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I neglected my husband for two years to take care of my best friend and he cheated. How can we fix this?
I can't even fathom how she let this go on so long. It obviously was not helping her friend, and was CLEARLY destroying her marriage. 6 months would feel WAY too long, but YEARS? SEVERAL YEARS?? Does not compute. Makes zero sense.
OP is addicted to the feeling of being needed. I can't imagine the pain her husband has been through.
You don’t love him. Sorry, but none of your actions for years indicate that you love him.
I would go so far as to say you cheated on him first, with your best friend. Maybe not sexually but all your time, energy, devotion, care, and consideration went to her. While your husband was left ALONE.
I do not feel bad for you. There’s no coming back from this.
He's reached indifference. Hard if not impossible to come back from I'm afraid.
My husband and I made eye contact but he didn’t stop and kissed the woman and continued what they were doing.
Not gonna lie, I love this for him. You reap what you sow.
Me too
Your friends condition got worse exactly when you got married. She cannot tolerate you having anyone in your life except her. Every time you make plans with someone else, she has a breakdown.
Can you see what is happening here? She doesn't have depression so much as a fixation on you. She is manipulating you and you are happy to let it happen so you can feed your savior complex. You should get divorced and move in with her so you can both feed each others' worse impulses.
I kinda thought this as well.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. This is a bff problem that she allowed for far too long at the cost of her marriage.
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5d
She cheated on him with her best friend.
Then what's the point you even recognized it and didn't do anything forget it you threw it away
You chose your best friend over your husband for years.
You abandoned your husband and your marriage.
If I were your husband? There wouldn’t be a damned thing you could do except get your things out of my house and sign the divorce papers I’m about to serve you with.
Does anyone else feel a troll in the room?
I sure hope people aren’t truly this dysfunctional
Marry your bestie and let your husband find a real wife. WTF were you thinking and did it ever occur to you that your friend is abusing your friendship.
Your best friend learned that she could count on you to drop everything for her and your husband learned that he couldn't count on you for anything. If your husband miraculously decides to give you another chance, you will have to set very firm boundaries with your best friend and make your husband your number one priority, with no exceptions, even if that means turning off your phone so your friend can't reach you.
This sounds outrageously fake. Could've just had the husband cheat... but you had to add the detail about him making eye contact and continuing.
OK, sure. That totally happened...
Honestly he should divorce you.. not condoning cheating, but in reality you guys haven’t been a married couple for a long time. When you get married your partner is your top priority full stop, you’ve consistently shown him that he isn’t a priority at all. It is to the point he’s completely emotionless and checked out to how you’re feeling anymore. There really isn’t any coming back from that without a significant change in your attitude towards your marriage and your friend, and it would be basically back to square one dating.
Is this real? because it sounds made up AF.
Is this fixable? Esh. You need to cut the friend off. Period. If she is that bad off she needs to be in a facility. It sounds like she knows how to pull your strings. She is using her diagnosis as an excuse.. Id say at the very least go low contact with her. Explain to her that you need to focus on your marriage because quite frankly, its went up in flames.
Did he know you were coming home? Did they sleep together? I have never condoned cheating but this sounds like a cry for help. Also, what did the bartender do when you walked in? The whole story is bizarre.
If you want to fix it, it can only be done through continuous actions of you being there for him. Actually being a wife, which you don't seem to have much experience in. And even then, it might be too far gone.
You can't just ignore people for years at a time and expect them to be there for you. That goes for your friends, partners, fuck, even your parents.
Made even worse because you actively knew what you were doing and kept doing it.
You should just divorce him, and don't make the same mistake in your next relationship.
Right now all you have are meaningless words. Unless you are willing to cut off your best friend and put your husband first there is no way to save your marriage.
Words mean nothing. He told you point blank - you have to be home. Your actions have shown you won’t do everything to save your marriage or else you would have. Your actions have shown you do not love your husband more than anything- your actions have shown you live your best friend more than anything.
Are you willing to cut out your best friend? Are you willing to actually make your husband a priority? Are you actually willing to put your marriage first? Be honest with yourself because there’s no easy fix. You had the opportunity to balance the two relationships and you failed- so the only way forward is to pull back from your friend.
You were cheating on him. It doesn't matter that no sex and no man was involved, you were cheating on him.
Well, you cheated first. Not sexually, of course, but in every other way, yes. You were emotionally enmeshed with this friend, putting her above your husband in every way and in every instance.
I’ll be the asshole here: the real thing he did wrong was not leaving you a long time ago.
You chose your best friend. Actions have shown that quite clearly. Anything else is a lie for you to make yourself feel better about abandoning your husband and marriage. I don’t blame your husband at all and I hope he can find someone that will honor a relationship commitment with him.
Don't say you love him more than anything. That's clearly not true.
I think your marriage is pretty much dead. You should probably focus on what caused you to abandon it in the first place. There is likely more to it than your friend needing help.
If this is real (discovery and eye contact is a bit out of the realm of believability), here's what I want to say:
Your friend is selfish and you're an enabler.
Just let your poor husband go so you can spend your life the way you want to: cleaning up all of your friend's shit.
I find it hard to believe this is real, doubt anyone is this stupid to believe they can neglect their husband to this degree without permanent damage to the relationship. Let this poor man go. Smh.
Also wouldn’t be surprised if your “bff” is making her situation worse on purpose to ruin your relationship, but that’s just me 🤷🏽♀️.
If this is real, and it’s honestly very hard to believe, I wld ask if your so called BFF suffers from a serious personality disorder? Or munchausen’s disease.
Are you in love with your best friend? Be honest
You fucked up. You know you did. Good luck
You're not fixing this and you really shouldn't bother. The bartender has shown him more affection in one night than you have in two years.
I never, ever, support a reason to cheat on your spouse, but even I feel indifferent about this one. What did you expect to happen? You got married and then immediately abandoned him. Your story just got worse and worse for the amount of times you have failed your partner. This isn't a marriage and it never was.
On a whole other note, have you considered your best friend wanted this to happen? Jealousy/affection/something in that direction? I find it odd that the second you got married they had "issues". And every time after you were supposed to be with your spouse, they ended up "needing" you.
Do yourself and your husband a favor and split as peacefully as possible. Let him move on with someone who cares for him and you and your best friend can continue to be with each other.
You are a good friend and terrible wife. That does not make what he did ok. Honestly, why do you want to fix this? Let him go. You clearly don't care enough to actually show up for him and he was gross enough to continue to have sex with another woman in front of you.
He should have just divorced you.
You can’t fix it. Apologize and get divorced. Also, go to therapy to learn to disentangle yourself from your friend. She’d have survived without you.
I’d also like to add that there’s only one type of person that truly cannot survive without one specific person, and that’s pre-viability fetuses. everyone else can survive with love and support from many people. Don’t let this happen to you again.
I’m not a medic. IF this is real, and I do struggle to believe it is, your “friend” may suffer from a very serious but different disorder. Münchausen syndrome. Or a very serious personality disorder. Her symptoms as you have very briefly described are not on the face of it typical of clinical depression. Regardless this has damaged your M, possibly terminally. Or you yourself are not being honest or this is all fake because I cannot on the face of it believe this has been allowed to go so far. You need to make a choice and cut your friend off. Or you will lose your M if you haven’t already. You have a massive amount of work to do. I’m sorry to be so direct but you have subordinated your H to your F.
you already posted this in another account. You neglected him for 2 year. I am not advocating for cheating as that isnt right either.
Yes, it got deleted
Updateme
So sorry.
You are a good friend but a poor wife.
You need to decide your friend or your marriage.
I can’t see how you can correct this unless you seek individual therapy and let your friend’s parents take full responsibility for your friend. This may save your marriage but highly unlikely. Can your husband let go of all the hurt? Probably not but he should also seek counselling for all the damage this has caused him. I just can’t imagine him being in his shoes.
Your husband should had not of cheated but divorced you first, but in this situation I can understand why he did it.
Once again, I will say you are a good friend to have done what done but you have sacrifice your marriage. .
You both need individual therapy and couples therapy- if he even wants to. Otherwise you need to figure out how to part
I’d also like to say- you are all intentioned but you are failing your friend by letting her be codependent on you. I’m sure if her therapist knew everything you’re doing, they would be screaming at you to stop.
If you want to be friends, you need to limit it to one a week, preferably in a public place.
You put someone else in front of your marriage for 2 years. What did you expect? You should have thought that through before you did what you did , you're coming in on the back side of this and asking how to fix it? How are you going to fix 2 years of neglect on your part? Isn't there a some clause in the marriage vows about forsaking all others. Look, I'm sorry your friend had cancer. Maybe even dying but again what was more important? And isn't your husband supposed to be your best friend. You need to reevaluatewhats really important to you because I don't think the marriage was
I can't imagine you can fix this. If after two years you can't put your husband first even on his birthday, I can't believe you would change going forward.
Let him go. Move in with your friend. Think about how much more this friend means to you than your husband. Why is this? Maybe something else there.
I have to say your husband is a good man for even considering giving you a second chance. I feel pretty comfortable saying the vast majority of men would not. Not after putting up with all this nonsense. Helping a friend is one thing but your behavior was way way over the top. Absurd. You got a lot of work to do and I highly recommend you stop “helping” your friend. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm. You did your time and it may have cost you your marriage.
I can’t stand cheaters and I really can’t stand a blind cheater. You have cheated on your husband for years and he finally had enough of your cheating and emotional abuse. I don’t even see what he did as cheating. Let that man go.
You chose your friend over you husband. I would just let him go. This can't be fixed.
I think it’s amazing that you lack awareness enough to think you can “fix this.”
He looked you in the eye while banging another woman in your house. You don’t fix that.
The opposite of love is apathy. Watching you watch him with another woman and not skipping a stroke is the epitome of apathy. Black-belt, hall-of-fame, GOAT apathy.
Move in with your friend. She “needs” you more than your husband does. He knows what he’s worth, and what you’ve lost.
I’m normally very against cheating, but you refused to even participate in the marriage. As far as I’m concerned, he didn’t really cheat because you weren’t even in a relationship with him.
Oh my god, can’t you see how manipulative your “best friend” is? 🤢
I have been in the worst of mental spaces and have never asked half of what your friend asks of you. Shes definitely mentally ill but depression is the least of it unless shes gone through the most horrible tragic and violent event possible there is no reason for you to devote so much of your time to her. You nuked your marriage completely and the most merciful thing you can do is let him go.
Looking your spouse dead in the eye while you have sex with someone else in their own home is a level of contempt, apathy and hatred I can’t comprehend. Why would you want to be with someone that thinks so low of you? Its a little sick on your part. Regardless of how you got there, there is no love in your marriage, it’s gone. IF he wants to work on it you have to show initiative like, yesterday. Not only acknowledge that you were wrong all these years, but you recognize that it is wildly inappropriate to have dedicated that much time to your friend. Admit it was sick, dysfunctional and wrong of her to request that from you and you for granting her that request. Admit your selfishness was a choice. Go to therapy for that, go no contact with your friend for the time being and focus every effort on your husband. If he doesn’t want to fix it, let him go without trouble.
weird how most of the time this sub says cheating is worst than murder and all the sudden this thread people are sympathetic with the cheater, teetering on justifying it.
Is almost like it's not black and white and context matters
yeah, that's true, but often times is you look at the way people talk about cheating here, it is very much black and white to them. I guess it just goes to show you that people don't really know themselves left alone some OP's husband from a story on Reddit
Go to r/AsOneAfterInfidelity for some help with this. While he is the only one of the two of you who conventionally cheated, I think it could be said that you have been having an emotional affair with your friend for close to two years. You have shared time and emotional energy and intimacy with her that are reserved for your partner. You have prioritized her over your partner over and over again. She was your person, in place of your husband. There may have been no sexual content, but the betrayal is the same.
So if I were you I would consider myself a wayward spouse as well, and your husband basically had a revenge affair.
So here is what the two of you have to do.
Implement Radical Honesty and get everything out on the table. How many other times has he cheated on you? Complete transparency is needed if reconciliation is to be possible because you will each need to know what you are having to overcome.
Work on Mutual Amnesty. That doesn't mean sweeping things under the rug. It means not weaponizing each others' misdeeds. It means not beating each other over the head. The reason for this is because festering resentment and scorekeeping will kill reconciliation.
Of course for any of this to work there can be no more third parties in your marriage. His AP has to be cut off. And you will no longer be able to be your friend's "person." At all. Maybe there can be low contact sometime in the distant future. But your husband is not going to be able to handle you spending time with her given your complete inability to set limits.
Got the book Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass and read it together, right now. Get yourself into individual counseling so you can figure out how to handle the savior complex you have. And look for a couples counselor who has been trained by the Gottman Institute. I would go to www.gottman.com and look uo the Four Horsemen and read about what kills marriages.
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So you neglected your Husband, forgot your anniversaries, let your sex life die on the vine, and on top of all that, as your marriage was dying right before your eyes, you STILL kept making your friend a priority instead of him. So how do you fix this?
You don't. You let that poor guy go so he can go find someone who will actually love him.
You screwed up your marriage the second it started, so what's to salvage? Not to mention that he cheated on you, got caught, and didn't even STOP after you saw. He also didn't apologize, meaning he wasn't sorry that he did it or that you caught him. Unfortunately I don't think you're getting him back as he's now completely numb and apathetic to you.
You botched your marriage from the get-go then continued to botch it for the next two years. Hard to build stability on a foundation that doesn't even exist anymore. Start talking about a separation/divorce so he can find someone that won't neglect him. Lastly - the answer to fix this was "tell your friend you can no longer set yourself on fire to keep them warm because your marriage is completely falling apart and you need to go save it," but you disregarded that fix a long time ago, so better to just start over with someone without all this horrible baggage connected to it.