I wanted to post to see if I could get any advice on dealing with some really unpleasant truths I've just found out.
Early this year, I lost one of my best friends to leukemia. He was someone I'd known for nearly 15 years. It was very much a purely platonic friendship, he'd often call me his big sister. When I first met him (as a 17 year old!) he was with a very serious girlfriend who he was with for almost 5 years. I've also been with my DH for almost as long as I've known him and we have three kids.
In recent years, he's had a very turbulent and complicated love life, lots of on again off again girlfriends. On a number of occasions when we were having dinner he would fill me in on the latest sorry saga. I did challenge him many times on what he was doing - did everyone involved know what was going on? I pointed out to him when I thought he was being selfish, immature or unfair on the person involved. In particular it revolved around his on again off again relationship with someone he was with for 3-4 years who I was very fond of. After they broke up the first time I didn't really see her again which I was sad about as I liked her but found the situation awkward. She also lives in a different city which I think was one of the reasons behind the break up.
When he got ill, I made a huge effort to see him and despite working full time and having three small children, managed to spend as much time as I could while juggling all of my responsibilities. In fact, we got so close during his illness I was actually there holding his hand when he passed away at home. The whole experience was very difficult as you can imagine, but I was comforted by the knowledge that we had a special bond.
So, I've been pretty horrified to find out that he was involved in a much bigger web of deceit than I had any idea about. It all revolves around the ex girlfriend (let's call her P) and another woman (let's call her F). When he first got sick and I went to the hospital, F was there. I'd never met her before, but he introduced her as a friend from work. I picked up pretty quickly that she felt more for him than just friendship, and he admitted that once or twice they'd had too much to drink and had a quick shag. Throughout the whole thing, he basically made out to me that she had become a bit clingy but that he'd always been upfront with her that they had been no more than friends with benefits.
Once it became obvious how sick he was, P reappeared and was frankly amazing. Although by this point their relationship status was kind of irrelevant, she was with him day and night including for 6 weeks at the end, taking an unpaid leave of absence from her job. F was there a lot too (as his friend), and I think that F and P just worked around each other and decided to not ask each other too many questions.
So, now I come to discover, after the fact, that F was not in fact a quick shag but had been spending most of her time with my friend for an entire year before he got ill (although they worked together so had decided to keep it quiet - his idea, no surprise right?). He had both F and P running concurrently - he had told F that he was single when in fact he and P had not broken up until about 3 months before he got ill. Since they were in different cities, he was able to keep them both in the dark about the other. Not only that, but F is not stupid and as soon as P made an appearance at his bedside, she tried to back off and leave them to their reconciliation, but he basically begged her not to leave him and told her all this crap about how she was "misinterpreting" the signs and he wasn't back with P, all the time crying to me that he was desperate to get better so he could marry P. I also think that he lied to me (and plenty of other people) about the relationship he had with F to make her look crazy so I wouldn't get close to her as I had probably more pieces of the puzzle than he felt comfortable with. Not to mention a load of other random shit has come to light that he lied to me about - and the fact that he probably had other women on the go while he had this two timing situation in works too.
I'm so mad at him - I read threads on here all the time about these manipulative, lying, cheating bastards, and guess what, someone I thought I knew and loved turns out to have been as bad or worse. I simply cannot comprehend the depth of his deception. I'm lucky that I have the greatest DH in the world who has been my rock, and I trust him to the end of the world and back. I can't imagine what my friend put these poor women through as I'm lucky to be in a very straightforward relationship myself. In a way, it's almost the worst thing I could have found out about my friend - he was exactly the kind of man I most despise. And yet everything that a master manipulator is - charming, funny, handsome, smart and lucky for me most of the time I only saw that side of him.
I know he was scared, and I know he was lying to keep us all there with him, and in fact the three of us were all with him at the end. I still don't know if I would have walked away completely had I known the whole truth. I think I'd have smacked him round the head but I would have not deserted him. I just don't feel like any of my friends quite understand why I'm so hurt. They just put it down to him having been a lovable rogue, whereas for me I am left struggling to understand. I feel sick about the lies, and I feel that he didn't deserve to have these three attentive, grief stricken women there with him since we had all been lied to so much!
Sorry this is so long - I guess maybe I'm looking for someone who's had more experience or insight into this kind of behaviour to throw me a tiny bone of clarity. I know it doesn't help that it is so raw but even so, I'm just grasping here as to how I can even comprehend this.