I have a friend S, she has been married for seven years, and she has a very lovely daughter.
Last weekend we had tea together, she told me that her husband had a lover.
An accident, she found this thing, she was very painful, can not accept it. She’s been freaking out these last few days.
So what are your suggestions?
15 comments
As far as I know I haven’t been, so I don’t really know how I’d handle it. I’d probably end the relationship.
That’s not a lot to go on, but the two options that have any hope are 1- He decides to recommit to his wife, and does all of the work necessary(therapy, counseling, accepting and respecting the boundaries she places on him) to make things right, with an understanding that it could take years, and that things will never go back to how they were, before. Or 2- They separate.
Obviously, having a kid in the mix complicates everything. And there are other options, too, but I wouldn’t expect them to be any good, especially for your friend.
I haven’t been as far as I know, but I have a zero tolerance policy for that. I don’t care what her reasoning is. You cheat on me, we’re done. Out of my life forever.
Freaking out is 100% normal. Your support will help so much and she’s lucky to have a close friend who cares about her.
What should she do?
Really hard to say without more info. Like is the husband just selfish and/or deceitful person in general? Had they had any problems in their relationship? Aside from their child, is there anything significant value to the relationship to salvage? Is S a selfless person? What is their relationship based on?
I think regardless chances are and most people will agree she’s within her rights to end the relationship. He could be confronted and promise not to again, but my thought is generally that with the trust broken that it would be better to seek someone else. On the very unorthodox side, there are some couples that get into this situation, and end up opening the relationship and committing to honesty in the future (I could have been up for that with my ex in a parallel universe).
My cheating story:
My first serious GF cheated on me after we’d been together almost 7 years. She admitted it after I confronted her. The irony was that I would have been fine with her sleeping with other partners if she had simply been honest with me about it. That said we were not actually right for each other long term, and she knew it. She also knew me better than I knew myself at the time, that nothing short of that would give me the conviction to dump her, and that if I wasn’t the one to end the relationship it would have probably scarred me for life. So I don’t really blame her for it in retrospect now some 19 years later, but I was devastated at the time – greatest heartache of my life b/c I was extremely devoted. I would probably never have cheated anyway, but absolutely could never bring myself to risk that kind of suffering for anyone I remotely cared about since.
It says they won’t tolerate it until they actually go through it themselves. Life isn’t as simple as people claim it is sometimes. If your spouse of 7 years cheats on you and you have a house, kids, and an entire life with that person are you going to throw it away because they slept with somebody? Probably not.
And that’s why marriage counseling and infidelity recovery is such a booming business. It happens way more than people think it does.
if it’s in his character, there is nothing she can do but either accept it or leave him.
If it was in a weak moment of his life, stupid mistake that he is truly sorry about then maybe give him a chance?
I believe I have been, though no confirmation. If I had definitive proof, no they would not get a second chance. There might be mitigating factors, like it only happening once and them being super drunk, but even then probably not. The trust would be shattered, how could I ever trust them again, especially if it was a long-term lover?
Watch the TEDTalk video on YouTube by therapist Esther Perel, “Rethinking Infidelity” (21 minutes). Perel counsels couples where one has cheated. How common is it for TEDTalk audiences to give standing ovations? I guess then read Perel’s books, such as Mating in captivity. This lecture is so insightful and so entertaining, I must have 10 times, and I’ve never been cheated on, nor do I presently have a gf.
Hotshot author Jhumpa Lahiri wrote a brilliant short story about infidelity in her debut book, a short story collection in 1998 or 1999. The story is titled, “Sexy”.
Once cheater is always a cheater
I(m28) was cheated on by the only woman I’ll ever actually love but I’ll never give her a second chance, even if you do truly forgive them and don’t harbor any resentment they are always capable of doing it again because they didn’t give a fuck to start, no matter how much it hurts it’s better than the doubt and it’ll only hurt once
Well in a relationship it takes the two partners to work and repair a wrongdoing. If she’s the only one to cope with that, and the husband doesn’t make the same amount of efforts (or more, since he’s the one who f-ed up), it won’t work. It’s hard and tedious and takes time to heal. So she has to think if it’s worth or not.
I did. Do you wanna guess what happened when I gave her a second chance?….
Talking. Everything can be solved by talking.
No and no
I’d divorce immediately or possibly stay together for the kid like some people do for some reason while finding better partners for myself
I haven’t been cheated on, but I have been used by someone else to cheat with.. it wouldn’t be fair to me to not concider a second chance under the right circumstances. Cheating is never justified, but some cheating is more wrong that other, in my opinion.