SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Last year my xWW and her AP (a close friend of mine) first confessed in their respective families that they have strong feelings for each other, then proceeded to have an affair in secret. It later turned out that he came to her to confess his feelings and his plan to divorce, and she fell for it. My xWW refused to go through MC, kept saying she wanted a divorce we separated out and initiated the it. The AP kept wishing to move out but never did, and later wished to reconcile with OBW/his wife.

During this many month limbo, I supported the OBW with job loss and other issues, while her husband and my wife were in limerence still. We were close friends before, so this was natural and appreciated.

Now I live alone, have decent coparenting with xWW. The other couple is trying to R.
After a year, I am kinda past the grief of divorce and loss of a friend. I am still friends with his wife the OBW, but that has been difficult. Having seen how badly both I and she were hurt by her husband's infidelity, I cannot relate to her attempts to R. What's confusing for me is whether I should cease contact, even though she has never done me any harm. Anyone with similar experience?

[This message edited by ZDZD at 8:42 PM, Monday, September 5th]

Sorry that you find yourself here and in such a terrible situation where you lost a close friend and your wife over this.

You need to do what is best for you. If staying in touch with the OBS is causing you further grief, angst, pain, then I would suggest that you tell the OBS that you can no longer remain in touch with her and take steps for that to happen.

I think it will be hard to maintain a long term friendship with her if she R.

You have to do what's best for you to heal from the double betrayal. IMO this means going NC with OBS because supporting her and her choices going forward is in a way supporting one of those who betrayed you. I can't see how that wouldn't be toxic to you.

I would keep it cordial with OBW but distant at the same time, that you respect her decision to R but that in an effort to speed up your own healing process that you have decided to keep all interactions with her to a minimum, that is of course if you feel you can handle it, and if a few months pass and you feel you're not advancing fast enough in your own healing journey then simply wish her a happy life and let her know that if her situation changes and her efforts to R fail completely, that only then may she contact you again, it's really up to you.

You informed her about the A yes? And offered a lot of support? Then you owe her nothing further. If staying in touch with her is setting your own healing back, then cut contact. Sounds to me like staying in touch is keeping you inveigled with A-related stuff that you no longer need to be involved with.

I don’t see this being a good thing going forward. Wish her well and let them R.

Affairs create so much mess and hardship. I’m sorry you are in this difficult situation.

I agree with others that this friendship is to messy and entangled to be good or healthy for anyone involved. I would express appreciation and gratitude for the mutual support you provided each other through a terrible experience, wish her the best in her reconciliation, and let her know that you harbor no ill will, but it’s time for the friendship to end.

Perhaps lessening the frequency of contsct might be better than none at all?

It's tough. I ended two friendships in my situation and it still bothers me a bit from time to tjme after many years. I might have done it differently but at the time a clean cut seemed like my best choice.

Send her here. This is a very experience group to give her support.

Hugs to you.

She cheated on you. She wasn’t thinking of you when she was with AP. She didn’t care how you felt, how hurt you were going to be. Your ex friend. Wasn’t your friend. Friends don’t screw there friends wife’s.

Now that her plan fell apart and she has no one She wasn’t to R. So she can find her next lover, NO, cut all ties. Stop the madness. If your friends left his wife those two would be off. Not thinking about you.

Bump!

As the dust begins to settle, we find ourselves remaining good friends with OBS. When going for R earlier this year, she told her WH that she will keep being friends with me regardless of what he thinks. It has been a rollercoaster since then and we almost broke contact a couple of times, but somehow worked our way back. We decided that the extreme selfishness of our spouses does not mean we should lose more than we already have, neither do our kids who are friends too. I am a bit apprehensive of having a shadow of her WH over her shoulder, but the pros outweigh the cons.

We agreed not to talk about our spouses as it is triggering for both, besides that we do whatever we want. So far so good. I'm now a guy with an entangled opposite sex friendship, but hey, we haven't asked for it, we just made it work.

[This message edited by ZDZD at 8:20 AM, Monday, November 7th]

Is your WW opposed to D? She no longer has AP. Did she try to come back to you after her AP dumped her to attempt R with his wife?

Dude67 no she still wants D, it was an exit A. She is a kind of person who cannot decide something and follow through (with D in this case). She needed to mess everything up so that I would take action.

[This message edited by ZDZD at 8:08 AM, Monday, November 7th]

My situation is similar except that the OBS was the victim of a double betrayal more than I was. The situation:

About 20 years ago my WH (we will call him Tom) started working where he works and met the OBS (we will call him Jim), when the OBS-Jim was single. WH-Tom and future OBS-Jim became fast friends. 3 years later I met my future WH and I also hung around with Jim and other work friends of my WH.

6-7 years after I met my WH the future spouse of the OBS/AP for my WH started working at the same place as my WH and future OBS-Jim (we will call her Chastity ). A year after that the AP-Chastity and her future H/the future OBS-Jim started dating and two years later they married. My WH was in their wedding (I did not attend as I had something for work I could not leave). They all continued to work together. **when Future OBS-Jim started dating future AP-Chastity I stopped socializing with Jim for the most part as he tended to do more things as a group of work friends on nights that were work nights for me (their job is a 24/7 no holidays-never closed high-security position so regular hours are not a normal thing) so you could say we knew each other but we were not great friends or anything.

6 months after Jim-Chastity's marriage she started flirting with my WH (I learned this later) and drunkenly threw herself at my WH at a party basically in front of her H-Jim. They had some kind of dispute and she apologized to my WH - so in theory Jim knew about Chastity's attraction and inappropriate behavior towards my WH long before the A happened, and he did not tell me. But again, we were not that close. 2 years after that the A started in earnest. I found out, and still didn't tell Jim for over a year. He had his suspicions but also had not told me. Once I told Jim about the A, he and I spoke for a while and talked about immensely personal things and I would say we were "friends" for a bit outside of the prior friendship we had which was tied to doing thing with my WH, but contact stopped completely like 1.5 years ago.

Now Jim and Chastity are divorced - and they (and my WH) all still work together. Ironically my WH works almost every day with Jim, and they do "talk" in a work-related way. The AP is on opposite schedules from both of them (everyone at work found out so I think both my WH and AP were eager to avoid any contact with each other at work). WH and I are not married but we still "date" kind of - so we are not considering R really but we haven't just walked away.

So in my situation I am likely the OBW you are referring to - still kind of "with" the AP. And as I said, I don't mind him not reaching out anymore. I fully understand - I have empathy for him and I "get it" completely. He never told me he didn't want to talk/be friends anymore - it just kind of happened. I think if you wanted to provide an explanation to the OBW as to why you are going to back off that might be nice...admittedly I am not a fan of being ghosted or otherwise left to guess what the f___ is going on post-infidelity. Tell it to me straight! ;)

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 10:57 PM, Monday, November 7th]

ThisIsSoLonely thanks for your story. Sounds indeed similar, except we have been close friends for years and went through a lot together, so disengaging because our spouses could not keep their pants on didn't feel right, at least not so far.

Now that I am telling my kids (bits of) how their mom and our friend the AP behaved, I let my friend the OBS know so that she could think how to handle this with her kids. Her first reaction was that our kids shouldn't meet. She is happy with her R and does not want kids to know anything.

This forced me to re-evaluate a lot of things. When we were still together, I told my xWW that "you are not only betraying me, but you are betraying my and your friend. I am not ok with this and I cannot continue our family under these circumstances". After a few months she didn't stop, didn't apologise, and I left. My friend the OBS was saying "you are not only betraying me, but you are betraying my and your friend" but when AP decided he did not want to D, she immediately agreed to R and started telling me that "he understood his mistake. It is not cool that he does not apologise to you, but that's the way he is - hiding his head in the sand". He came to apologise 3 months later as I was describing in another thread...

Now with the kids in question, I feel betrayed twice - now, and back when they R-d. Maybe I'm somehow too naive, but how can one R so readily while your husband has hurt your best friend and doesn't want to own it? I don't really mind R, I get it, family is important, cheaters change (and this forum is a testimony to that), but the fact that my spouse hurts my friends, I could not (and did not) accept. How can one cut off kids who did no harm in order to protect someone who did? My conscience would eat me alive, but apparently that's just me.

I know, you told me it would be toxic and you had a point.

[This message edited by ZDZD at 6:19 PM, Friday, December 9th]

People attempt R for many reasons, and some attempt it through aggressive rug-sweeping and denial.
That said, if they don’t want their kids to know, then that is their prerogative. I support that your kids should know the high-level truth and well that just may put you at odds with your OBS friend. I am sorry. You are a good friend and none of this is fair.

Maybe take a step back and put your effort into building new hobbies, friends, etc. She may remain a friend, but in a different sort of friendship. You may find that although you will miss what you had, it might feel good to have a little more space between you and the AP via the OBS.

(And congrats on moving as far forward as you have and getting yourself out of infidelity.)

It looks like the other couple are rug-sweeping. If so, they are not in R; they're just staying together. It's good that you can't wrap your head around rug-sweeping; it is a lousy way to live. You haven't seen R yet.

Perhaps your angst is over a triple betrayal. The best thing to do, I think, is to detach. OBS may be more comfortable that way, and I'm pretty sure you will be, too. You've D'ed because of the A. How comfortable can you be with people who are pretending the A didn't mean much?

If the other couple want your kids to stay separate, I think you need to honor that decision. The kids may find ways around the decision, if they go to the same school, since they spend some hours most days out of sight of their parents.