Trying to support friend but it’s hard - cheating

[Anonymous]

Btdt.

You clearly say we are not friends if you are in an affair. If you break up and get therapy we can be friends.

Why are you friends? You need therapy to figure that out and why you can’t create healthy boundaries.

[Anonymous]

It’s not your job to convince her of anything. If she asks your opinion, you can give it, you can decline to talk about it, you can stop being friends - but you can’t make her do anything. Stop trying. Most people need to make their own mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Btdt.

You clearly say we are not friends if you are in an affair. If you break up and get therapy we can be friends.

Why are you friends? You need therapy to figure that out and why you can’t create healthy boundaries.

Wow. Morality police.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe she's texting your larger friend group about this!!! Damn girl, be discreet! How does she not know how bad that makes her look? Bizarre.

Agreed. Very odd.

Some of them don’t know the full truth, she said they are “separated” but that is not the truth at all. They still live together from everything I gather. And she makes it sound like just sex and he helps pay for her stuff but in private she says a lot more than that. So it’s a lot of “yes, sugar baby, get it girl” from people who don’t know the whole story.

Typing it out like that is making me cringe big time. I need to set some boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btdt.

You clearly say we are not friends if you are in an affair. If you break up and get therapy we can be friends.

Why are you friends? You need therapy to figure that out and why you can’t create healthy boundaries.

Wow. Morality police.

Agree with the poster that the friend needs counseling and she should put up clear boundaries in place.
It’s not about being a moral police but rather about a good friend who is not comfortable with friends’ actions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe she's texting your larger friend group about this!!! Damn girl, be discreet! How does she not know how bad that makes her look? Bizarre.

Agreed. Very odd.

I’m sure the married guy would just live to know his name is all over the friend group too. Talk about discretion. That’s what he deserves. Dirt ball

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btdt.

You clearly say we are not friends if you are in an affair. If you break up and get therapy we can be friends.

Why are you friends? You need therapy to figure that out and why you can’t create healthy boundaries.

Wow. Morality police.

Agree with the poster that the friend needs counseling and she should put up clear boundaries in place.
It’s not about being a moral police but rather about a good friend who is not comfortable with friends’ actions.

Clutch those pearls!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btdt.

You clearly say we are not friends if you are in an affair. If you break up and get therapy we can be friends.

Why are you friends? You need therapy to figure that out and why you can’t create healthy boundaries.

Wow. Morality police.

Agree with the poster that the friend needs counseling and she should put up clear boundaries in place.
It’s not about being a moral police but rather about a good friend who is not comfortable with friends’ actions.

+1. Being friends doesn’t mean you have to be complicit in their behavior. Listening to her discuss behavior that OP believes is wrong and offering the friend “support” via passive or active listening is beinga bystander to abuse and makes OP comicit.

I wouldn’t do that, and I, honestly, would feel compelled to end the friendship if she chose to continue seeing the guy.

Just as you can’t make friends do what you want, friends can’t make you stay friends and support them in negative behaviors.

Sometimes the best thing a friend can do is say, “I live you. I think you’re better than this. If you want to end this behavior, I will support you. But, if you’re determined to continue ut, I can’t support it and I can’t continue to see/be friends with you.

[Anonymous]

Why did you rely on this friend so much to help you out? You are presumably a functional adult with a husband. Why did you leverage a single lady who “has had a tough life”? To quote my dad “What did you need her for” that she had to help you out?


Probably because your emotionally healthy friends wouldn’t put up with your nonsense. They had husbands, kids, dogs, lives they didn’t disrupt to come to your rescue.


Did you rely on this friend to the point that she wasn’t able or felt she wasn’t able to find a guy, date, build a healthy relationship? You know her history and emotional state which means you also know her weaknesses. I’m wondering if you may have exploited them way more then you are willing to admit?



I ask because as a married lady, I can’t understand why you’d even entertain the discussion. I’d be worried she’d go after my husband or just be nasty to him or worst yet, accuse him of something he didn’t do.

Look at whether or not you too have mistreated this friend, encourage her to find a guy who is single and then stay away from her until this train wreck ends.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps steer her towards therapy so she can unpack why she is in a relationship with a married man who has disabled children and that will ultimately self-destruct. She needs to examine her motivations with a neutral party and not with you. And I would tell her that, in a nice way, so that she can start to get some help and figure out her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did you rely on this friend so much to help you out? You are presumably a functional adult with a husband. Why did you leverage a single lady who “has had a tough life”? To quote my dad “What did you need her for” that she had to help you out?


Probably because your emotionally healthy friends wouldn’t put up with your nonsense. They had husbands, kids, dogs, lives they didn’t disrupt to come to your rescue.


Did you rely on this friend to the point that she wasn’t able or felt she wasn’t able to find a guy, date, build a healthy relationship? You know her history and emotional state which means you also know her weaknesses. I’m wondering if you may have exploited them way more then you are willing to admit?



I ask because as a married lady, I can’t understand why you’d even entertain the discussion. I’d be worried she’d go after my husband or just be nasty to him or worst yet, accuse him of something he didn’t do.

Look at whether or not you too have mistreated this friend, encourage her to find a guy who is single and then stay away from her until this train wreck ends.

NP. That was an impressive leap without a pole to vault from. 7/10.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps steer her towards therapy so she can unpack why she is in a relationship with a married man who has disabled children and that will ultimately self-destruct. She needs to examine her motivations with a neutral party and not with you. And I would tell her that, in a nice way, so that she can start to get some help and figure out her life.

Best advice entire thread. Plus the suggestion to share with her your thoughts that another PP bolded. People have to walk their own path. That includes you, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He might actually leave his wife. Doesn’t sound like he has much to stay for. Then what? Just cut off the friendship.

As if he's going to upend his life for his emotionally needy affair partner. He's getting what he wants out of the relationship. Nothing is going to change. If op's friend demands more, he'll dump her and move on to the next person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps steer her towards therapy so she can unpack why she is in a relationship with a married man who has disabled children and that will ultimately self-destruct. She needs to examine her motivations with a neutral party and not with you. And I would tell her that, in a nice way, so that she can start to get some help and figure out her life.

+1

I know you are her friend, and not his, but even if he DOES leave his wife and disabled children, he is going to be a pariah in his old social group. So she gets what she wanted (the guy) but also gets an old dude who she somehow needs to find a way to make fit in her social group, since he burned his own relationships down to have the affair. The other possibility is that he doesn't intend to leave his wife, but she kicks him out when she learns of the affair. Now she has a sad sack who never actually meant to be divorced. Fun times.

[Anonymous]

There is a special place in hell for men that abandon their disabled children that their wife carried in her body to being into this earth. You cannot escape reaping what you sow. His day will come, whether anyone you know sees it or not, OP. Your friend should detach from that bad juju ASAP and save herself while she can. She cannot claim being naive oe ignorant if someone loves her enough to tell her the truth in love.