Good morning all!

One of my good female friends (also a coworker) came to me last Friday asking for help.

A little background. She knows about [H]'s A and all about MB and Steve and Jenn Harley. See all my incessant talking about MB, communication, As, relationship stuff actually paid off. Someone was actually listening and understanding me! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

As I said she came to me on Friday. She asked when is it actually infidelity. I told her it was defined by her spouse and it is when you have crossed the marital and personal boundries. She told me what happened and I told her she needs to talk to her spouse. We talked about HNHN, SSA and Dr. Harley and family.

I told her at a minimum she had to talk to her sponse about the incident and where to go from there and to buy HNHN. At the end of the conversation I told her her mission was to buy HNHN and she said, no my mission is to talk to my spouse! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

I am so very pround of her for recognizing the situation and for talking about it. I even told her so. Don't we all wish that would have happened with our spouses. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

I talked to her today to see how it went but they didn't get a chance to talk. I did get more background information. When they were dating initially, he cheated on her, then she cheated on him. They broke up and he got married. His ex wife cheated on him and left him for the OM. He wanted to work it out but she didn't. My friend and her spouse to back together, got married and have a almost 11 month son.

My armchair counselor thoughts are that they both never processed their affairs, and he didn't with his ex wife.

His philosophy is if it's broken, don't talk about it, give it time and it will work out. As we all know, it doesn't work that way, it only gets worse.

I'm still encouraging her to talk to him and have offered to listen and loan out my huge library of relationship/affair books.

How do I help her? What do you all suggest I do?

Thanks in advance for reading and your thoughts.

K

Knowing that we can't fix or control the other half of the marriage; I would encourage her to work on herself.

I am rather into the Cloud/Townsend books... "Boundaries," "Safe People," and "Hiding From Love."

They help you identify your 'hurting' patterns, how to find 'safe' people and how to establish 'good' boundaries.

I think the book club I am in @ church, where we discuss them, has been more helpful in my recovery than my IC.

Good luck,
Cali

Cali,
Thanks for the recommendations! I will bring them up to her.

She actually steped over the "line." She wanted it to go further but it didn't. She felt guilty all night and weekend. She was dieing to talk to me the next day.

Thanks again lady. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

K