This is maybe an odd one as it's not my problem, rather I'm looking for good advice to give my friend.
Long story short is she's had a long term partner for five years, they bought a house together last March or so. Evidently the stress of buying and moving caused a strain in their relationship that caused her to have second thoughts and ended up cheating - over the course of the last nine months or so, three separate guys.
The first was apparently a little romantic but mostly sex, the second was a drunken shag in some nightclub toilets, and the third, she has told me she's fallen in love with, and the feeling is mutual. They have essentially been seeing each other since August, sleeping with each other but also essentially acting like a couple whenever they have the opportunity. He is aware she has a partner.
Obviously this has led to a few arguments with the 'other man', and her partner has grown quite suspicious of her constant communication and meeting up with him - the affair bloke is her colleague and she tells her partner they are simply friends, but he suspects otherwise to the point of checking her phone. He didn't end up finding anything, but the 'friend' is still a sore subject.
Over Christmas she has told me she's ended it with the other man, but still loves him deeply and of course has hurt him too and feels awful about this - I'm not sure what this bloke was expecting to happen, but she did tell me she has had discussions with him about "thinking about" leaving her partner for him in the past.
To be honest, I'm pretty fucking appalled at the way she's gone on, but she's a close friend and this all seems quite uncharacteristic of her so I'm doing my best to give good advice, but as someone who has never even considered cheating (I'm no saint, it's more to do with me being too clingy than anything else), it's quite hard to get a good perspective on this one. I've told her I will happily give her advice but I need to think about it a bit.
Personally, I don't believe she should stay with her partner, or at the very least tell him (though from what I know of him this would likely guarantee the end of the relationship) They are at the stage of talking about marriage and kids, and I can't imagine anyone could spend the rest of their lives with someone hiding just how awfully they'd betrayed them in the past.
I don't necessarily think leaving for the other bloke is a very good idea either, but I'm not sure. She has said she has 'never felt this way about anyone', including her partner, but she is clearly very confused about what she wants and perhaps she is simply idealizing a perfect relationship in this other man. It's presumably quite easy to have only good parts of a relationship in that scenario, but at the same time, she clearly does have very strong feelings for that bloke - I could tell how devastated she was when she broke it off.
I don't know, I'm a romantic at heart and I'm starting to think she might just be a cunt, but she is a dear friend and is struggling quite a bit with her own mental health and family issues at the same time.
I just don't know what I'm supposed to tell her. "follow your heart" or "don't throw away five years of your life despite you sort of already doing that" don't seem to cut it.
I hope you lot have some opinions. Admittedly its all a bit juicy, but maybe an objective opinion (that I will unashamedly present as my own) could help.
She needs to tell her partner and end the relationship. What the fuck.
She can try with the other bloke if she wants, maybe it will work after all but frankly I don't give it much hope. It's obviously a very toxic way to start a relationship, he will always wonder if he's next and she'll know her partner is unscrupulous about getting his end wet and she probably has deeper issues driving this behaviour. Either way her partner absolutely deserves to know and the longer this goes on the more it will hurt the both of them. Tell her to stop being a coward and get it over with.
>I'm looking for good advice to give my friend
The point of anonymous imageboard is you don't need to use the Dangerous Dave routine, lassm8.
She can dress it up however she wants, but it sounds like a classic case of monkey branching. Maybe she never intended for her current relationship to get as serious as it has and she's looking to back out now that marriage and kids add the next step, maybe she's one of those people who need the rush from adrenalised love. Who knows? It doesn't really matter what the justification is.
My tip top tip to you would be to stay clear of offering her any advice at all, as the more you get involved in that the more she could end up resenting you once it blows up in her face and she needs an outlet for her frustration (as there's a reasonable chance she would deflect and look to externalise). However, that may not be a bad thing as I would be reconsidering my friendship with her; the company you keep is a reflection on you as a person.
Chances are she won't tell him as she doesn't want to be alone. The lad deserves to know.
>My tip top tip to you would be to stay clear of offering her any advice at all, as the more you get involved in that the more she could end up resenting you once it blows up in her face and she needs an outlet for her frustration
I am reluctantly seconding this point.
It sounds like your friend simply isn't equipped to handle a long-term relationship right now, whether with her current partner or the other man. One affair might be an accident, but three is clearly a habit. Maybe the new bloke really is a big upgrade, but it seems much more likely to me that she's got commitment issues and she's unconsciously sabotaging the relationship out of fear of settling down. Either way, there's no happy ending to this story, at least not in the short term.
I think the only useful advice would be something along the lines of "you need to take a step back, spend some time on your own and figure out what you actually want from life, because no relationship is going to save you", but I don't think that would be particularly well-received.
>However, that may not be a bad thing as I would be reconsidering my friendship with her; the company you keep is a reflection on you as a person.
I'm starting to think this way too. It seems uncharacteristic of her, but the more I hear the more it feels like a "but they always seemed so nice!" type situation. If she's willing to lie so brutally to 'the love of her life' as she calls him, who knows what she'd do to friends if the opportunity arose.
>Chances are she won't tell him as she doesn't want to be alone. The lad deserves to know.
This is basically the only thing I feel like telling her - he should know. But you're right, she absolutely will not tell him. It might be worth risking the friendship to say something like "you've already fucked the relationship, if you actually care about him you'll tell him", but probably in a more tactful way.
>Maybe the new bloke really is a big upgrade, but it seems much more likely to me that she's got commitment issues and she's unconsciously sabotaging the relationship out of fear of settling down.
The funny thing is she said that the other bloke is really quite similar to her partner, in personality and interests. So maybe she's looking for an "easier" version of what she already has. And for the commitment issues, I'm not sure - she is big on family, she seems to genuinely view her partner as her future, and wants the kids and all that bollocks.
In fact, something I forgot to mention is that she has apparently talked about that sort of thing with the bit on the side. She was on about how they had talked about how many kids they wanted, where he would propose to her and all that. Very strange, really. I don't see anyone coming out happy out of this, except maybe the bloke she shagged in the bogs.
>I think the only useful advice would be something along the lines of "you need to take a step back, spend some time on your own and figure out what you actually want from life, because no relationship is going to save you", but I don't think that would be particularly well-received.
The only real thing I've said to her so far is that she needs to figure out what has compelled her to cheat, but I'm begging to suspect she simply won't look inwardly enough.
I think you've all basically said the same thing, the best advice you could possibly give is "you've fucked it - now break your partners heart and go figure out why you did it". I also suspect her partner will find out even if she doesn't tell him. If he's already snooping though her phone, or because where she works is ludicrously gossip heavy, and people already know what she's been up to there.
>>32795 >I'm starting to think this way too. It seems uncharacteristic of her, but the more I hear the more it feels like a "but they always seemed so nice!" type situation. If she's willing to lie so brutally to 'the love of her life' as she calls him, who knows what she'd do to friends if the opportunity arose.
It's not just that. Imagine you had a girlfriend and she knew one of her friends was cheating but did nothing about it, which arguably could be seen as tacitly condoning it. Would you think less of your girlfriend as a result of this? Would you potentially re-evaluate your relationship? Would this make you feel your girlfriend was more likely to cheat herself?
It's not about how your friend will treat you, it's about how everyone else could perceive you if it comes out you know.
I think really all you can do is be plain to her and say you think she owes the boyfriend an explanation, tell her how you feel about your future friendship if she continues down this path, and hope she takes the opportunity to do the right thing.
I might be sentimental here, but I feel like if you want to be a truly good friend you'd tell her straight that the way she's acting is unacceptable, even if it means causing conflict between you. You're not the one putting the friendship in jeopardy, and if you didn't speak up you'd essentially just be responsible by proxy of standing by and letting her be a dickhead. Beyond that though, like other lads have said, I'd keep out of it; it's really between her and her boyfriend, all you can do is give her the perspective.
If my experience is anything to go by she's probably got all her other mates telling her to her face "oh no you haven't done anything wrong it's not your fault!" but then turning around and between themselves, saying "christ can you believe her? What a slaaaag!" You can at least be the mate who gives her an honest opinion.
I have a friend just like this one. I have been bollocked here in the past for the amount of kindness I show her, so
>>32797 >she's probably got all her other mates telling her to her face "oh no you haven't done anything wrong it's not your fault!"
is almost guaranteed to be right. My friend has mental health issues too. She cheated on her ex-husband a huge amount, but this was before I knew her. Anyway, I agree with everyone who has already posted here, but: was she noticeably happier with the guy she was cheating with? My friend has found someone she seems to genuinely like, and we can all tell when we speak to her that she's visibly happier than she used to be.
So if your friend's eyes lit up when she told you about the new guy, and she didn't want to do things with you because she wanted to do them with him, and you can feel the happiness radiating off her that you've never seen before, then maybe she should ditch her current cuckold and get with the good guy. My friend has been with her new boyfriend for nearly a year and she's still delighted with him, and hasn't cheated at all. If your friend doesn't radiate sunlight whenever she mentions him, then yes, I suspect she's just got the mental health problems that will make her sabotage her own life. My friend used to do that too, and probably will again.
Romance tends to show people's true colours. Last year a relative got caught having an affair for the last 4 years, still denies it despite much evidence etc. Naturally, hits his wife, and then the divorce fucks him over. All I really said was "you got caught and a divorce can fuck you over, so try and be diplomatic", yet that meant I 'had taken her side' and was 'interfering'.
In your case it's worse because a woman* is far less likely to take responsibility. She just wants you to tell her she isn't doing anything wrong and she likes the drama. It'd be an idea to stop shagging people and get her head straight first. There's probably a way out without her admitting what she's done, but it's a case of short term pain for long term gain (she's currently the opposite).
*While >>32792 is right about what she 'needs' to do, realistically women won't do that because mysterious forces (a beta trapping her with a house). Women are allowed to be cowards. Telling the guy seems noble, but you're liable to become the victim (a couple will side against the outsider).
>If my experience is anything to go by she's probably got all her other mates telling her to her face "oh no you haven't done anything wrong it's not your fault!"
This is probably true, though I think she herself isn't particularly thinking this way. She said she knows she's a bad person, which I couldn't really argue with, so I just said that it's complicated.
>So if your friend's eyes lit up when she told you about the new guy, and she didn't want to do things with you because she wanted to do them with him, and you can feel the happiness radiating off her that you've never seen before
This is pretty much it. She was grinning like an idiot when she was telling me they were talking about their future and so on, and seemed really rather devastated when she said she'd put an end to it for the sake of her partner.
I'm starting to think that she knows she wants to leave for the other bloke, but simply doesn't have the courage to do it, so is consciously settling. She did say she couldn't lose her partner because she loves him too, but honestly, how do you cheat with such frequency and intensity if that's true?
I think I can be pretty honest with her without losing the friendship, but frankly if that happens it'll be on her anyway. I don't think there's much I can do other than get her to realise she needs to look at the core of the problem, and she needs a professional for that.
The whole thing is so messy and despite it being her fault entirely, it's still caused her a lot of pain, clearly. It's occupied my mind enough to make this thread, I think about it quite a lot. It all just seems so bleak.
It's something I've seen a lot in women over the years, they shy away from tough decisions and try to have it both ways. Unfortunately despite all the equality and so on, society in general still excuses women for a lot of things that we really shouldn't, because we treat them more like children who don't know what they are doing. We collectively allow them to act like cowards in this kind of situation by not holding them to better standards.
>I'm starting to think that she knows she wants to leave for the other bloke, but simply doesn't have the courage to do it, so is consciously settling.
That's precisely it. It won't end well, and she probably knows that too, deep down. She knows ultimately she will still feel unsatisfied and stray away again, but whether consciously or not, she thinks there's some small chance she will be able to have her cake and eat it.
A man generally wouldn't deceive themselves like that, because life teaches a man the hard way that you simply cannot have both- When a man is behaving this way he knows he's living on borrowed time. But for a woman, people will have let them off the hook just enough times and come to their rescue just enough times, that somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks it might happen here too.
