SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Have you ever just had that ONE person... The one that was your absolute best friend? The one that no matter what you looked like or what you did, loved you for you? The one you were comfortable sharing absolutely anything with? The one you experienced most of your first's with? The one that when something whether it be good or bad happens to you... their still the first person you'd like to share it with? And if so... Did you ever have that again?

Some of the best advice I've ever heard... was to be best friends first and build a long lasting relationship from that. I truly believe this to be true.

Just wondering if there are any others that feel or have felt this way..

Really tough to answer this.

I have multiple go to people like this, my sister, my best friend since grade school, and presently my SO.

I don't think there is only one person out there who can love and support you. Collect as many as you can, just keep it to one non-related opposite sex person at a time, and you will be golden.

Some of the best advice I've ever heard... was to be best friends first and build a long lasting relationship from that. I truly believe this to be true.

Yeah, this was my XH. We were bffs for like ten years before we started dating. Deciding to marry him was one of the easiest decisions I have ever made in my life.

Amazonia - I have not read your story but how is your relationship now? Do you remain friends??

I also had that with XWH. We were best friends, and since he didn't have any other friends, I was his only friend. We had the same interests and spent every weekend together pursuing our hobbies.

Are we still friends?

no.

To clarify, since you don't know my story and it's not in my profile: I gave up a really great career for him, moved a significant distance, and basically started my entire life over for him, because as I said, deciding to marry him was such as easy decision. I thought we were perfect, and I thought that marrying one of my best and oldest friends was perfect. He knew me, he knew what I'd lived through, we shared values and wanted the same kind of life, there were no red or yellow flags at all.

We were separated within six months and divorced within the year, after I found out he got himself a girlfriend three months into our marriage, and that he was pursuing bisexual tendencies that he had hidden from myself and everyone else in his life. I'm a huge advocate for the lgbt community, and if he'd told me while we were friends that he thought he might be gay or bisexual, I would have been his biggest champion. Instead he lied and used me as a cover so he could go sneaking around without being suspected.

Those last few months his lies started to crack and I learned that this charming, successful, intelligent, self assured, confident friend of all those years was really a confused, defensive, self absorbed mamas boy who was looking for someone to fix his problems so he wouldn't have to take ownership or or responsibility for anything in his a life. Major FOO issues, a ridiculous web of lies throughout every aspect of his life, and a gaping hole where his self identity should have been, which he routinely tries to fill with the identity of strong women, myself being one of them.

He and OW, I am told, are still together. After he walked out on dday, I have heard from him exactly four times: once when I threatened to get rid of his belongings if he didn't tell me what his plan was to remove them from my home, once to confirm he had filed the taxes I sent him, once when he came to the house to actually get his stuff (at which time he stayed outside and my friends brought everything out to him, and I stayed inside, so we never actually spoke), and once regarding some items that were left behind.

He never apologized or showed any sort of remorse for using and screwing me over when I sacrificed so much for him, or for his actions. He told our friends that I wasn't what he thought I would be after we got married, he was disappointed that I expected him to help out around the house (quite literally just taking out the trash) and that I took a job with a nonprofit, when he thought I had higher earning potential, because his plan was to take a year off work after he finished his MA, because he wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail, and he needed someone to fund it.

No, I should say we are not friends.

[This message edited by Amazonia at 7:50 PM, January 10th (Friday)]

Yeah, that was my ex. For some reason, she thought we would continue to be best friends after she did what she did. Seriously delusional.

I don't believe in just "the one" person being able to fill a best friend role but I most certainly believed xwh was my best friend and experienced most of my firsts with him and thought we had something very special and rare. I thought he felt all those things for me for sure and I loved him so very much. (Which want to make me barf now that I know who he truly is)

We grew up together and I believed we had a very strong friendship and foundation build on years and years of friendship (decades)! He turned out to be a fraud. An incredible actor and liar. Never felt the slightest bit of loyalty or love or any emotion towards me. He faked it amazingly well though. (He's not capable of emotion but have learned how to fake it very convincingly) The hardest part for me in all of this was accepting who xwh really was as apposed to who he portrayed to be. It got easier to see all the red flags and loopholes once my eyes opened though and then you wonder how you ever missed it! (He is just as good at gaslighting or explaining away anything to make it seem totally innocent or as if he did it out of love or something ) I was the one person who was always there for him (even through his awful upbringing.) I know he was shaped due to significant trauma in his childhood. He never stood a chance of being "normal" but he got incredibly good at acting it. It's all such a waste, such a sad waste.

I still miss the man I thought he was, it's like he died and someone else took over in his body but it's worse: he never really existed. He used and manipulated and lied to me through all the significant events in our lives. We went through so much together. I can't begin to explain all the history. There isn't one time in my memory that he wasn't part of my life or I of his. Some days I still need to pinch myself when I think back and I realize again that all the pain and hurt has been caused by him, my "friend". It angers and saddens me. I feel so incredibly ignorant and stupid too when I think of it.

I remember after dday the hardest for me was that he was always the one I would go to when I was hurt or life got hard, he was my soft place to land but this time he was actually the one causing all the hurt. That took a while to process and the pain of it, that it was him (of all people) who did this to me is indescribable. After all we've been through. It's scary and in the end it shows how he has no capability of emotion or real connection. He fakes brilliantly but his heart is black. All he does has a self serving quality. I have always been insignificant to him, just a means to an end. That hurt so so so very much since he was my everything for so very long. Now I can't believe that I was fooled, that I was so invested in such a monster. (He has significantly bad personality disorders and perversions)

These people are pure evil. No conscience, no care in the world what damage they do. They won't stop at anything. The things my xwh has done makes my skin crawl (would make anyone's skin crawl). It took me a while to catch up to who he really is but now that I have there's no way I'll ever be so blind again. I am embarrassed and horrified that I ever loved him so much. Shared so much with him.

And yes he also STILL asks me if we can't just be friends again.

[This message edited by BrokenDaisy at 9:40 PM, January 10th (Friday)]