I am sure that nobody here remembers me. D-day for us was 8/17/98 and I found this site a few days later. I lurked for most of the two years I visited the site regularly, but I got so much information and support from the people who posted here. It took 16 months for my husband's fog to clear, but with hard work, a good therapist and a lot of help from God, we kept our marriage together. When people used to post that their marriages were stronger after an affair, I had a hard time believing it, but it is true in our case. We know how to handle disagreements and hurts now and take care of problems as they arise instead of letting them fester. Of course the naive and innocent trust I had in my husband is gone, but I have stopped mourning its loss and have worked on building a new and different trust.<P>Ok, you are thinking, if things are so great, why are you here again? I recieved an email today from my best friend. We have been friends for 34 years and were college roommates. We helped each other through our mothers' deaths when we were 30 and her husband's death a year later. During my husband's affair, she is the only person I confided in. I didn't want to drag our families into the mess, and I had to have someone to talk to. She was very sympathetic and supportive, which helped me a lot. She is stuck out of the U.S. right now, not knowing when she will be able to fly home. Maybe all this has made her feel like she needs to tell me things she has been keeping to herself. Her message said that I would probably hate her, but that she has been seeing a guy she met online who is.. you can tell what's coming... married. His wife is so negative and unloving, just like my friend's soon to be ex-husband. The wife has lost her health insurance, so this "nice" guy just can't desert her right now. He IS sleeping in the guest room, though. Are you gagging yet? Could this be any more textbook? At least she didn't use the words "soul mates" or I would have thrown up.<P>I love her, but I know I can't be around her while she is involved in a thing like this. I want to write her and tell her to call me when it's over and not until. I have such strong feelings about affairs now that I just don't want to talk to her. It makes me sick and sad. After seeing what I went through, how could she do that to another woman, just to get some jerk into her bed? I never thought she was that shallow. <P>What would you do in a situation like this? I am ready to hang up on a 34 year friendship! Thanks for reading, if you got this far.<p>[This message has been edited by Dancer812 (edited September 13, 2001).]

Dancer:<P>I would hate to see you throw away such a long friendship. Don't you feel that you more than anyone has so much to offer your friend. She doesn't see it yet...still in the fog....Maybe because you & your spouse has done so well that she needs to be reminded of your D-Day. She needs your help !!

I think that no matter how much time has passed since your own recovery began, being thrown into the fray again -- even if you and your husband are not PERSONALLY involved -- can have serious emotional consequences. <P>For a long, long time I could not speak to three (!!!) girlfriends, all had been the WS. Two have left their marriages, one is still in hers, though she has never told her BS the complete truth. I still have a hard time even being in the same room with her. <P>You need to evaluate what you personally can tolerate at this point and how it affects you. If you can't help your friend (and who can until the fog clears?) maybe guide her here or send some good reading materials her way. <P>Snow

Dancer,<P>First, I want to congratulate you on the success of your marriage. <P>This is a terrible situation you are in. My thoughts is that; I would explain how much this hurts you to deal with it, I would strongly suggest she come here and read, and finally I would point out to her what she is doing to the W of the OM. <P>I know that you also strongly suspect that he is stringing her along, but I doubt that telling her that will help. You suggested that she is getting divorced. If so, ask her if she is having fun. Is this a really enjoyable process? Because she is very likely going to visit this same "joy" on the OM's W. And then it is very likely that if they do get together and marry, that she will get to "enjoy" the process again.<P>In short, be the best friend you can possibly be: tell her straight up what a fool she is and how she is hurting other people and herself with this action. It will then be her choice whether to end a 34 year relationship not yours. You will have done her a hugh favor and it will be up to her to decide to accept it or not.<P>Hope something I said helps.<P>God Bless,<P>JL

Who better than you to help your friend????<P>This is absolutely NOT the time to desert her.<BR>Think of all you have learned and grown from this experience. Help her through it. Show her the way.<P>I know she's on the opposite side that you were. You can be the one to help ALL involved. Wouldn't you have LOVED it if the OW's friends were giving her the kind of counseling and advice that you have the opportunity to give your friend?????<P>

This is such a hard one for me. I'm the BS. My own mother is an OW. She's been in the relationship for 10 years. It's hard to be mean to OW when talking to my mom, although, like most of them, she sees her situation as TOTALLY different. Don't know what to tell you. I understand your anger towards your friend. Maybe you can lovingly remind her of what your H put you through and tell her to wait until the man is divorced? Sorry I'm not much help, but wanted you to know I understand...<BR>MOM

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate hearing from people who understand why this is upsetting. Because of already being emotional about the national events of last week, I put off replying to my friend, afraid that I would say something I might regret. This afternoon, I got an email from her, very sarcastic in tone, asking why I couldn't at least hit the "reply" button and she was sorry if I am mad at her because of her new relationship. Then she launched again into a long diatribe about how MM and his wife are only living in their house together, she would never have broken them up - they were already broken up, they went to counseling but it didn't work, she has NEVER loved anyone this much, etc, etc, BS, BS, BS!! She *didn't* say if he has told his wife that he is having an affair with my friend, if she really knows the whole story from the wife's viewpoint, how you can be madly in love with someone you met 2 weeks ago and know nothing about, and why you would want to hook up with some loser when you are only months away from getting rid of another loser!!! <P>I'm sorry, this just brings back so many awful feelings that I have worked for three years to forget and get rid of. I'm going to have to write something to her. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for listening to my venting.

In trying to help her, why not bring her here, so that others of us that are WS can talk to her. If anyone would understand her feelings, we would. In that way, you are directly/indirectly helping her. WE, as a group, may be able to talk to her and help her realize what is going on. You can distance yourself a bit from it, but use the resources of us here at MB to help you help her.<P>Trueheart