boyfriends. (We were part of the same friendship group in our early-20s, ex and I were together for around a year and split up amicably due to him moving overseas for a year for work. DH and I got together during the year he was away and have been together for almost 30 years now.) It's quite a different situation as no secrets involved, but what I wanted to say about it is that I love my ex dearly and consider him one of my closest and most important friends, but it is definitely a friendship. There are no lingering feelings or complications at all.

You haven’t addressed the question. Your feelings are of value to you. You must then expect your then ex and friend’s feelings to matter to them. You aren’t the most important person to both of them. You’re the most important person to you.

She has probably always known about it and couldn't care less. Why would she care about a three month relationship her dh had at 18.

I'm good, but honestly not good..... I'm not angry at her, I'm jealousy and feel bad, fool, stupid.....she was morethan what i thought all this year's

Literally they had sex....two people i trusted most and kept it as secret, for my own mental health i don't want to see both of them for a long time

Either way the (suffocating) friendship group is about to crumble because the friend has just betrayed the wife. I’d say if anyone has betrayed anyone, it’s the friend betraying her. I’d be livid. What a malicious and selfish thing to do. It wasn’t his place to throw her under the bus. She’d be better off without you both around.

Yeah, they chose to lie to protect themselves, not me!!

Protect themselves from what? Your wrath? Are you dangerous?

Where’s the wife’s thread where she’s relieved her husband is finally realising that he ain’t the centre of everyone’s world and she can be free of that pretence?

Where’s the friend’s wife’s thread about finding this out and threatening to tell the husband’s volatile best friend if he didn’t and then realising the best friend didn’t give her a second though?

If you keep going like this, you are going to blow up your entire life over something your friend should never have told you in the first place because it was none of your business. And it still isn't. Not really.

But you do you.

Personally? I'd take a deep breath, take a long walk, then try to figure out how you can get some counselling so you don't blow your entire marriage and life out of the water over something that happened 26 YEARS ago that was none of your business either then or now.

So who is the father of the kid that isn’t yours?

So she choosed to whatever Good for her, regardlessly how i feel

why did your friend tell you now ? Seems very weird.

but you are making a mountain out of a molehill - this was over 20 years ago. No one lied to you, they just didn’t tell you.

OP, have you spoken to your wife about this?

Where are you based? Do you have access to therapy?

And more importantly, which teams do you support?

You sound sooooo self obsessed- your poor wife ! I bet she would cheerfully throttle the ex friend now !!! All this fuss he has caused.

It’s fine to feel hurt that you didn’t know the truth however when should she ideally told you? You already said if she told you at the time you likely wouldn’t have continued the relationship and you wouldn’t have had the happy marriage and children you now have. Presumably you wouldn’t want that. You keep focussing on him being your best friend but I’m sure you said somewhere he was her friend first? Which could have contributed to why she didn’t feel the need to tell you. Obviously you’ve become closer as time has gone on but I can’t imagine when would have been a good time to tell you and I can’t imagine why he chose to tell you now.

So what -- you're going to explode your family and have your teenagers living somewhere separately to you part of the time because of something minor that happened 26 years ago? I mean whose 'mental health' is going to be served by that?

I feel like if there’s a snake in this whole scenario, it’s the male friend, not the wife. She may well have agreed not to tell, but the friend was the one listening to OP cry about his (ex at the time) missus and was the one betraying that by moving in on her. Not telling OP protected the friend far more than the wife, so I think given that context it’s fair to feel angry at him, but I can’t see that the wife deserves equal opprobrium.

It sounds like you need to put a bit of physical distance between you and your wife right now. Try not to say anything to her that can’t be undone later.

Lots of people on here are telling you why they don’t think this is the big deal you think it is. But in your current mind set you can’t see that or even consider it.

I’m not sure being on here is helping you much at the moment, but if you feel it’s giving you an outlet maybe it is.

You are completely over-reacting. Hopefully just due to the shock and you’re not usually this dramatic.

I can’t even remember half the people I had sex with at that age! It was a little fling that meant nothing. Clearly as they’ve managed to maintain a great friendship since.

Stop throwing your toys out of the pram and grow up. They were kids! Your entire families are very close. You can’t destroy everyone’s relationships in the entire family because you’re feeling jealous and possessive. That would be incredibly selfish.

What an idiot he was for telling you. Not sure what he thought he was trying to achieve.