Biting my tongue and turning the other cheek

[SandyC123]

Hello, I'm new to Mumsnet and am starting off with a difficult one! …. Any thoughts/opinions welcome:- I"m in my mid-fifties and have recently married a lovely man after a 2yr engagement. I had been single for 6 yrs prior to that - and I do mean single! "That all sounds lovely" I hear some of you say! But it gets messy…because my husband was previously married to one of my closest friends! They had separated 8 months before I came on the scene and, despite trying to resist falling in love with him because of who he was, I did. We were subsequently excommunicated from a close circle of friends (some of whom I'd known for over 20 years) because they could not deal with, what they thought was a betrayal towards my husbands "ex" / my "ex" close friend. My husbands children (2 grown men) have also put up barriers and not had a proper father/son relationship with him for the past 2 years. This is all upsetting, but on top of this is the fact that the "ex" (sorry, I don't mean that to sound trivial) went on to have a brief affair with another close friends husband, which, she explained, was due to being vulnerable! No one knows about this other than me, my husband and the "close friends husband" …who apologised to my husband profusely!! The "ex" is still included in the circle of friends who ex-communicated us and it gets to me at times to think that everyone thinks of me as "the scarlet woman", whilst thinking that the "ex" is a virtue of goodness! The "ex" has now met another man (recently widowed) and they are planning to marry next June. It goes without saying that my husband and I will not be invited to the wedding! ..This is classic soap opera script material I know! …I just needed to get it off of my chest ….and any thoughts on the subject are welcome. Thanks for listening.

TBF if they had a long relationship which it sounds like and only split 8 months before you got together AND she was a close friend I would think she would feel totally betrayed. Yes she might have had an affair ( IMHO that is wrong) BUT I bet she confided in you when her marriage broke, I bet over the years she has told and shared things with you thinking you were a friend.
I'd personally feel like I'd been stabbed in the back, my friendship group have 1 rule and that is respect and that is not sleeping with each others ex's.

It's not natural or sane to cut people off for having a relationship when both are free. I suspect the ex-best-friend may have been spreading disinformation around. Still, folk who decide to take sides when there weren't any actual sides to take weren't ever proper friends.

I'd be trying to stop caring about ex-besty and her doings as that's a direct route to unhappiness.

However, I would have a think about how "not on the scene" you might have been. I certainly wouldn't say that I was not on the scene where my best friend and her husband were concerned, separated or not. She obviously thought he was a no-go area and lots would agree with her. I wouldn't have gone there in a month of Sundays but I'm not you.

It's a shame your close friends didn't value your friendship enough to not maintain the friendship. You must feel disappointed and treated unfairly, but you did behave badly as ex husband's of close friends must surely be off limits, no??

The only way I see it is you tell all your close friends that the ex has behaved equally badly and see if she's cut off, or walk away and make new friends who don't hold things against you.

Who cares that you won't be going to the wedding. You didn't value her friendship enough to not form a relationship with an ex. Don't get bitter, just focus on how happy you are.

Thanks for your thoughts. I agree, and in an ideal world I wish it didn't happen. .. I can't help wasting time thinking that "the ex" has behaved in a similar way but with the husband of a close friend who wasn't divorced at the time! Ironically, that marriage ended in divorce 2 months after! The '"ex" went on to comfort her close friend during and after the divorce! I guess I shall just continue to bite my tongue and keep the peace. Which is what I know I must do, but as I said, I just needed to get it off my chest.