I think you are right on with your explanation of the feelings.

While embarrassment at being a "blind and dumb fool for not seeing it" may have a small part to play initially, as you move forward you can get past this. You have to in order to move forward with your life and actually stay in the marriage. What is more troubling is the feeling of betryal from not only your spouse but those people that you believed were your friends who might have known or at least suspected and did nothing to protect, support or at least alert you.

In my situation we had a group of friends that we socialized with for many years. Initially my husband was friends with all of the husbands, but I became quite close with several of the wives and believed them to truly be my friends. My husband's A carried on for about 2 years. During this time I know that several of the husbands found out and while I don't know for sure if the wives had postive confirmation, I do know that they had suspicions. This is where I feel there was betrayal, no one said anything to me. When we got together as couples, no one said anything. When just the wives got together, no one said anything. These were my friends who I believed cared about me. They betrayed the trust of our friendship just the same as my husband betrayed the trust of our marriage by not doing anything to protect me. If they couldn't have come right out told me their suspicions, they could have at least pointed out signs and started to open my eyes to what was going on. I know that if the situations were reversed this is exactly what I would have done.

Anyway, seeing this group of people after the A was exposed made me feel the same type of pain as my husband's betrayal. The effort to work through my marriage reconcillation was too great to put any effort into dealing with the friends and calling them out on what they had done. Seeing them brought on too many triggers for me deal with on top of the A triggers.

My husband did not see any issues with continuing to be friends but eventually agreed to my request to cut the couples out of our lives because it was causing issues between us. Looking back I wish my husband could have talked to me about this and acknolwedged that they had also betrayed me instead of still trying to cover his a## about how widespread the knowledge of the A was. It would have shown me that he could empathise with my situation and was understanding how much damage it really caused.

fred in va

"When WW went off on her A, he immediately thought she was a "target of opportunity" and started cozying up to her. Keep in mind, WW is now a married woman committing adultery and this guy thinks he can vie for her affection still."

It was bad enough that while your WW and OM were doing you wrong. Then to find out who you thought was a friend was not only made it worse. You were a friend of convenience at best, and at the least kept him close to your WW if the chance he desired ever came up.

Why is any man willing to have an affair seeing that your WW is cheating on you not to suppose to think he has a chance with her?

Affair convey the image that say's one sleeps around, she's easy. It's a sign saying here I am boys.

IM, as GO said, we didn't reveal to alot of people and since his A didn't last that long, they hadn't gotten sloppy and no one that I know of suspected (other than the OWH - and me in a very small way). There was a small degree of embarassment when exposing based on two things: 1. Knowing some people could never forgive their spouse for doing something like this and therefore not them being able to understand why you would do so; 2. Embarassment for my DH who had brought such shame upon himself and his character that he could barely look these dear friends in the eye. After exposure though these dear friends exhibited such grace in supporting BOTH of us that the embarrassment quickly faded.

I agree very much with this. You find out who your true friends are in situations like this. A person who knew such a thing and would not warn me is not a "friend," but a moral coward at best. Certainly not "friend" material. You are right in concluding these "friends" did not care about you.

My other pet peeve are family members who accept the affair because they "want him to be happy." What they are really saying is that they don't care enough about this person to object to his self destructive behavior. They don't really care at all. When I hear that idiotic statement my response is always "I guess we should be grateful he is not a serial killer, huh?"]

I wonder if Jeffrey Dahmer's parents ignored his crimes by saying "we just want him to be happy!"

Once again, MelodyLane has posted words that I think should be bookmarked by every BS and revisited from time to time. Especially when dealing with "friends."

Last night's meeting nearly sickened me. Here was a woman who sat next to my WW and glowingly spoke of how grateful she was to her. This same woman was one of the "blinds" my WW used to conduct her A. I know very little of this woman as all I know I've been told by WW. But it strikes me that this woman lacks her own moral compass. Even if she's bought the probable lies WW fed her, I think we all agree, there is no excuse or justification for adultery.

I'm going to take a bit of a different tack, here.

I think there is a level of ignorance in people who know about a friend's A and don't expose it. Because we've been taught to a) mind our own business, b) don't hurt another person c) don't tattle. Having been taught these things all our lives, we naturally fall back into that pattern when we hear about an A. We think WE will cause the BS to be hurt (obviously wrong) We think WE will cause them to divorce. (wrong again) We think telling = tattling on the WS. (obviously wrong again)

Honestly, I have known of people in the past who were in As and I never said anything for those very reasons. Now that it's happened to me, I've definitely 'gotten religion'. I've made it clear to anyone I know that I will absolutely 'out' and A if I hear of it, in order to help my friends SAVE their M.

As far as being embarrassed: Now that I've 'gotten religion' I don't feel an ounce of embarrassment (I never actually did, even from the beginning - I was so busy being ashamed FOR my FWH.)

After H disclosed to the kids, my DS said to me: "Knowing how strong a person you are, I'm surprised you didn't divorce him." My response: "The very reason I didn't is BECAUSE of my strength." That was a revelation for DS.

I was never taught to ignore a person in need. I was taught that if someone was in need, I should render aid. For example, if a pedestrian is hit by a car, I would not leave the scene of the accident; I would render aid. And it makes no sense to believe that warning a person that he is being harmed behind his back would be "hurting" him. That is irrational.

We are responsible for not thinking through inane teachings. *WE* are responsible, not the teacher. Ignorance is an acceptable excuse if you are a gullible child, but it does not work with an adult. We all have fully functioning minds and the buck stops with the person in the mirror.

Any thinking person can quickly see the logical flaws in this policy of secrecy if they just think about it for 2 seconds.

How many people would say "I can't tell her because it would hurt her" if her bookkeeper were embezzling money from her? That would be a ridiculous standard that any thinking person would laugh off. Yet some apply that same retarded standard to adultery, a much more dangerous and grievous crime.

ugh... That really makes me sick. She is getting guidance from a person who does not walk the talk.

Not to t/j, but MelodyLane, would you mind taking a look at my friend Plexle's thread, "third time a charm?" She's distraught... could use your perspective...

end t/j

I'm with you, Mel. Totally. No argument, here. It is flawed. It is illogical. It's also common. The mindset of a person who hasn't been mauled by an A can be very different. I know mine was.

I've got a co-worker who knows about my A. We've talked a lot about telling vs. not telling. She said she had a friend whose BF was screwing around. My co-worker told her friend. Her friend confronted BF, BF denied it. Her friend sided with BF, they eventually got married, but in the meantime completely cut my co-worker off the 'friends' list. My co-worker isn't so sure she'd do the same thing in the future.

I am sure that this happens alot (where the betrayed person does not believe you and gets mad at you), but i still would tell and i would want someone to tell me.

I had a cousin whose husband i busted with his OW in a park near my house, i just called my cousin and told her to go to the park right now and she busted him herself.

Come to find out he had been seeing this woman 16 out of the 20 years they had been married, i am sure that my cousin would have liked to find that out much sooner than she did. She says she lived a lie and quite frankly IMHO she did.