BH - Me, 39, at time of A
WW - 35, at time of A
DDay - July 1st, 2017
EA > PA, Sept 2016>June 2017, PA End of June.
Married 8 years, July 4th, 2009, two kids 3 and 5 at the time of the A.
Shooting for the stars and working hard for R...
Been a while, looking for advice about friends
Hi! It has been a super long time since I've posted, the last one was sometime in the year following my dday. We just went through the 4th anniversary in July, so I am a little more than 4 years removed. Our situation was fucked. I'll give a very short recap first, but I am sure you can find my other posts somewhere here. My wife slept with the janitor at the school we both teach at when I was on sick leave after breaking my neck. I know, pretty, pretty, pretty shitty. That wasn't the hard part. I spent the next year desperate not to lose my marriage and my family (we have two kids, 3 and 5 at the time). Honestly, with no kids I would have gone nuclear. I didn't. I told my fWW's mother, but no one else. There is guilt there, but I did tell the other BS and she chose to believe the lies. We all hear what we want to hear. That's not my problem anymore. Here is what I need help with. My fWW (I hesitate using the former, but I do believe it is in the past and she is committed) has this friend who was filling her with advice after. Stuff like “It’s not a big deal, don’t feel bad”, after I questioned her: “DENY, DENY, DENY”, and it went on. The AP had agreed to stay away while we were at school and he didn’t. furthermore, he actually left condoms, screwdrivers on the desk and messages on the board in my classroom ("There's no such thing as nothing"), so I sent him a message telling him to get the fuck out of the school while we were there. The “friend” sided with the AP, because the relationship wasn’t just him. Not a friend of our marriage or our family as far as I am concerned. The main theme of her messages of support(????) was that the affair wasn’t the problem, the fact I found out was. It was of no help to us, and our relationship didn’t start improving until there was distance created between them. We’ve been doing very well since then. Trust is slowly returning, I do believe her when she says something and if there is any encounter with the AP she tells me. We live in small communities, so there is some infrequent, minimal contact, always initiated by him. So things are going very well with us now, at least as well as I could hope for. Am I wrong to have issues with this friendship? The friend is coming home, and I have categorically refused to have anything to do with her. I am also kind of sick to my stomach about my kids hanging out with her. I am not going to try to control my wife’s friends. She knows I have serious issues with this friendship, and she knows I want nothing to do with it. Am I OK with wanting the kids to stay with me instead of going off with my wife and her friend’s family? She has kids close to my kids' age (they have never really met each other and aren’t friends). Am I being a bit of a douchebag? I don’t really think I am, but I wouldn’t put it past me! It’s weird, but this relationship is the one that bothers me the most. Don’t know why, and neither does the psychiatrist I work with, but it is there.
Honestly, I am not looking for advice on whether to R or D. I’ve pretty well made my decision. I’m looking for advice on this specific issue. If your only advice is to D, save it.
42 comments posted: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021