So one of my oldest, closest friends has been having an affair with a married man for a couple of years now. She's single, neither have kids (yet). For over a year I was the only person who knew - now 3-4 others have been told.
I don't like to think of myself as a right old judgey-pants but I can't really view this other than negatively. I have tried to 'be there' and she has wanted to talk about it - but I can't honestly say that I think it's acceptable behaviour to lie to your spouse on this scale.
There is no question of him leaving his wife. She/he has broken it off a few times but now she seems to have 'committed' to this arrangement (her word). She says I have been the most censorious of those told and seems to think my problem is an overly simplistic view of relationships.
A few years ago I fell out with my then closest friend over this kind of situation (that also had additional factors tipping the balance, e.g. kids). I don't want to fall out over this. It's her life, her choice. But much as she obviously intends to justify this situation to herself because she loves him I am not likely to do the same. I don't think we can just agree not to discuss it - it's too big and important a part of her life. But I am struggling to keep this friendship afloat in this storm.
I feel rather aggrieved by the accusations from our recent conversation,that I basically just don't understand. I am prepared to accept her relationship but I just cannot make 'it's OK' noises about it as well.
We both have a habit of being forthright in telling it like it is. Deceit is not normal to either of us. Anyone else BTDT? Am I not trying hard enough or am I trying too hard?
Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody
Relationships
The affair of a close friend....
Acinonyx · 17/10/2010 17:22
Acinonyx I think it would be a really helpful thing to do as you suggest and outline your expectations of eachother as friends.
I'm going by what you've posted about this - that your friend asked you for your opinions, so you have hardly waded in with unsolicited advice. You have been friends for decades and I don't see that you have got any "agenda" other than to help your friend, but it is also completely fair enough, IMO, to feel unease about being party to a secret that is hurting a deceived stranger. I also don't read that you are being judgemental about the man's marriage, just the deceit that he is committing - and in which your friend is colluding.
I think you are being a good friend, but you also have a conscience. These are qualities that your longstanding friends have presumably valued in you for years, but possibly only when it suited them? I'm glad that you have the strength of character to remain true to yourself and I wish you well.
That book sounds interesting - I'll have a look.
Funnily enough, I recounted the latest sorry episode to dh last night and he wasn't as unsympathetic as I though he would be - I think he was trying to negotiate some way forward for the friendship. I think he is certainly very happy with my dim view of infidelity though 
I don't think my choice of friends is a problem in my marraige - but they are in my life in general. This is something I learned from my own experience of counselling.
Can I suggest you read that book I mentioned yourself? I really think it's going to be helpful to you, because it might surprise you to read that your friendships might be causing some trouble in your own marriage. I focus on the line where you say that your own H is unsurprisingly unsympathetic. I wonder whether he is feeling a bit vulnerable too, that you have friendships with people who think so little of fidelity within marriage?
The author Shirley Glass talks a lot about the concept of "friends of the marriage" and tells the story of a woman whose BF was having an affair and regaled her with tales about exciting sex, hotel rooms and her ability to deceive an unsuspecting husband. Because her friend was "getting away with it" and seemed to be positively glowing with the increased attention, the taboo wasn't so great when an admirer came calling....
I am pretty convinced from what you say that you are stronger than that, but I do think it would help you if you had a chat with your H and asked him how he felt about you having friends like this and whether any of this is making him feel a little vulnerable? You see, you're telling us on here how much you hate what your friends are doing, but are you telling your H this as strongly? And I wonder whether he is burying it and wouldn't dream of coming to you and telling you that he feels a bit insecure?
Ah purple - I surely wish I could find some eligible man for her!
Whenwill - thanks for taking the trouble to tell me that story - there is a lot of similarity indeed! I think with the other 4 people she has told - one has also been having a similar affair 
, two are concerned but a) are more tactful and b) haven't heard AS MUCH about it and the other, her sister, frankly doesn't care enough to feel strongly one way or the other. And yes, apparently there are shades of grey beyond my understanding....
I think she has given up on him leaving his wife to be with her and just hopes to go on, pretty much as things are, indefinitely. I so wish she would get a good counsellor. It isn't that long since she stayed with me for the weekend to keep away from him while she tried to break it off.
We need to actually have a chat about how we intend to talk about this and what expectations are. The 'retaliatary remarks' concerned my relationship with my own family (i.e. it's an example of something that is 'not simple' - no shit...) and any more along that line and we will have crossed a line of no return. We have been friends for 30 years now.
Friggggght: 'But don't make her choose between you and him, because it'll be him.' You are so right. I totally see that.
everything: I also ended a very dear friendship over something like this and I am still very sad about that. I often think about it and wonder if the friendship could have been saved. I did try, but in that case the behaviour was so apalling, and her defensiveness so unassailable, I eventually gave up.
This is obviously going to be a challenging area for me in general and I need to be clear how I'm going to handle these kinds of situations. Some of you may be wondering about my choice of close friends - and actually I think you would have a point. I think a certain open-mindedness shading into amorality is a recurring theme - the darker side of personalities I'm attracted too.
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Sorry to be later coming back to this than I'd planned.
Having reread your posts, it seems you are saying that it's because of her retaliatory remarks that this has now become so pressing an issue? Perhaps also, because others know about it now - and she has said that you are the most censorious, this has made you feel quite lonely in your views? That's really quite unfair of her, you know.
When someone is doing something they know to be wrong, they simply have to find a justification for it - and they also tend to hit out at anyone who isn't buying the justifications, because that forces them out of their denial. I suspect that this is what is happening with your friend.
Realistically, no-one can square deceiving someone else for a long time; there is simply no justification for it. So this is where the bargains and the denial come in. Her response is to counter-attack with accusing you of simplicity. This is all part of an internal script she is following though. She thinks this relationship is unique in its challenges, that it's somehow different to every other relationship with a MM. I'll bet she's coming out with gems such as: "This isn't all back and white, there are shades of grey that you can't possibly understand..." and "You don't understand him, he's a wonderful person...he's not like any other MM having an affair."
Meanwhile, OW the world over are coming out with the same old lines, believing that their circumstances are unique and that others simply don't understand .
Reject this accusation of over-simplifying then, OP because actually, what's needed here are some unassailable truths. Neither her not her MM are intrinsically bad people, because good people have affairs, but there is no getting away from the fact that deceit and lies are bad - it's their behaviour that is bad, not them as individuals.
My friend story is rather similar to yours. This friend has been close to me for over 30 years. She has a history of chaotic personal relationships, but she is a good person and I love her dearly. She actually pursued her MM, whom she met at work. It seems he wasn't really looking for an affair, but having been married for 20+ years and with grown-up DCs, it seems he finally said "why not?".
He told my friend initially that he wasn't unhappy in his marriage, but wasn't deliriously happy either - a state of affairs in many long marriages, really.
Once the affair had started in earnest though, he followed the same script as many adulterers - finding fault with his wife and complaining to my friend that his wife didn't value him enough; in effect, finding himself a justification for what he was doing. Withdrawing from his wife and blaming her response behaviour.
Not that my friend saw it like this at all - she had bought all the tales about the unaffectionate wife who was more concerned with her high-flying career than her H.
That is, until the "uncaring wife" treated the H to a wonderful present that he had wanted all his life - and it turned out she had put months of effort saving for it and choosing it, which blatantly contradicted his story about her not caring enough 
.
The main reason he gave for staying with his wife was that he was waiting till the youngest went to university.....but you guessed it, he was still there a year afterwards.
Now fortunately, her and I have always had the type of relationship where we can tell eachother how it is and because I know her so well, I knew I could be quite challenging with her and knew what buttons to press in her basic character and personality to get her to think this through more rationally.
I told her at the start that I couldn't condone this relationship and that if she wanted to talk to me about it, I would be very challenging with her. That left it in her court whether she chose to speak to me about it. Fortunately, she decided to do just that. I then did what you are doing, kept finding holes in his story, to the extent that she told me that although he'd never met me, he wished she'd stop talking to me about it!
I got her to read the book that I always recommend on here "Not Just Friends" and managed to persuade her to go to counselling. In fact, her counsellor wasn't very challenging and seemed intimidated by an older feisty client like my friend, so she stopped that and found another who understood infidelity, from all sides of the triangle. This counsellor was far more interventionist and challenging and my friend often said it was like the counsellor and I were comparing notes and acting as a team.
Both the counsellor and I got my friend to look at all the stories in the triangle. It won't surprise you to read that the wife's story was being woefully ignored by these two. As I said, my friend is at heart a good person and a feminist too, so I knew that although she really didn't want to, once she forced herself to empathise with the wife's position, we would make headway. This was the first real erosion of her denial.
I also helped her to project the various outcomes and what that might look like for her. We had a lightbulb moment when my friend worked out that even if this man left his wife, there would be times in their relationship (my friend has got very challenging older DCs herself) when his ego needs would be at the bottom of the pile, because that is life at times. What would he do then if yet another woman pursued him? Would he be saying similar things to a new woman - that he wasn't unhappy, but that he didn't come first at the moment?
By this time my friend had come a long way. She started by thinking that she would be able to prevent his future infidelity by being the ever-loving and attentive wife, to realising that this hadn't worked in his current marriage, so why would she be any different? She actually started to see his selfishness and how this was all about him. There were other clues of course; his self-absorption with his own problems, his lack of care and understanding of her DCs' problems. But by now she was noticing these things and not bargaining them away, like before.
I took her for a weekend away last summer and by the end of it, she had the courage to end this relationship. She looks back now and can see things so much more clearly and has a lot of guilt about the damage she caused to another woman, but her fantastic counsellor is helping with this, as I continue to do.
The man? Still with his wife and enjoying child-free time with her now that the DCs are away from home....
This is a long story, but I hope it might help you. Your friendship might be different to the one I have with my friend and only you can know whether yours can withstand this level of intervention. My friend always knew that I was doing this at her request and because of the deep love I have for her. She knew I wanted only the best for her.
I understand what you mean when you say that this man is such a big part of her life, it would be difficult not to talk about him - and I think had my friend not chosen to talk to me, it would have created a distance in our relationship. But that's a risk you might have to take, if you are going to stay true to your morals and your beliefs, which you should never feel bullied into compromising.
It helped in my case that our other friends were on the same page as me, although once her and I started talking properly about this, we had an agreement that I would not discuss this with the others and I stuck to that confidentiality throughout. However, she told me that she would often go to one of the others and tell them what I'd said - and fortunately, they backed me up.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.