Friend’s ‘D’H has a secret family – how do I help her through this?

[BanananananaDaiquiri]

I caught up with one of my closest friends recently, who I’d been a little worried about as she’d been quite quiet of late. She finally told me that she’s found out her ‘D’H is not only having a long-standing affair for almost the whole length of their marriage, but he also has a baby with the OW. It’s such a fucking cliché; he works away at least 50% of the time and the OW is a colleague of sorts, which presumably is how he’s managed to get away with it for so long. That and the fact my friend is so sweet, trusting, always sees the best in everyone and, not unreasonably, trusted her husband and believed all the things he’s told her which have now turned out to be lies.

Understandably she is completely devastated but she’s not sure what she is going to do. It’s complicated by the fact she herself is PG with their first baby – or what she thought was their first baby, but turns out now is only her first baby and in fact her husband will have been through all the ‘firsts’ and excitement already with his mistress, which is just making it all so much worse than if it were “just” adultery, not to minimise the pain of that in itself. She’s terrified of the thought of being a single mum, worried about finances since he will have two families to support, and generally doesn’t know which way is up at the moment.

When she told me I wanted to kill him, as in I felt, and continue to feel whenever I think of it, actual murderous rage towards him for dropping this fucking bomb in her happy life (obviously I wouldn’t act on it but I’ve honestly never felt anger like it). For me it’s very black and white, she needs to kick his ass out onto the street if not bury it under the patio, but for her it’s not that straightforward and she’s the one living through this, not me. How do I support her if she decides to stay with this excuse for humanity? Or indeed, how can I best help her if she does decide to leave? What can I do, practically, or what advice can I give her? I’m the only person she’s told so far as she’s too embarrassed and ashamed – even though she hasn’t done anything wrong! – to tell anyone else yet so I want to be as much help to her as I can, but having never been through this either myself or by means of helping a friend, I’m floundering and don’t want to inadvertently make things worse for her by saying or doing the wrong thing.

You can do practical things if and when she needs it, but you can't really give her advice. To be the best friend possible, all you can do is be there, listen and support. Keep an eye on her and make sure that she's not shutting everyone out because she'll need to talk.

You sound like a good friend.

Christ your poor friend It’s a tricky position you’re in. If I were you I think I’d do the following:

1. Encourage her to get some counselling
2. Encourage her to look into any benefits/tax credits she would be entitled to if they do split (there are online calculators eg Entitledto or Turn2us)
3. Personally I would be honest and say that I think he’s a shit and she should leave him, but I would also say that I’ll support her whatever she decides

Find her a good solicitor.
Help her makes notes for the appointment as she is likely to get emotional talking it through irl.

Ps hopefully if she does get counselling that will help her to work it out for herself!

Thanks all. Tatty, thank you for reminding me not to try to give her advice. I know one of my faults is wanting to fix things/find solutions and I need to try to rein in that urge to say "what you need to do is..."

Emma I pretty much have already said 3) when she told me; I guess I need to be careful just to stress the "will support her whatever" now.

I promise I am really not making this all about me, but purely selfishly I hope she leaves him because if she stays, I will find it impossible to meet him in any kind of social context knowing what he has done to her but having to pretend it's all fiiiiiiine. Bastard.

Why on earth did he stay with her when he got the other woman pregnant? I wouldn't be able to forgive him for getting me pregnant after that.

How did she find out? Did he tell her?

Honestly, you sound like you are doing good just being there for her. I would direct her to the info on mumsnet. There are loads of threads of women discovering similar and the ways they have planned to leave. Ducks in a row and all that.
Not honestly sure what to say if she decided to stay though. Sorry

It's likely if she does stay with him now she will eventually get strength to ditch her. So just support her through this absolute roller coaster.

Let her know if she does decide to ditch him you are will help her be a single mum and she is alone and you are more than happy to be there for scans & all those special moments.

Problem is, it may not end up her decision to make. What if the OW starts making demands now that she has a baby (I'm assuming she knows he's married)? She may want to play permanent families with him and he may go along with that.

Your friend must get legal advice for whichever way it goes.

I have no idea HollowTalk. I can only assume he thought he could have two cosy little families and get away with it. From what I could piece together from what my friend was saying - understandably, she was a bit all over the place when telling me - I think the affair started about 3/4 months after they married, has carried on for a couple of years and the child was born this spring just gone. I presume unplanned but who the fuck knows? I can't fathom this weasel out.

What disturbs me is that this clearly wasn't just a fling, as he has apparently still been spending time with the OW and the kid every time he works away right up until the very recent past, and the shock (again, I assume) of having got her pregnant last year wasn't enough to bring the affair to an end or even make him do the marginally more decent thing and confess to my friend at the time, or, indeed, leave her if he thought he was truly in love elsewhere. That would have been painful enough, but as Hollow says, it's that knowing he carried on and merrily got my friend pregnant while his OW was close to giving birth to his baby. I can honestly only think he's some kind of sociopath?

That's a good point NannyOgg (completely and inappropriately off topic...my username is from Nanny's spelling of 'banana'). Apparently the OW knows he is married, obviously I don't know if she always knew and didn't care or if he only told her late in the day...either way she has known for some period of time and has still been happy to spread her legs for him even after finding out, so I don't think too highly of her either TBH.

Oh god, your poor friend! Her world will have been turned upside down, the poor love, she will be in shock.

The thing about shock though is that your first priority - to the point of being an irreversible drive - is to keep everything you possibly can as stable as possible, because your brain is wigging out at so much uncertainty. I bet she couldn't even comprehend right now the idea of leaving him, raising the baby alone, separating all the minutiae of their marriage and their life together. It's too big a change all happening too quickly.

From my experience what happens though is that as the shock wears off the reality starts to hit little by little, here and there. The pain starts to grow in you and pushes you to pull back piece by piece from the one who hurt you - much easier than making a huge decision you're not quite ready for. They say you should leave when you're strong, and I fully agree with that, if at all you can.

What I would say to your friend is that the decisions she makes right now need not be her final answer; they're just for right now, to get her through this. What her husband has done is enough for her to leave him today, tomorrow, next month or in ten years time; it will always be enough. Just because she doesn't want to leave today doesn't mean she can't change her mind. I wouldn't hold back from telling her that from the outside the decision is a total given; like, absolutely no question at all from an outside perspective; and that being so you will always be expecting her to tell you she's ready to leave. If she never does, she never does, and nothing will change between you, but FWIW you'll always be waiting for her to tell you she's ready. And when she is, you'll be ready too.

That's a brilliant post by @RatPolyPoly it deserves repeating on many other threads. I think it's very sound advice as to how to handle it at this moment OP.

Is your friend the one who is currently posting on mumsnet about having just discovered her husband has another family?

From my experience what happens though is that as the shock wears off the reality starts to hit little by little, here and there. The pain starts to grow in you and pushes you to pull back piece by piece from the one who hurt you - much easier than making a huge decision you're not quite ready for. They say you should leave when you're strong, and I fully agree with that, if at all you can.

I just thought that this is worth repeating.

I don't think so wrimad, so far as I know my friend isn't a MNer.

Goodness Rat....hands down the Best post I have ever read on MN.

Meant to add, that's fantastic advice Rat and I will say that last thing to her in pretty much those terms when I speak to her later today.