Friend obsessed with OM, ruining her life, how can I make her see sense?

[WrongUnBeGone]

I really hope I can get some good advice for my best friend here.

She is obsessed with a man that she had an affair with last year. He is married, and broke it off with her after a short fling and has stayed with his wife.

However, my friend is utterly, completely obsessed with him. She claims to be madly in love with him, and cries herself to sleep every night. She has ruined relationships with her friends over him, he has made her ill.

He is completely aware of all of this, and yet continues to play with her feelings to bolster his own ego. He tells her he loves her but can't leave his wife. He goes through phases of intense contact with her, and then will block her from his social media out of the blue, tell her never to contact him again, only to start up contact with her again when it suits him.

She is trying to date new people, but she inevitably tells him "because I owe it to him to be honest, I don't want to hurt him" (hah!), but I think she's telling him to goad him into resuming contact with her, which he inevitably does.

He had recently blocked her from all contact, until she hinted to him that she was seeing someone new, and lo and behold, he's told her he wants to see her again and has been calling her etc.

Now she has met a lovely new man, he seems really nice, stable, sensible, not into game playing at all. I would love to see her make it work with this guy, but he's not going to stick around long if he knows she's obsessed with game playing with someone else, is he? She has told new man all about her ex's game playing, and to be honest she's so utterly obsessed with her phone that I'm sure new man will notice when she's texting him etc...

She says she knows he's treated her like shit, but claims he's a 'lovely man' (I cannot see how the two can be true). She knows that he's playing her, and knows that he only gets in touch when he's worried that he's losing control of her. And yet she still plays the game with him.

How can I get her to see sense before she messes things up with this lovely new man? I really can't bear to see it happen again.

And good for her DD for pulling her up on the phone overuse! sadly that comment from DD went totally over her head. She told me thinking it was funny, that cheeky DD had said that. I thought it was incredibly telling and very sad.

Well, the married man is a shit - but so is your friend TBH. She sounds like she thrives on the drama and she is stringing along a nice man to make the other jealous.

Interesting that you don't seem to have sympathy for the wife, who is being betrayed by your friend as well as the husband.

TBH your friend is a self-obsessed vile bitch.IMO.

What makes you think I don't have sympathy for the wife? Of course I do, but since I've never met her, I'm not thinking too much about her.

Don't forget I'm not responsible for any of this, I'm just concerned about my friends happiness. I hope the OMs poor wife has her own support network.

She sounds manipulative and self absorbed and it's not your job to protect her from the consequences of her behaviour.

This man is no svengali and may just trigger personality traits that you have overlooked in the name of friendship.

She sounds pretty unpleasant to me. Not sure i'd want to be mates with somebody who is trying to break a family up; who threatens to bin me as a mate for not supporting her in this; and who uses other men to try win a married man. Leave her to it, self absorbed bint.

She sounds like a very immature person.
Does she have any regard for this man's wife? (the person I wouuld be concerned about in this situation, friend or not)
Suggest you tell the wife, perhaps? That might bring her to her senses (if she has any!)
Do you know the 'man'?

I think you need to distance yourself from your friend's happiness- what worries me is that she dropped you when you weren't saying the right things and says emotionally manipulating things to you to make you feel bad about what you think.

You sound very invested in her happiness- nice, but I think she is on a path to self-destruction and the best thing to do is to leave her to it. Doesn't mean you can't be friends, but stop trying to convince her, change her or care too much about her- she is not putting you first, or indeed herself, this has to run its course and it will.

If she ultimately marries him, you will just have to suck it up! You don't get to choose your friend's partners and sadly, as I have experienced, some lovely friends have really poor taste in men!

The only thing you have any control over is your own behaviour.

So it's your choice whether you:

• Listen to her obsessive stories, and say nothing;
• Listen to her obsessive stories, and explain to her that she is making a big mistake (her choice whether she takes that on board or not);
• Cut her off when she starts telling you about OM, telling her that you disapprove and don't want to hear about it (her choice whether she takes offence at that or not);
• Stop seeing her.

What she does is her own affair. All you can do is choose how much you will see her, and how you will handle her drama.

"DD was telling her mother that she had noticed that the most important thing to her was her phone."

Ouch! If that doesn't bring her up short I don't think much will

Of course a good part of the problem is that her OM hasn't cut her off properly. He is enjoying the ego boost. One way of stopping this, and it won't be popular on here, is to inform the OM's wife. If she doesn't know, there is nothing for her husband to lose by dangling a bit of attention in front of your friend like a doggie treat. Once she does know he will have to behave...and his wife will know what a shit he is.

I am assuming that the MM's wife actually knows nothing about this?

WrongUn you are way too invested in this. It's her life, her problem, and for her to sort out. You can't reason with her, or guide her to take a different path. Everything time you try it brings the whole thing to the forefront again, and fuels the fire. I went through this with a friend, so I know just how hopeless a situation it is. Even discussing it on here isn't going to help you or her, it will just drag you in again, and drag you down. It's emotionally draining and will stop you focussing on positive things in your own life.

I wouldn't be hoping things were going well with the nice new man, sounds like he needs to get the fuck out of there.

Op, either it is you who is actually having the affair/non affair with this man and are posting for advice for yourself ,if not you need to seriously rethink your friendship with this woman. The friendship appears to be one sided and your 'friend'sounds self indulgent and very immmature.
She cries herself to sleep every night?? Come on! And she is a parent!!

No it's not a reverse thread, definitely not me having the affair! Thanks for that!

Thanks everyone you've helped me see that once again I need to take a step back from the situation and not invest too much in her. It will only make me frustrated if she messes things up with the new man to carry on the mind games with the MM.

I think his wife did know about the affair, but is trying to maker her marriage work. Very sad for her, but I most definitely won't be telling her anything. It's got nothing to do with me, I'm not getting involved. Plus, the last thing I want is for her to kick him out and for him to come crawling to my friend!

Worserevived you seem to understand exactly how I'm feeling. It is emotionally draining isn't it. Time to focus on me again for a bit.

Sorry Wouldbe, it's just you supplied so much detail that I began to suspect. You are unbelievably overaly involved though and I am wondering what you actually get from this friendship? Perhaps it's time for you to step back and let the 'friendship' die a natural death.

Why don't you tell his wife?

I was in that situation and although I'm no contact now, the scars run deep with me. I would never have told his wife because I would have felt too guilty and would have feared him attacking me (socially I mean not physically). I also think it would have looked like I was hoping to "get him" and she would leave him - which I knew would never happen.

With hindsight, if one of my friends had told his wife, it actually would have done me a big favour - because he'd have had no option but to cut all contact with me. It would have been out of my hands and not something he could have accused me of doing to "get him to leave her".

I had friends who would threaten it periodically as I was in such a state but no one ever did. I emerged the other side but I'm still not OK and I'm a lesser version of the person I once was (this guy was also a narcissist).

It was utter hell and he destroyed my self esteem just for a bit of sexual fun on the side. But I was so in love with him, I'd never have got out on my own I think.