Hi folks! Normally I use this website to learn Dr. Harley's concepts to apply to my own marriage and honestly they have worked well to help my husband and I communicate and meet each others needs. But I have what I think is a serious crisis brewing and I have no idea what to do.

A good friend of mine has dropped a bombshell on me. She has been married for about 12 years, but she now wants to get a divorce. She says that she has never been happy one day in the marriage and they have only had sex 10 times. I am not sure this is entirely true as she does have a tendancy to be a little dramatic. She also says that her husband is her best friend, but that she is not and never has been attracted to him and she is sick of living without passion. Her husband is a good guy -- he is smart, physically fit, has a successful career and is not mentally or physically abusive. He is kind and thoughtful and does everything to please her. This apparently is a big part of the problem. Anyway, the catalyst was apparently that she fell for the guy who was doing tile work on their remodel. He somewhat reciprocated, but then backed off. From what I have been able to piece together, they had a little chemistry, made out and then he felt awkward about it and has broken off all contact now that the project is done.

My question is, what can I do as her friend to help her get her head back out of her a**? She is nearly 40 and all of a sudden she is talking like a crazy 18 year old. She called me tonight to try and schedule a night out. I know she is hurting over the rejection but she was telling me she wanted to get out and meet some guys and start dating. I said, "Gee, don't you think you should take some time off?" ... which is my advice to all my divorcing friends which they all seem to reject totally, but that is another story. Anyway, she said she had had 12 years off and she wants some s-e-x a-s-a-p. As if that would somehow make her happy. It's like she can't see further than a day down the road of life.

What can I do to help her see that she is not thinking clearly right now? I thought about forwarding this website to her, but since she is set on getting a divorce she is not at all receptive to the idea of marriage building. Honestly, I think the unhappiness is in her and a year after the divorce she will be shocked to realize that she still feels the void that she is currently blaming her marriage for. I am really worried that she is setting herself down a path that will lead her further away from ever being happy <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

SF,

This is my first post to someone else's thread. I was just telling Mrs. Hurt that I don't think I'm enough of an expert on getting through A to be offering advice to others. But having just had Mrs. Hurt contact her friends about what she was doing while her A was underway just three or four months ago (she is with me now with NC and we are now beginning our recovery), I believe I can at at least offer the perspective of a recently BS.

First, if she wants sex, the only legitimate place for her to get it is with her husband. Once she goes down the Wayward road she may get all the sex she wants but is she prepared for the guilt she will feel, and for the pain she is about to inflict on her H? If she could speak to Mrs. Hurt right now, she would hear how Mrs. Hurt felt after starting the A including thoughts of suicide, and how much she has suffered from the guilt she feels.

What's wrong with her or her husband so that they have SF so infrequently? Is she attractive to her H? Does her H understand how unhappy she is? (Mrs. Hurt was unhappy for a long time but communication wasn't one of our strong suits). Has she and her H had MC? If she would put some effort into determining why this problem has been going on so long in their M, perhaps she could be happy with her H. Dr.Harley has lots of great advice about how to achieve SF, she should try those techniques before resorting to A. I would really recommend that she speak to one of the Harleys before she begins the train wreck.

Adultery in general is extremely destructive, to both the WS and the BS as Dr. Harley has cited over and over and I can relate from personal experience. I can't think of any circumstance where a spouse benefits from A. There is no better way to make a mediocre M a catastrophe than A, IMHO. I sure wish my WW's friends had pointed this out to her while she continued her affair after she confided in them.

And my final thought is that if she really wants sex with someone other than her husband, she should wait until after the divorce. She has waited 12 years; another few months is not going to kill her, but it could make the difference in her H having a recoverable life after her if indeed they get divorced.

Adultery is the worst thing she could do to her H, short of murdering him if what I just went through is any indication. You'd be doing your friend a favor by pointing that out to her. And yes, this forum is a good place for prospective adulterers to learn about the pain they are about to inflict on their unsuspecting spouses.

IMHO, having been in a similar situation with a former friend of mine, the best thing to do is to distance yourself from your friend. You can't educate someone who is bound and determined to go the wayward route. The fallout is going to be huge, and you don't want to be there when it occurs.

In my situation, I noticed something was weird with my friend when we went to lunch and she said she wanted me to come on a trip with her and some other women. That was ok, but then she mentioned that a relative of hers was going to be there, and that he was interested in me. Ew.

I was really taken aback, as the relative was married and so was I. The whole thing gave me a clue as to her mindset at the time, and I started cutting her out of my life. And of course I didn't go on the trip.

And of course during the lunch I got to hear about how awful her husband was. She also took a cell phone call that seemed weird...only later did I figure out who it was from. I was a bit slow on the uptake, but I knew that I didn't want to be around her anymore.

My H and I currently remain good friends with the husband, who is now happily remarried to a very nice woman. The ex-wife is still with her affair partner. I never see her. You don't say whether you are friends with the husband or not and whether you would feel comfortable speaking with him about his wife. I would advise treading very carefully here.

You could make suggestions to your friend, but don't count on her taking any of them up. It's the old "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make her drink" syndrome.

PK

No advise but another question. Is it a friend's place to expose the affair? At least to the BS if not full fledged exposure a la Plan A? Or would this be gross interference? Or does it depend on the nature of your relationship with that particular friend and his/her BS?

That would probably depend on how well she knows the BS. Certainly, she might consider having a talk with him just to let him know that she is concerned about his wife, with out discussing the affair or her intentions to engage in further infidelity.

Just a thought.

Who

I think it seems quite likely that you have already lost your friend, the only way that won't happen is if she pulls herself out of this and reestablishes her values to correspond more to what they used to be and more to what you find acceptable.

I think the BEST chance of that happening is for you to clue the H in on what's happening in his life, tell him about the tile guy, and introduce him to MB. He's probably at his wits end right now, just like all of us were before we found this place!

There's a good chance that you'll lose the friendship this way as well, but since that's likely to happen anyhow, at least this gives thier marriage a chance and allows the H to proceed with the truth. IF she comes out of her wayward mindset and recommits to the M she may come to see that yours were the actions of a true friend, probably her ONLY true friend.

IMHO, exposure in this kind of situation is dependent on a lot of variables, not the least of which includes the nature of snuggle's relationship with her friend's husband. Anyway, it sounds like there is a lot more that marriage needs than exposure - they need to communicate with each other. Might exposure in this case be the catalyst for communication? Possibly, but I could think of other less pleasant scenarios that could result as well.

In other words, I don't believe that there is a clear-cut answer here. What some people would consider "gross interference", other people would consider absolutely necessary. What might be effective in one situation might be disastrous in another.

In the meantime, I would certainly advise snugglefresh not to be a listening board for her friend. She could tell her friend that she is uncomfortable hearing about her crushes on other men and that it would be in her best interest to work on repairing her marriage or to divorce is she is so unhappy that she is considering adultery. In this way, snuggle can ensure that she will not be complicit in any further affairs her friend chooses to have.

PK

Sorry it's taken me a day to get back to this thread. I caught something from one of the kids at my sis-in-laws the other day

Anyway, my friend's husband does already know about the EA with the tile guy. She is not sneaking around on him. She told her husband that she had feelings for this guy, but regardless of that she wanted a divorce. In her mind, the EA is not the cause of the divorce. She just told me that her husband is going to move out because it would be awkward for them to be dating other people while still living together. She is going to stay in the house and he is going to get an apartment.

I was actually friends with the husband before the wife, but I am much closer to the wife now. I could talk to him, but we have never talked about anything serious like this. Do you think I should refer him to this website? I don't know how he is feeling. I asked my friend and she said he was fine, that he has guy friends to talk to and his own IC as well. I do think he will be ok ... he is a good guy and would be a great catch and for those of us in our mid-30's we all know who the odds favor! How do you know if someone is better off divorced?

I don't want to distance myself from my friend. I think that would really hurt her. She feels rotten already. She said that everyone else she has talked to thinks she is having a midlife crisis and are taking her husband's side and think she's evil. Before this, her self-esteem was not very positive, but it is so frustrating when she does this stuff because it totally does not help!