Fake names to hide their identity
My best friend (Tina 30F) just found out her husband (Pete 32 M) is cheating on her with a woman (Jolene 50+ F) that he met on deployment. Tina and Pete have been married for 8+ years with 2 kids. Pete was sent on a solo 6 month deployment in Kuwait which ended in December 2023.
Tina and Pete had been discussing expanding their family for a while, but after returning home they decided to move forward and begin trying. Pete even stated that they needed 2 more children before calling the family complete. They were successful and she became pregnant quickly. The day Tina found out she was pregnant (beginning of March) she found texts on Pete’s phone daily from Jolene. Tina confronted Pete and he said they were just friends and he would never be attracted to her even bringing up her age, but he could see how the texts could be viewed that way. He stated that she was just a part of their big friend group in Kuwait and Tina believed him.
Over the past few months, Tina has questioned him a few times regarding Jolene in which he reiterated she was just a friend or he wasn’t talking to her anymore.
This week, she found accidental screenshots of them on FaceTime, flirty text messages (one of which Jolene said Tina’s 2 children’s names), and her name misspelled in the contacts to make it more difficult to find. She confronted him when he was home from drinking and he confessed the relationship was sexual beginning during the deployment in September of 2023. He told her that Jolene was easy to be with and he saw a future with her even though she is in Kuwait. He also told her that Jolene did not know that Tina was pregnant. Tina told him that they would talk about it more when he was sober.
During talks the next morning, he stated that he wanted to work things out, however he was waiting on Tina to decide if she wanted to work things out before he would break it off with Jolene. He confirmed again that Jolene did not know Tina was pregnant. He does not seem remorseful and even tried to blame Tina for how unhappy they were and how he thought a baby would make her happy.
This has blindsided my friend and she truly felt happy prior to this deployment and revelation. She truly loves him and is so torn up and upset over it all.
So, does anyone have any advice on what she should do? Supportive words? Should we tell Jolene about the baby?