Husband kissed friend

[Berghia]

Sorry this is long.
I have name changed for obvious reasons but this isn't my first post.

Went out for drinks with husband and small group of friends. It's quite late, some have gone home and us remaining few are a bit drunk but not hammered.

Husband goes to bar with friend and they're gone ages. No longer at bar. I find them on dance floor talking so return to other friend and tell him. Something feels off so I go back and catch them as they're about to kiss. Feel like I'm in a soap opera.

I go home alone. Lots of angry phone call conversations with husband who wouldn't stop phoning me. Admitted they were about to kiss but kept saying that they'd not actually done anything. I said that was irrelevant as they would have if I'd not interrupted them. I tell him he needs to tell me now if anything has happened before or if anything did happen. He says no.

We talk a bit when I get home. I'm furious and tell him I'll never forgive him for the double betrayal and putting me in a position of risk in a city centre and having the nightmare of getting home alone when there were no taxis. I tell him I can't ever trust him.

In the morning I'm still angry in shock etc. He then tearfully admits they did in fact kiss.

Later we talk some more, I've calmed a bit and no longer want to move out. I tell him I need space so he stays out of my way, I go for a walk, visit my mum, message friends etc.

He's trying and is contrite and assures me he doesn't want her or for us to break up. We've talked about why he did it etc. I still feel like I'm missing some details but...

So now what do I do. I don't want to leave him but how does one go about moving on and getting past the lies. It's the lying I can't stand and the fact she was my friend. And that I was there. I'm meeting up with some friends this week to chat but I don't know what happens from here. If someone had suggested this would happen to us I'd have laughed. He's never given me reason to mistrust him. He's not perfect and neither am I. Our relationship was good, not perfect but pretty strong. I never imagined this could possibly happen. It's just blown my mind in the worst possible way.

If you made it to the end thanks so much.

This would be a deal breaker for me. He cheated at the first opportunity. What would he be doing if he was going out with the lads once a month? He’s not trustworthy and he’s not really into you. Sorry he’s not. This girl got his juices going so my guess is he’s gone off you but doesn’t want the fall out that comes from ending a relationship and being alone. If he’s truly your bloke he wouldn’t even give this cowbag a second look. He did though. He is an opportunist and that’s it now ruined. He’s fucked it all up. I guarantee you he will do it again. He gets off on the frisk and she’s getting off on your bloke wanting her. Ego. You need to warn all of your female friends she’s on the make and you need to tell her that if she ever is in your vicinity again you’ll rip her head off and what a disgusting vile shit hole she is. Her bloke also needs to be told and all of her family. Why are you not raging over this? He will continue to treat you like second rate meat otherwise

Ohhhhhh at first I was thinking “hmmm if really blind drunk and dancing... It could happen and just be a purely momentary lapse”.

But your update makes it clear it was entirely intentional.

I’d be binning him. Absolutely disrespectful behaviour, bordering on contempt.

And she’s no mate.

And don’t forget you are hearing his side of the story so he is going to put more of the blame on her.

So sorry this has happened to you

She would never be my friend again

I'd have to seriously take time and consider if I want to continue of end my relationship with him
First thought - trust is gone - it's over
Reality - is that what you want , can you forgive ? If so get counselling and seek all help with infidelity support
If not , get gone and put both of them behind you

@Berghia

So they were at the bar, she flirted, kissed his cheek then went to dancefloor. And yes I questioned the sanity of this. They kissed on the dance floor. Talked about how they shouldn't be doing it. Then I turned up just as they were about to kiss again.

Combined with his initial lie about it not happening I wouldn't buy that.

That's not something people do - they don't kiss someone else for the first time right by their spouse.

Saving grace that you have no kids.
Get out of this now.

Oh gosh OP this is mental! I'm so sorry for you

Honestly if I were in your shoes that would be it for me. They'd both be out of my life and he'd be lucky if I didn't rip his balls clean off.

After my ex-husband and I had separated it came out that he'd slept with one of my closest friends during a short break in our relationship before we were engaged. They weren't even technically in the wrong but I've never felt so humiliated and never spoke to either of them again, aside from telling them each exactly what I thought of them. Easier I admit because he and I were already split when I found out, but I'd never have married him had I known beforehand.

A drunken kiss with a stranger on a boys weekend away or stag do? Possibly forgivable in time and with regret shown and efforts made to rebuild trust. A friend? Not. A. Chance.

I didn’t write my post with the intention of seeming a sad little weakling who is finding excuses.
Below that sentence I did state that it is not an excuse, and I don’t find it an excuse.

I posted it to try and help with a scientific understanding. I found being emotional all the time to be counterproductive, to sit in your own pain and thoughts is tiring.
Sometimes, an emotionless, logical viewpoint can be more effective than you may think.
It’s not an excuse, or a way out, and of course choice will forever play a part in it.
I guess the reason for me stating that quote was to give the OP a perspective that his choice making capabilities will (scientifically) have been compromised in some shape or form.

However, like I said, the biggest way to know that is how he acts afterwards.

People make mistakes, I know I’ve done many things I regret and wish I could take back - but you can’t. That’s the painful truth.
I have always respected the saying ‘ it’s not a mistake that defines you, but how you learn from it’.

OP - when I wrote my post, I found that many people who commented with logical advise were the ones who had experience infidelity of varying kind, and the others who have not experience what you are going through will be the ones making easily flippant comments.
I was very much a ‘ I could never be with someone who cheated on me ‘ but until it happens, you truly do not know how you will react.

My advise from someone going through this -
Don’t listen to strangers telling you to leave him. They don’t know him, they don’t know you, and they don’t know your relationship.
Only you truly know whether you can forgive him, and whether the relationship is genuinely worth working towards keeping. It’s a very very hard path to chose, and recruited 110% from both yourself and him to make it work again.
Watch his actions, he will be the only one who will make you decide whether you can forgive him.

Alternatively... the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

From here on in, you're on notice.

OP, this is crap, and I am sorry.

I know all too well the thrill of "we shouldn't be doing this". You can't beat a kiss with a bit of a frisson. (I know it from the other side - I did this more than once while married).

As a PP says, the really big step is the first kiss. It's massive, especially if it has been brewing up for a while. Everything after that (i.e. sex) is very, very easy. The one time I kissed someone illicitly (on a dance floor, curiously), it was because we were so desperate for a long-hinted-at snog that we didn't care if other people saw. In fact, I was quite keen for them to see, because he was my married boss and I enjoyed the power game. So your "friend" may well get a thrill out of similar behaviour.

In your situation, and putting myself into your husband's situation, I would probably cut my losses and end the marriage. As a former cheat, I know that cheats make all kinds of excuses and ridiculous justifications for their behaviour. They also fundamentally don't care that they risk hurting someone else, because their own ego is enjoying the boost. They lie to save their own skin. They give partial information in an attempt to get their partner off their back; they hope you will just leave it if you confess to a relatively minor indiscretion. You might even tell them they are crazy to be accusing you of such things.

If you had children, I might come to a different conclusion. But as you haven't, I wouldn't waste any more time on a man who "quite likes" someone else and can't keep his hands off her in public.

I'm glad that you're seeing RL friends later in the week - they're always good people to talk it through with.

@Bexxe I am another one who's very saddened by your post. Your partner doesn't need to make any excuses, as you are doing his job for him. Alcohol does cause changes to the brain, but it doesn't cause people to cheat unless they are already heading that way. I'd get rid.

I actually would take his sincere apology and remorse on face value. However, I think to just carry on as normal from here will not bring you the peace of mind and inner trust that you need to sustain a good marriage. The fact is he has strayed. He needs to be sure in his mind that he wants to be with you….policing it, micro managing his life, trying to prevent future opportunity etc , won’t nail it. Trust comes from within. Personally I’d do a separation for a couple of months and keep talking and see where matters land.

I think possibly it’s “safe flirting” because it was all a bit obvious/ in public.. She’s miserable and looking for affirmation and your DH had a frisson.
Yes I agree it’s grim and hurtful and I think they both need to know that. Hopefully it’s an error of judgement based on wine and misery.
If it ever happened again he’s out ( and you could make him sweat a bit) but I wouldn’t end it over this.

If my dh did something like this, I couldn’t forgive him, even if I desperately wanted to.
I would be embarrassed that they have obviously been flirting and would assume that others had noticed
I would be furious that he stayed behind rather than come after me.
I would be feel that they were so desperate to kiss that they did so in public knowing that you were there.
I would be angry that alcohol was used as an excuse. No amount of alcohol would make me snog the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The fact that he admitted that he quite liked her suggests that he was paving the way for something to happen.

Cheeky bastard to snog another woman in the same room as you!

I'm sorry, it may well be the first time but it would certainly be the last for me. If you can get by this, that is your choice. I wouldn't - don't necessarily mean I couldn't but that would be the end for me.

I wonder…if you hadn’t witnessed this first hand….would he have actually told you?

@Bexxe

I didn’t write my post with the intention of seeming a sad little weakling who is finding excuses. Below that sentence I did state that it is not an excuse, and I don’t find it an excuse.

I posted it to try and help with a scientific understanding. I found being emotional all the time to be counterproductive, to sit in your own pain and thoughts is tiring.
Sometimes, an emotionless, logical viewpoint can be more effective than you may think.
It’s not an excuse, or a way out, and of course choice will forever play a part in it.
I guess the reason for me stating that quote was to give the OP a perspective that his choice making capabilities will (scientifically) have been compromised in some shape or form.

However, like I said, the biggest way to know that is how he acts afterwards.

People make mistakes, I know I’ve done many things I regret and wish I could take back - but you can’t. That’s the painful truth.
I have always respected the saying ‘ it’s not a mistake that defines you, but how you learn from it’.

OP - when I wrote my post, I found that many people who commented with logical advise were the ones who had experience infidelity of varying kind, and the others who have not experience what you are going through will be the ones making easily flippant comments.
I was very much a ‘ I could never be with someone who cheated on me ‘ but until it happens, you truly do not know how you will react.

My advise from someone going through this -
Don’t listen to strangers telling you to leave him. They don’t know him, they don’t know you, and they don’t know your relationship.
Only you truly know whether you can forgive him, and whether the relationship is genuinely worth working towards keeping. It’s a very very hard path to chose, and recruited 110% from both yourself and him to make it work again.
Watch his actions, he will be the only one who will make you decide whether you can forgive him.

Is this the dude who said he had a sort of outer body experience experience when he had sex with the other woman?

Pretty much everyone on that thread, inc posters who were familiar with your previous threads about him/the relationship advised you to gtfo of there, especially before you fell pregnant again. Personally I eusge I could do some kind of "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" deletion on you to get you away from him, and stop you from wrecking your life with him.

Youve not been together all that long and he's a regular binge drinker who now cheated on.you, and who has very dubious (in fact dangerous) mates (though apparently he's never going to hang out with them again).

You seem utterly determined to polish up a turd and and see it as a diamond.

Everything is apparently so logical and analytical in your approach..... yet you're missing the most basic logic that you could have a relationship (and eventually family) with someone who's not a binge drinker who's cheated on you, if you on details abd heal from your entirely non logical chemical driven attachment.

*If you only detach and heal from ..

Bexxe- saddened by your post.

I probably wouldn’t end my marriage over a ‘drunken kiss’ with a random either but I would if it was my friend and my DH hadn’t told me she’d been flirting with him beforehand as he thought it was disrespectful and to warn me she wasn’t a friend, and if he’d then gone off on his own with her and snogged her not once, but twice, when I was right there in the same place and others could see them too!

My "rule" is, if you can't control yourself when you drink, you shouldn't drink. Being a bit drunk is not an excuse, imo.

I think I'd have a very difficult time forgiving him, and if I did, I'd expect changes. He'd have to drink much less, for one thing, and we'd be talking about what in our relationship and his personal flaws led to that moment. Sadly, I'd probably never really trust him out of my sight again, on nights out with friends. Maybe no more nights out drinking with friends! (Easy for me to say, though, as that's never been my scene.)

As for the "friend" he kissed, I'd tell her what I thought of her and then cut her out of my life completely, even if that meant losing other friends in the group.

@Berghia

So they were at the bar, she flirted, kissed his cheek then went to dancefloor. And yes I questioned the sanity of this. They kissed on the dance floor. Talked about how they shouldn't be doing it. Then I turned up just as they were about to kiss again.

Not a fuckinv chance would I be forgiving this. I wouldn't forgive either of them even if they were just about to kiss and hadn't got the chance, the fact is they wanted to and I you hadn't found them they would have done ot again.

If he’s willing to kiss someone in the same room as you I wonder what he’s doing when your not there? 😬

Dear God, OP, that's a really grim story.

Whether it was a one off or it is an ongoing flirtation, he's clearly got fuck all respect for you. And didn't seem to care that you went off alone to go home.... was he still with her at this stage??

There are always lots of forgiving women on MN, who put up with all sorts of crap for men that they love.......... but I'm sorry, if he loved you, you wouldn't be going through this.

They already had an affair going by the sound of it. I wouldn't be able to forgive my dh without losing all my self respect.
Sorry you're going through this OP