I (female, 31) have been married to Alex [not real name] (male, 30) for 4 years, together for 6 years prior to marriage. We had a mutual friend from our middle school years. Let’s call him Rob. Although Rob was friends with Alex first, we had been friends since I was 13 and would talk about our relationships and personal lives all the time. When I met Alex, my friendship with Rob got stronger. On many dates with Alex, Rob would tag along and the three of us would have a blast. Rob soon got a girlfriend and she’d also tag along. As time passed, my relationship with Alex flourished and we got married. Rob got married to Iris soon after. Now, Rob would cheat on Iris left and right. (They are now divorced). Alex and I knew but sadly decided not to say anything for it wasn’t our marriage. I now look back and wonder why I was so loyal to Rob but he was like a brother to me. After I married Alex, things changed. All of a sudden the trio was no longer. Rob now wanted to go out only with my husband and would cancel if he knew I’d go too. I confronted him about it and he said I was now “just his friends wife” and it was weird if I tagged along bc i wasn’t one of the guys. That hurt.. As time passed I ended up finding out that my husband cheated on me while I was pregnant with my now two year old son. He went out to a strip club (to my surprise, they’d gone plenty of times behind my back). My husband lied saying he was going to go to sleep and with the grace of God I found out through our security footage that he had lied. (I was out of the county with family). I confronted him and through time and therapy found out that they had gone to strip club that night, paid strippers to drink with them and then proceeded to pay to sleep with them. According to my husband, he went to the bathroom and when he came out, his paid for stripper was gone so nothing actually happened. We went to therapy and I decided to work things out with him. The following months were heavy and one night, in my feels I decided to go into his phone. I saw conversations with Rob where Rob talked about me. He said I was toxic, I was no good for my husband, he should leave me because I wasn’t allowing him to be himself or be free. That hurt.. not only did I see him as a brother but I felt he played a hand in my marriage falling apart. How could someone I call my friend egg on my husband to cheat? How could he talk to my husband about me in that way? My husband simply responded with “nah man it’s not like that” but that was it. This obviously became an argument with my husband Alex. I now understand that Alex’s decision to cheat on me is his own and I can’t blame Rob. But Rob isn’t a friend in my eyes anymore. I still feel so betrayed by his friendship. It has hurt me so much that I’ve had to work on it in therapy. I’ve asked my husband to please distance himself from Rob but he says “what Rob has said or done is not my fault” and he’s right but feel a lack of loyalty from him. He knows how betrayed I feel by Robs friendship. I still cry about it and havnt healed completely. Alex knows this. We have been doing therapy separately and together for a while now and I thought we had been on the right track. But a couple weeks ago I traveled out of the country to visit family. Before leaving, I talked to my husband. I said “go out, hang out with your family and friends while I’m away with our son. But I beg you, please, I don’t want any headaches while I’m away. I don’t want you to tell me Rob came looking for you and y’all are gonna hang out, I’m not healed yet”. My husband told me not to worry. A week later he texted me saying they be hanging out. I was so hurt bc he knows how much Rob has hurt me and he still talks about me. My husband erases his chats with Rob bc he doesn’t want my feelings getting hurt. If the conversation is innocent, then why isn’t it transparent? I appreciate my husband being honest and telling me hes gonna hang out with Rob, but he wasn’t empathetic. He told me to settle it out in therapy if I had healing to do bc he wasn’t doing anything wrong and was not gonna leave his friends for me or stop doing things he liked bc I had an issue with it. I cried so much that day. Where is his respect, empathy and loyalty? I’m his wife and I don’t feel like I’m up to that standard. After much thought, talking it out in therapy, and seeing other pains in my marriage (what I consider emotional abuse) I decide to tell him I want to separate. That was just the last straw for me. He was so angry and accused me of taking him away from his son. He said I didn’t allow us to heal or build a bridge and he shouldn’t be blamed for his friend. Am I the asshole?