Ideas for helping a friend? Divorce/affair aftermath

[WorwegianNood]

This genuinely is for a friend. I'm anticipating a slightly difficult situation when we get together later this week, and I'm calling on the wisdom of posters here for ways I can help my freind & not annoy her.

I've known her & her now-ex-H for about 15 years. I'd been working away for about 5 or 6 years, and when I returned here about 3 years ago, I got back in touch. Within a week of this, she told me that she & her DH were divorcing. Over the years, I've got to hear some of the details from her point of view - it was nasty & messy, as these things often are. As far as I knew, or she told me, there was no OW. It was her ex-H's rages to the extent of scaring their children (12 & 10 at the time ...) that caused her to demand a change or a separation. I've been one of the shoulders she'd been crying on - he's been quite nasty about money, about parenting and so on & on.

Just recently, my friend has discovered, or been told that there was an OW. We both know the OW and her husband ( small toewn!) So it's brought up all sorts of pain again, naturally. We're meeting up to hang out soon (she's been working away for a fortnight), but I expect the whole evening will rehash this news, or whatever it is ...

Part of me is hugely sympathetic, as this is a nasty shock, and she feels she was the last to know (well, she wasn't as she told me, and I didn't know). But part of me wants to say as gently as possible that she needs to start to get over this burning resentment and interest in her ex-H's life. That it is now 3 years ago that they divorced & it is now nothing to do with her and that she's done nothing wrong. He's the nasty adulterer, and she can hold her head up.

My friend is very over-fragile sensitive, and I know I can't say this so bluntly. And I've never been through a situation like this - something she reminds me of regularly.

So, my question is: to those of you have experienced this sort of thing ng- back, when did you really start to move on? And what sorts of conversations with friends either helped or not helped? For example, should I let her vent & then change the subject to something more pleasant or forward looking?

And for ways to protect my own serenity - such as it is ... there is a point in all my interactions with her that I get the whole "But you're not a single parent, how can you possible know?" like we're playing Top Trumps in Suffering. I try to smile & nod.

I really don't want to hurt her, but she's very touchy & I also want to enjoy her company, not come away feeling rather battered by having to bite my lip. I tend to be of the stiff upper lip atttitude to my own troubles, but I'm not insensitive (I hope).

It may be three years since the divorced, but it's 'just recently' that she discovered about the OW. That resets the clock, IYSWIM.

This is very much the wrong time to even hint that she should following a particular timetable for dealing with this brand new information.

Yes, that's what I wondered might be the case AuntieStella - I think it's been a terrible shock to her, but also, I hope, a bit of a relief. That he was elsewhere emotionally, not that she was a failure as a wife. I'd like her to be able to see that, but I guess I'm being too optimistic. You put it well by saying it 'resets the clock.'

But I really want to be able to help her see how much better it is to be free of this man. I suspect that's going to take a lot longer - her particular character is such that she feels these things are so much harder for her.

I think I'll be taking lots of wine ... it is difficult when you know people so well, and wish you could just wave a magic wand over their lives.

OP

It's good of you to post on here and ask for advice. Here's what I would say.

No one has a set timeline of getting over something like this. I totally agree with auntiestella, finding out information like this can totally cause someone to go back in their recovery.

Equally we are all programmed differently. Someone else may find this out 3 years later and laugh it off, others may be totally floored.

It's insensitive of her to repeatedly tell you that you don't understand but I'll be blunt with you. You don't. Just as I don't understand many situations in life because I haven't lived through them. Having empathy is one thing, having lived through it is something else entirely. It sounds like (and I hear it when you say you've only heard her side), she's been through the wars.

You have a choice: continue to be there for her and listen/ let her offload. Maybe you are one of the few people she does this with???

Give her some tough love but maybe couch it with the fact that you're worried about her. And how much this is effecting her 3 years on. Maybe ask why it's still having this impact.

Or, if it's getting too much. Pull away ever so slightly. Just as she has a right to feel the way she feels and recover at her rate, you have every right to not come away having spent time with her feeling battered.

As an FYI my best friend lost someone very very dear to him 18 years ago. He still talks about her (not constantly) and gets sad. I'd never dream of saying he should be over it. Or getting annoyed when he is sad and says he misses her. Because guess what, he doesn't get to say how he feels with many other people. So he does it with me. No biggie. I love him and that's what friends do.

Let me add, you sound like a really good friend. You wouldn't have posted here otherwise. Do what you feel is best. You'll know what that is.

Fisty that is really helpful, and thanks for being straightforward. I guess I'm worried that I'm so bothered about it, IYSWIM, and trying to work through my own feelings of impatience with my friend before I see her, if that maks sense. I don't want to fall out with her, but I've seen how she reacts to even the smallest challenge when she feels vulnerable.

I made the mistake of being so worried about some of the things she was saying about her own unloveability about 6 months ago that I suggested seeing a counsellor to her (because she really sounded beyond "normal" pain). Her response was to get quite angry with me and accuse me of finding her sadness too much of a burden. The more I tried to explain that I thought what she was saying was really concerning (it was an evening of her repeatedly saying she didn't deserve another relationship etc etc) and more than something anyone could "get over" and that some professional support might help her - well, the angrier she got.

So I put my foot in it through trying to help, and I"m nervous of doing that again. I may appear happy-go-lucky to her, but I can still feel hurt.

So I guess I'm unloading here on the ananymous internet. THanks for your responses - it's helping me go through it here rather than in her living room!