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

Why did your friend tell you now? It's weird after all these years.

OP you have the right to feel how you feel but ask yourself, is your marriage good? Is your relationship with your best friend good? Don't throw away a marriage and friendship over a mistake when they were teenagers. You weren't betrayed, not cheated on. Yes, there is an omission in there but come on, 26 years later it probably doesn't register for them.

OMG, you’re Rachel.

You were on a break.

You broke up with her.

Your wife is allowed to have a private life, even when she’s married to you, and especially when she was not in a relationship with you.

Agree. The friend is an asshole and the only focus should be - why did he decide to tell him now. Own marriage on the rocks?

I appreciate that this is a shock but you also need to keep this in perspective so as not to allow it to ruin the relationship you have with your wife and significantly impair your enjoyment of life.
Firstly, your wife didn't cheat on you. You dumped her and went off living your own life without her for 6 months.
Did you have sex with other people during those six months? If so, did you tell her about them when you got back together? If not what not? Probably because it was none of her business and would upset her.
When they were 18 and had a fling, you were off the scene as far as your wife was concerned and she had no idea and neither did he that you would come back into her life. You dumped her so at that stage as far as your friend was concerned she was your EX!

The fact that neither told you is understandable in the sense that it was a fling at 18 after you DUMPED her and it would upset you to know.
The issue for me is why he has told you now after all these years!

The issue for you is how you react to this news.
Don't over react by claiming that she cheated on you which you did in your initial post as this is not true. Don't ruin your marriage over this. It was a fling between two 18 year olds when you were off sowing your wild oats elsewhere!
Keep it in perspective for everyone's safe especially your own!

OP... you haven't said what his wife thinks about it all.... how is she feeling about her husband throwing a grenade into your marriage, and potentially destroying their own marriage and friendship with your wife??

I can understand why you're so upset OP. Two people to whom you felt closest have kept an intimate secret together from you, and not only that, it's basically confirmation that they found each other sexually attractive enough to actually have sex.

Your friend went ahead and did what he liked no matter how you'd feel about it. Your wife got back into a relationship with you because she wanted to and knew that probably wouldn't happen if she told you the truth. Do you think she did it out of revenge for the heartbreak you said you caused her? Did you cheat on her?

How is he meant to answer this question though.

He’s read it multiple times but can’t answer because he doesn’t know and his heads already a mess to even try and think of that.

Come on. It wasn't just with anyone! It was his best friend!!

Did they protect me, or did they protect themselves?

I never said I thought my wife had only ever had sex with me. My issue is that she kept something significant from me, especially when that person remained such an important part of our lives. So are you saying you support lying or deliberately withholding important things in a marriage?

It is an unusual relationship history… but I’m not sure it’s more than that although I can see why it’s causing you to think, it would me too.

I’d consider though:

1. what were they “protecting” themselves from exactly?
2. when and how in your mind should they have told you? I guess the only logical time would have been right when you were getting back together but how would you have reacted? I suspect by not getting back together which would have meant everything that followed (your great marriage, loving kids etc) wouldn’t have been. Is that really what you’d have wanted?

I’d try to see it for what it is and get on with life.

Hey, some people even do that kind of thing consensually for fun 😉

Why do you all imagine it finished?

Maybe they just agreed to carry on quietly as FWB when their relationship ended, but to be open to other more serious relationships.

It did seem to slip extremely quickly from shagging to a full on platonic relationship. Maybe that’s why the secrecy on both sides, and maybe that’s why his friend decided to tell him 26 years later, but didn’t get too far into the telling.

The whole thing just stinks and I certainly wouldn’t take it at face value. I would definitely want the full story from both sides.

And that suspicion is poisonous…..but it is also human nature, which can’t be discarded at the flick of a switch.

You had finished with her. What she did and who she did it with were no business of yours. I’d be upset with your friend and wonder why, after 26 years of silence, he wanted to throw a grenade in your relationship but your wife has done nothing wrong.

That’s not the issue though is it?

It’s the fact that they never told OP about it.

I’m sure you would want to know if your DH had sex with your best friend or sister etc.

You were on a break!

I’d be saying ‘Stop being so melodramatic’ just the same. I’ve slept with three people DH and I are close friends with, around the time we got together in our late teens. It’s literally not a big deal. It was decades ago.

She wasn't lying. Just because you are married to someone doesn't mean you are entitled to know every intimate aspect of their life or history. She is free to share with you as she feels safe and comfortable to do so. That's the end of it. She's your wife, but she's still a person and you don't own her.

Perhap's OP's hoping to fill up a whole thread by not answering the one question that posters are asking......oh well.

So the gf or his mate should have known the future when they got back together at 18?

Trying to imagine what I would do in these circumstances.
I dont think I would throw away my marriage but Id insist on no more secrets ever.
I think Id work on this in counselling rather than wreck my kids lives with a divorce. I dont fancy starting again or retiring on my own which actually did happen as my husband ran off with someone else. It's a miserable situation that has made me very unhappy. I can forgive someone I love.
But the "best friend" would be dead to me forever.

OP, I can see that you feel very hurt by this, but ultimately YABU. They didn't betray you, the relationship was over, ended by you. They got together, decided they were better off as friends and moved on. They presumably didn't want to hurt you so didn't tell you.

I think you need counselling to deal with this, on your own and with your wife.

You have 2 choices now, put it behind you and move on, or end your marriage and your friendship and move on alone.

Do you want them both out of your life?

It wasn’t significant to her. Being married doesn’t mean you have to tell your spouse every thing you did when not together. Everyone has a right to privacy. This reeks of male bashed ego. Stop diminishing the very importance that they were 18, they had zero reason to think you would end up married and have a long term relationship. There was nothing to confess. I imagine they were scared to tell you because you come across as arrogant and self important.

@jhkyg a good marriage is very precious.
This is a hard bump in the road for you and your dw is probably regretting her decision to keep quiet about a brief relationship with your bf. Remember she was only 18 and loved you enough to take you back. If she had told you about her and your bf then you probably wouldn't have rekindled the relationship which seems to have been a very good one.
I think you need to give yourself time to process the shock before making any decisions.
Is a 3 month relationship between 2 single people worth losing 26 years because you're hurt?
Both your bf and dw made a serious mistake but it was not malicious.
It was almost certainly a misguided decision to protect their relationships with you because they both loved you.

But it hasn’t been messy has it? Not until now, when you are making it messy.

You were all very young, you were not together. She decided to see someone else briefly. She chose a close friend, someone she knew would be a safe person. She experienced intimacy with another person, which probably helped cement in her mind that she truly loved, and wanted to be with, you. It clearly wasn’t a deep and meaningful all consuming passion for the length of time it went on, just two young people exploring life briefly. Your friend was also barely grown, and full of hormones, and I’m sure wasn’t meaning anything negative towards you, neither were. They were just testing out life and sex. I’m sure looking back they both wish that she had picked someone different, but that didn’t happen, so here you are.

I have a close male friend that wayyyyy back I had a brief, intimate relationship with. It wasn’t an all consuming passion, it was just something we tried. We were young and learning life. We have remained friends, I feel nothing towards him other than friendship (same back I’m totally sure), because that’s all we really ever were. We are now both married (with our respective partners for over 2 decades), our partners don’t know, because it is genuinely utterly irrelevant, and none of their business. You really do need to get this in perspective. I understand it’s very shocking for you, but it’s really not that big of a deal.

This.

Did you ask him why he was telling you now? Presumably he blindsided your wife as well by doing so, she didn’t know he was going to grass them both up.
Does his wife know? If so, has she always known?