would you think differently about a friend if you found out they had been having an affair for 5 yrs with their friends dh

[brimfull]

tis very weird feeling

I feel quite cheated as well

No, that's true. They would seem different, because your view of them changes, not that they actually change of course.

i don;t pretend anything of the sort.

having seen the devastation wrought by affairs, i choose to take the path of ' i would not trust someone the same way once i knew they had cheated on their H for 5 years'

i am fully aware affairs happen, for all sorts of reasons. but i reserve my right to feel outraged/ cross at the person having the affair.

But it wouldn't change for me to 'you are now a bad person' more 'oh, you're capable of that then?'

I tend to think people aren't just one thing or another. They're usually a complex blend of both.

Outrage is so pointless though, isn't it?

oh fgs

my emotions and what i choose to express at horrible news is as valid as a blasé shrug or 'oh well'

we don't all react the same

i would find it impossible to be anyhthing other than outraged, even for a fleeting moment.. at the news of a 5 year affair. that outrage could well give way to a lot of other different emotions, opinions and feelings

am offski

and taking my moral outrage with me

No we don't all react the same. But not judging someone within an inch of their lives and branding them a liar and dishonest and untrustworthy as a friend because they had an adulterous relationship for five years- isn't the same as a blase shrug of the shoulders.

It's not really supposed to be about how valid your feelings are. Sorry it got onto that.

It may not make them a bad person, but the behaviour is definitely bad, if that makes sense.

People here are going to have strong reactions based on personal experience (me included) but if this were my RL best friend, I couldn't turn my back on her for this.

What's immature is being nasty enough to be with your friend's husband. Let me guess, she fell in love and can't help it blah blah blah. Really vile

Well this is an interesting one. i am a very loyal and honest person and married now 3 years. i am best friends with a lovely woman who is married with kids like me. my lovely honeest hubby starting a terrible conversation that started I love you but dont adore you or dont have you on a pedestal anymore and im not sure i want to be married or single. you dont have enough sex with me etc etc and you are cold etc etc. my stomach fell as i had no idea he felt this way and blamed me so for all of his feelings. i may add i love him and adore him and want to live with him till i die. then i told my friend and she told me he had told her 2 years ago that he loved 2 woman and he bonded with her etc. also on facebook has sent her lots of sexual chats. she said she told him she was not interested etc. he does not want to divorce me but ive kicked him out of my bed. not sure what to do. did ask him. he admitted to being inappropriate but would never have done anything. he is away for a few weeks working so i am using this time to get strong and decide what to do. he hasnt technically had an affair but yet i feel he has just not a physical one. a mental one is much worse i think. what would ye do with this one. i love him but feel betrayed. want to trust him but dont - but it is very raw only one week gone by. it was strange to hear i was a cold fish as im am very loving to everyone and the only time i said no to sex was when i was ill or he made me cross. im annoyed he lblamed me for his thoughts when i did nothing wrong but yet he mentally was doing something wrong. i dont want to divorce as ive kids young and i love him just as much. mad crazy unable to think

And I have turned my back on someone for doing this. She was made homeless, a friend took her in and next thing she was shagging the father of her friends child. As if anyone wants a friend capable of that

Yes, it's like talking to small children isn't it? I'm not attacking YOU, but your behaviour

If I liked her, and she was a friend, I'd adjust my view to accommodate this new information, and I might be shocked, but I wouldn't brandish her a scarlet woman and a ne'er do well and a BAD PERSON.

No junglist, what's immature is thinking that life runs along very simple, black and white lines and that there are RULES and only good people stick to the rules, and those who fall outside the rules are bad and wrong and should be judged. That's immature.

I think I would find it hard to feel the same way about a close friend if I found that her view of friendship was such that she was prepared to betray another friend so cruelly. It isn't that I would be judging her for the infidelity so much as for what her actions said about how she valued her friendships.

yuk snowowl. That is horrid, am very sorry about it. He doesn't sound like he wants the same things as you though?

Ok you stick with your standards then. Good people do that to their friends. Ok.

I just don't think it's a question of goodness, that's all. Good people do stupid, damaging, unkind things. Quite a lot of the time.

I would feel differently. I wouldn't be able to help it. Something sort of like this happened to friends once and I felt cheated too, in a way because we had all been involved in palling about together (a group of friends) with this secret affair hidden from us.

With hindsight, I realise that this was other people's private lives and it didn't really affect me. But I couldn't help it affecting me at the time.

oh god, I'd keep out of it as much as poss, especially talking to the bloke who you don't know as well. (Am cathcing up)

By MorrisZapp Mon 18-Jan-10 16:33:00
Do people who have affairs generally lie about other things too, though? Really?

I don't know about 'generally', but my mother had a 3 year affair with my Dad's best friend and then said "my children are the most important thing in the world to me" before leaving my Dad, me and my sis and bro (we were 12, 10, 4) and walking into the sunset with OM.

After that we saw her when it suited her - including her moving abroad and only seeing us when it suited her - to the extent of her coming to out hometown and seeing our Gran and not telling us she was in town.

As far as I am concerned, if you lie about an affair, you can lie about anything.

I broke of contact with my mother when she said to me "I Never Tell Lies"

Yeah? Like the 3 tears you lied to my Dad? Like the 4 years after that that you came to see my Gran and never ever contacted me? Like the time you said you had "come to help" and then wen thoem when I was admitted to hospital woth severe pg complications and my dh needed help.

I don't trust a word she says. I haven't trusted her for 4 years. I will never talk to her until she makes an attempt at reconcilation.. and I don't hold out any hope of that!

Yese - you are right it doesnt sound like he wants the same things.
should i accept that in life everyone is differeent and that i just need to realise he is not thinking in the same way i do and that in the future he may try again to be unfaithful. leaving him is so final and i think that i would be in the worng but he has said he does not want a divorce and loves me but just does not feel the same way about me as when we both met. kinda silly as 2 kids later tiredness will occur and changes occur. but i nevere thought they were extreme. maybe some men just think that nothing changes and that their needs come first before eeveryone else. in our household kids and then husband and then me come as priorities.

wow, only on mumsnet would it be deemed immature to think affairs are wrong and someone might be behaving badly to have an affair and lie to their partner for 5 years.

i am staggered

truly.

wasn't going to come back to this, but this has truly shocked me as a mindset

that it is immature to see some things are morally repugnant and be black and white about things like infidelity, lying, deceiveing...

Pointy is right, that is it - do you think ggirl? You felt deceived too.

I think that like lots have said, it depends. I can think of other things that would be revealed and would make me dislike another person - adultery just isn't one of them. Actually I tend to like people more when they show their flaws for some reason.

snowowl - it doesn't sound like a recipe for happiness or even 'good enough' though does it? Maybe start a new thread, and people can talk to you about it. You will get lots of good advice.

snowowl, depends if you can put up with a relationship on that basis or not. It might be worth you starting a separate thread and then we can support you on there, without it getting tangled up in this bunfight

Well Lulu. I just think the world is grey, not black and white. That's all. I think the MN majority are with you on the morally repugnant bad friend judgement though.