How do you deal with friends having affairs?

[Anonymous]

Anon email to the spouse. Then wipe your hands of it.

[Anonymous]

OP, since it's actually VERY clear that you like drama quite a lot, maybe you could tell us what "Lover" did that was so scandalous and embarrassing and witnessed by your kids that proved to you that the affair was happening but does not actually count as proof of the affair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a male and I found my best friend of 20 years, female, was cheating on her DH. I completely cut her out of my life. I didn’t even like her husband. It is trashy behavior and not the type of people I want to associate with,

-1

I strongly disagree with this.
(Flame away!)

I feel a good, authentic friend is one who may not agree with everything a friend may do but would not banish them out of their lives entirely over something they disagreed with - even strongly.

If I had a best friend since say high school or college and they were very loyal to me and were there for me during the good as well as the bad times…..if they were very supportive of me during difficult times and I knew I could count on them for anything….

Well if they confided in me that they were having an affair, would I simply cut them out of my life completely??!
Absolutely not.
While I wouldn’t approve of what they were doing, as their friend I would not sever ties w/them over a bad decision.
I would continue to be their friend, loyal and supportive.
Now if they were abusing their children or had killed someone then that would be a crime and of course I would end my friendship with that person.

However overall I am a very dedicated friend I would like to think. ❤️

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I judge those who are so quick to ostracize others on information received. They can't possibly know the whole story.

But then DCUM is never a good place to get mature opinions on cheating. Apparently it's worse than mass murder. No one ever discusses other forms of spousal betrayal (financial, emotional neglect, various forms of abuse) that may all lead to actual physical cheating on the part of the victim. There may be arrangements between spouses you don't know about.

I don't judge and I try to keep an open mind.

Thank you, this is the same mind frame I am coming from. I don't judge the friend not knowing 100% what's going on, I do judge the "lover" because of things done/said that were traumatic for me and my kids. Hence this person is out of my circle. But my friend needs to know why and I need to discuss this or the toxic buildup will destroy the friendship anyway but in a more painful way.

Does your friend know about the douchey thing her supposed partner did? Could you bring this up in conversation somehow casually?” Like “have you noticed anything off with Joe recently? He did such and so in front of the kids”
She may not know what kind of person he is . She deserves to know

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With any close friend, I would be able to say “listen, people are speculating that you are sleeping with X. You might want to dial back how much you interact with this person. And just so you know, X mooned me while wasted at the last party (or whatever he did), so you might want to consider whether you even want to be friends with X. I have no interest in interacting with X and he won’t be on any invite list I’m in charge of.”

PP here and this is great since it also addressed speculation about an affair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, since it's actually VERY clear that you like drama quite a lot, maybe you could tell us what "Lover" did that was so scandalous and embarrassing and witnessed by your kids that proved to you that the affair was happening but does not actually count as proof of the affair.

She'll never say because it's something really lame and she'll get flamed for having been "traumatized" by it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With any close friend, I would be able to say “listen, people are speculating that you are sleeping with X. You might want to dial back how much you interact with this person. And just so you know, X mooned me while wasted at the last party (or whatever he did), so you might want to consider whether you even want to be friends with X. I have no interest in interacting with X and he won’t be on any invite list I’m in charge of.”

PP here and this is great since it also addressed speculation about an affair.

If I had a good friend and people were whispering behind her back about an affair, I'd tell her, so I agree with the above.

I have an acquaintance about whom people are currently gossiping (not about an affair, but something else), and I know truly the only reason I'd want to tell her is because I don't like her and I'd want her to feel bad that everyone knows about the situation so I'm keeping my mouth shut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a male and I found my best friend of 20 years, female, was cheating on her DH. I completely cut her out of my life. I didn’t even like her husband. It is trashy behavior and not the type of people I want to associate with,

-1

I strongly disagree with this.
(Flame away!)

I feel a good, authentic friend is one who may not agree with everything a friend may do but would not banish them out of their lives entirely over something they disagreed with - even strongly.

If I had a best friend since say high school or college and they were very loyal to me and were there for me during the good as well as the bad times…..if they were very supportive of me during difficult times and I knew I could count on them for anything….

Well if they confided in me that they were having an affair, would I simply cut them out of my life completely??!
Absolutely not.
While I wouldn’t approve of what they were doing, as their friend I would not sever ties w/them over a bad decision.
I would continue to be their friend, loyal and supportive.
Now if they were abusing their children or had killed someone then that would be a crime and of course I would end my friendship with that person.

However overall I am a very dedicated friend I would like to think. ❤️

So you would aid and abet them in deceiving their spouse? How nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a male and I found my best friend of 20 years, female, was cheating on her DH. I completely cut her out of my life. I didn’t even like her husband. It is trashy behavior and not the type of people I want to associate with,

-1

I strongly disagree with this.
(Flame away!)

I feel a good, authentic friend is one who may not agree with everything a friend may do but would not banish them out of their lives entirely over something they disagreed with - even strongly.

If I had a best friend since say high school or college and they were very loyal to me and were there for me during the good as well as the bad times…..if they were very supportive of me during difficult times and I knew I could count on them for anything….

Well if they confided in me that they were having an affair, would I simply cut them out of my life completely??!
Absolutely not.
While I wouldn’t approve of what they were doing, as their friend I would not sever ties w/them over a bad decision.
I would continue to be their friend, loyal and supportive.
Now if they were abusing their children or had killed someone then that would be a crime and of course I would end my friendship with that person.

However overall I am a very dedicated friend I would like to think. ❤️

So you would aid and abet them in deceiving their spouse? How nice.

That is not what PP said at all. Pay attention. Being a good friend to someone who has cheated means telling them what they did was wrong, helping them see how much it can hurt others, helping them extricate themselves from the situation, and giving them the kind of support they need to be the kind of person they want to be. Dropping them will only make them spiral into more self destructive behaviors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a male and I found my best friend of 20 years, female, was cheating on her DH. I completely cut her out of my life. I didn’t even like her husband. It is trashy behavior and not the type of people I want to associate with,

-1

I strongly disagree with this.
(Flame away!)

I feel a good, authentic friend is one who may not agree with everything a friend may do but would not banish them out of their lives entirely over something they disagreed with - even strongly.

If I had a best friend since say high school or college and they were very loyal to me and were there for me during the good as well as the bad times…..if they were very supportive of me during difficult times and I knew I could count on them for anything….

Well if they confided in me that they were having an affair, would I simply cut them out of my life completely??!
Absolutely not.
While I wouldn’t approve of what they were doing, as their friend I would not sever ties w/them over a bad decision.
I would continue to be their friend, loyal and supportive.
Now if they were abusing their children or had killed someone then that would be a crime and of course I would end my friendship with that person.

However overall I am a very dedicated friend I would like to think. ❤️

So you would aid and abet them in deceiving their spouse? How nice.

That is not what PP said at all. Pay attention. Being a good friend to someone who has cheated means telling them what they did was wrong, helping them see how much it can hurt others, helping them extricate themselves from the situation, and giving them the kind of support they need to be the kind of person they want to be. Dropping them will only make them spiral into more self destructive behaviors.

Excuses, excuses. Birds of a feather flock together.

[Anonymous]

When I found out one of my closest friends was having an affair I ended our friendship that day and deleted her from my phone. As I said to DH, "It's as if she died."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I found out one of my closest friends was having an affair I ended our friendship that day and deleted her from my phone. As I said to DH, "It's as if she died."

dramatic much. she's better without you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a male and I found my best friend of 20 years, female, was cheating on her DH. I completely cut her out of my life. I didn’t even like her husband. It is trashy behavior and not the type of people I want to associate with,

-1

I strongly disagree with this.
(Flame away!)

I feel a good, authentic friend is one who may not agree with everything a friend may do but would not banish them out of their lives entirely over something they disagreed with - even strongly.

If I had a best friend since say high school or college and they were very loyal to me and were there for me during the good as well as the bad times…..if they were very supportive of me during difficult times and I knew I could count on them for anything….

Well if they confided in me that they were having an affair, would I simply cut them out of my life completely??!
Absolutely not.
While I wouldn’t approve of what they were doing, as their friend I would not sever ties w/them over a bad decision.
I would continue to be their friend, loyal and supportive.
Now if they were abusing their children or had killed someone then that would be a crime and of course I would end my friendship with that person.

However overall I am a very dedicated friend I would like to think. ❤️

I think it depends on if you can talk to the friend or not, and how they expect you to act. I was the college roommate poster and I couldn’t stand it because it involved my own integrity - having to maintain normal conversations with the cheated on partner when I knew what was going on, talking to the roommate about my discomfort involving me but having her continue the behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I found out one of my closest friends was having an affair I ended our friendship that day and deleted her from my phone. As I said to DH, "It's as if she died."

When I found out one of my closest friends was having an affair, I didn't do anything. She doesn't have kids, and I knew her ex-husband (she since filed for divorce) but we weren't very close. Maybe I'd have felt differently if there had been kids or I'd been close friends with him, but she's my friend and I wouldn't stop being friends with her because she did a bad thing. I've never cheated and I can't imagine doing, but people like the PP are either (1) lying or (2) delusional about their moral high ground.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I found out one of my closest friends was having an affair I ended our friendship that day and deleted her from my phone. As I said to DH, "It's as if she died."

dramatic much. she's better without you.

Says the cheater.