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I don't truly feel bad for you and I don't feel like your husband cheated.

floridianmama's picture

I have a friend that's going through a bitter nasty divorce. He "cheated" on her. As much as I listen to her I don't pity or feel that bad for her. Hear Me out and tell me if you think I'm wrong:

They are military and they had an open marriage. They have swapped partners with other couples. Invited other signals into their marital bed. Call me old fashion but I think when you do this you open yourself up to the possibility of somebody falling in love with someone else.

He deployed had a "girlfriend" on deployment. He fell in love with said girlfriend who apparently does not swap. My friend knew that he was free to sleep with other people just as she was. In fact told him to because they just had a baby before he left apparently in an effort to try to save thier marriage and make them close again.

My friend finds out before he got back that this wasn't just a sex partner because he actually came to love her. S*** hits the proverbial fan when he gets back. Apparently he did cut ties with girlfriend before he got back but a few months after I left his wife for the girlfriend he missed I told my friend he was no longer in love with her and had not been for years.

5 years before this deployment my friend basically had a nervous breakdown wrote a Dear John letter and abandoned him and their daughter in the middle of the night and was already states away by the time they woke up the next morning. She stayed gone for 6 months until he filed separation paperwork on grounds of abandonment. Then she decided she wanted her family back. He says he could never truly get over what she did and tried for years until he met this girl on deployment. Apparently after returning he decided that it wasn't going to work not even for the sake of the baby.

My stance on this:

You abandoned your family at one point it's actually not the first or only time she ran off so the other times were for like 2 weeks.

You had an open marriage free to fool around with whoever you're pleased which you both did. How did you not expect this to happen?

At one point you asked your husband to have a baby with your best friend because she was getting older had not met anyone and was afraid she would not have children. ( Apparently he refused).

As much as I try to listen and comfort her I can't help but thinking about my head that she asked for this. Now she has turned their oldest against him telling her daughter that he left the both of them for another woman. And chose another woman over the daughter.

Am I wrong for not truly feeling bad for her? Am I wrong for not truly thinking of him as cheating? If he had not fallen for the other woman this would just be a normal situation in their marriage.

Comments

kathc's picture

If you're awful then so am I because I completely agree with you.

You can't tell your husband to stick it in whoever he wants then call it cheating when he does.

Samantha73's picture

I dont think you are awful ...how could either one of them call it cheating??? It was an open relationship... So Ive never understood why you marry knowing that? So chin up...shes your friend.. So listen to her but dont feel bad about the way you feel or think

floridianmama's picture

Thanks I was just feeling like a really bad friend for having these feelings.

oneoffour's picture

^^^ this ^^^

I would tel this friend obviously they are in different places in their lives and this is her chance to move on to the life she really always wanted. I think she will miss the security of the back up partner/spouse.

But I would certainly tell her to cut out the "Daddy chose her over you..." because that is just unfair. Who did her mother chose when the girl was left with Daddy when she went AWOL for 6 months?

floridianmama's picture

She won't listen to me. I think the daddy daughter relationship is already too far gone since its been a constant year of this. She has an I'll fix my kid later sort of mentality. I think the baby is the only one that can come out of this normal anymore.

z3girl's picture

I unfortunately have some experience in this kind of lifestyle, and I still say he wasn't cheating.

If you didn't give that back story, I might feel a little bad for her, but hey, these things happen regardless if the marriage is open or not. If a marriage is not stable, it'll just collapse faster if it's open.

After giving the back story, it sounds like your friend wanted her cake and to eat it too. Time for her to move on and stop bad mouthing her kids' dad.

floridianmama's picture

I feel bad for him and his new fiance. I don't think she's a whore or an adulterer or even broke their marriage.

Call me crazy but a union between a man and a woman is supposed to be monogamous. I realize that's not everyone's perspective and far be it for me to judge. But don't live that lifestyle and then cry foul when it doesn't pan out the way you wanted it to ya know?

floridianmama's picture

The sad part about this is he's really not a bad guy. He previously had an extremely close relationship with his daughter. She's the kind of BM We all complain about. I think when she's done with her daughter the relationship between her and her father will never be the same. She will PAS The crap out of her daughter and thus far he has not Done anything back He's just stayed silent. I've been present when she's had him on speakerphone saying please do not fight in front of our daughter.

I don't even feel like I want to remain friends.

She will tell pretty much anybody who will listen how she's the scorned wife. His new girlfriend / fiance is a w**** broke up her family. Though from what I can tell the girlfriend walked away once the deployment was over. My friend cause the s*** storm Not because he had a girlfriend But because he dared to love someone else.

My friend is just showing her true colors I can't imagine what their marriage was really like. I know her husband Is giving her $2000 a month in child support and alimony even though he's not required to pay alimony. But she was a stay at home mom and never worked no matter their financial struggles I've heard about over the years. Their eldest is 9 years apart and even went to daycare part time when she was younger while my friend stayed home. I know for a fact that my friend wrote a letter to his chain of command which caused him to be demoted for dating someone it at his command. I only know this because he was giving her $2000 and now I get to hear her financial woes that he's lowered it to 1800 dollars a month because she caused him to lose at least that much with his demotion. So that came back to bite her in the ass.

He continued to keep a joint account with her just in case the kids ever needed anything and she bragged to me how she stole his entire paycheck be a PayPal because he lowered his monthly amount to her. There's no Separation agreement Even requiring him to pay anything he's just a decent guy Who cares about his kids And dosent want them to suffer. Meanwhile back at the ranch she's telling me about how she's paying for tarot readings and have curses put against him All the while complaining that her kids need clothes and complaining about the fact that he bought the new wardrobe and had to do so from Walmart while his "whore" is buying her own son Ralph Lauren off eBay. I guess she figured out her email and thus her eBay name. Whatever I know its girl friends in the military so she makes her own money. My friend has yet to get a job and its been almost a year since this started and she moved halfway across the country(he gave her everything but his clothes and one car).

I know she wants her family back and in her mind she's in the fight of her life to get her husband back. With all that she's doing I don't think he's coming back. And with all that she's doing I don't see how I want to actually remain friends. But at the same time I feel bad cuz she's crying all the time. She wants me to bear arms against this new girlfriend or fiance rather since he got a ring. My friends been stalking her on Facebook since she got her email. Don't know how she got her email I think through some forward from the in laws with pictures of the kids or something to that effect.

I just don't know how to feel any sort of sympathy. You played with fire you got burned and now you've become a she devil. Its been a year and she won't move on.

ltman's picture

What an idiot. Mess with xh's employment, and complains when his support to her gets cut. Wow.

floridianmama's picture

I can't help but think she's going to lose a lot of friends over this if they see what she's doing. So far everybody just thinks that she's the one in the right and I'm more than a little taken aback by it. That's why I came on here to question it. Maybe my point of view is screwed up I've been trying to look at it objectively. If I didn't know them would I think she was right for tearing down her ex and his new fiancée? Course most people that she talks to only get her perspective and don't know the backstory so everyone is so sympathetic to the "jilted wife". It takes everything in me to shut up and not play devils advocate in front of her which would just make her irate.

StepKat's picture

If you feel like you can't be friends with her anymore, slowly start distancing yourself from her. You don't have to be mean or direct about it. She sounds toxic.

Most Evil's picture

I could not support this. You could try to explain if you are up to it, or just bow out.

Some friendships have a shelf life. You outgrow people and resentment sets in on both sides. You do not have to help her, she knows what actually happened here.

She will hopefully figure it out and reach out to you when she gets it. No need to get beat up for knowing the truth.

ctnmom's picture

I'm an old lady (49), so that's where my opinion comes from. But once you let someone else into your marriage, either physically or emotionally, it is no longer a marriage. It's a slip of paper or an arrangement of convenience, but not a "marriage".