how can i help my friend? her DP is having an affair - right under her nose - and she's just letting him do it :(

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my friend has just found out her "d"p has been having an affair for the last few months. with one of their mutual female friends ( ).
she has fallen out with the "friend" but she has supposedly forgiven her dp who she is still allowing to share her house and her bed. yet he is still continuing to see OW and go over to her house etc. his excuse is that his dds spend a lot of time over there (as OW has dds the same age) but his dds are 12 and 14 so do not need their dad supervising while they are seeing friends. and the other day i was out with my friend and while we were out she rang her dp to find he was out with OW as she had asked him to take her to asda. wtf. she was fuming and i was speechless at his sheer bare faced audacity. he is just taking the piss blatantly and she is LETTING him.

she doesn't want to kick him out as she feels she won't cope without him (she has health issues, diabetes and epilepsy) and they have 2 DC aged 2 and 4. (the other dd's are her dp's children).

she is seriously depressed over all this, i want to help her but i don't know how. i would really appreciate some advice from some of the wise ladies on here.x

There's not very much you can do. She has made a choice to keep him in her life even though he is shagging about. She's allowing him to walk all over her because she fears the alternative (coping alone) more than she hates what he's doing. She feels she needs him so much that she is willing to accept that he is screwing some other woman.

I suppose all you could do would be to try to let her know that she can go it alone if she wanted to. show her that it can be done. Show her where she can get any help or support.

If she doesn't want to kick him out she can either live separate lives in the same house or put up with it.

He isn't going to change.

All you can do is be there for her to cry on your shoulder and suggests she goes to an STI clinic

It sounds like he really wants to leave and for some reason isn't. It's like he wants her to be the one to end it? Is there allot of money/ child residency issues?

Perhaps he doesn't want people to look at him and say "there's the bastard who walked out on his sick wife and left her to cope with the children"

whereas if she chucks him out...

Although, atm he's the bastard who is cheating on his sick wife.

Mind you - there are twats people who would excuse him based on the fact that he's got such a hard life...

its clear he doesn't give a shit about her. if he genuinely regretted his affair and wanted to try again he would have cut contact with her and be going all out to win my friend back.

but he doesn't seem like he wants to tbh. i have seen how he is with her even before the news of the affair came out and he basically treats her as a scivvy, he does bugger all round the house, bugger all childcare etc. leaves it all to her. and he is not some kind of amazing catch, he doesn't work (his own choice) so its not a lifestyle thing why she is staying, and he is generally just a waste of air. also he doesn't know she has told me about the affair and she can't tell anyone else because she is scared of how he will react. he isn't violent (afaik) but i think she thinks he will leave if he knows anyone knows.

my friend has hardly any confidence, a lot of which i think is to do with him, but also she has no relationship with her family (not sure exactly why but she hasnt spoken to them for years, her choice) also she has had 2 other children who sadly died when they were born :( plus her health issues don't help matters. so she is quite dependent on him even though he is no real support iyswim. she also loves his dd's like her own and i don't think she would want to lose them if she split with their dad :(

also he has threatened that if they ever split he would get custody of the dc due to her health problems so i think she is scared of that possibility as well.

(sorry, my first paragraph didnt make much sense!! i mean he doesn't seem to give a shit about my friend as if he did then he would have cut contact with OW.)

Would she see a solicitor, just to talk through her options, understand the law, see how things really work (such as the fact that in reality the father almost NEVER gets custody!)

What a horrendous position to be in.

Maybe she feels that at least whilst he is still living at home she still has him.

If she is going to continue to allow the affair to carry on under her nose there is nothing she can really do.

Has she confronted the woman at all? What does she have to say for herself is she not ashamed?

fabby i think you are right there re maybe she thinks that she still has him while he still lives there.

hec i have advised her to see a solicitor already, i hope she does.

she hasn't confronted the woman i don't think, god if it was me i would be banging her door down even to just tell her what i think of her.

it is honestly like something from jeremy kyle. :(

No one really knows what goes on in someone else's relationship / marriage and I don't think the role of a friend is to tell someone what to do or even really offer an opinion apart from reflect back to the person about what they want to do themselves. Your friend knows about the affair, what you can do is be there for her whatever way she deals with it / lives with it.

DOes she want your advice, or does she want sympathetic understanding? It is, after all, up to her to decide that she wants to keep this man and will therefore accept his affair, even though it may not work in the long run and the man may leave anyway. If she wants or needs to know practical stuff like custody/finances/help for her health issues, you can help her with that, but like LadyL says, don't tell her to leave him/confront him/ go after the OW.

You've told her to see a solicitor. That's all you can do with regard to her relationship problems unfortunately. You can help her, but not by going on about how she's being used and he's a shit. You need to focus on helping her to be stronger. There must be online and RL support groups for those living with epilepsy and her type of diabetes. Try to get her involved in them. New friends, some of whom by the law of odds must be single parents, will help her confidence and let her find out more about what happens in custody cases. You can make sure that she's getting out and having a life. It's hard to imagine coping with your DP leaving when life revolves around him. If you can, as much as possible, set aside her wanker DP and focus on building up her self esteem, it will be more effective in the long run than anything you can say or do about this relationship. Even if the arse leaves, there are other arses out there, and she needs to feel that she is worth a partner that adores her and respects her. Get her doing some voluntary work. Anything where she's helping other people reinforces the fact that she has a lot to offer as a person and she is not helpless.

sgb i have to say i have been guilty of saying to her, you should leave him!! i know its up to her, i shouldn't have said it. but its hard when you care for someone to watch some arsehole taking them for a complete twat.

but as evenless said i think from now, the best thing i can do is stop going on about how much of a twat her dp is and try and build her confidence up to try and make her stronger. i will see if she would be interested in finding groups etc re her illness.

i always seem to pick friends in really horrible relationships :(

Can you get her to go on a night out? Get her to have a social life so she can see there is life after her partner?