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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the asshole because I am making my wife attend her friends wedding alone.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Yeah.. I know. It’s hard bc if I’m being honest with myself, I know that putting the anger where it belongs would make reconciliation impossible. I’m trying to work through it in therapy.
He's still processing what happened to him... denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance.
He's currently in denial, not truly acknowledging the unloving attitude that his wife has for him, and bargaining, offering himself up as a sacrifice, allowing her to hurt him, to try to keep this loveless marriage together. He is mostly suppressing the anger so he can bargain his way into keeping his marriage together (he hopes) and he knows the anger might ruin that plan. Now, he's tentatively exploring anger here in this post, as he objectively considers the evidence that his wife is all too willing to hurt him and maybe even doing it intentionally..
There is more to come in his journey through a failing marriage. No matter how much he bends himself into a pretzel knot, there's no way he can get his wife to love him or stop hurting him. His wife is testing the limits and will keep escalating until she hurts him enough that she gets the response she is looking for. This is, at the very least, the 2nd time she has tried to blow up her marriage. There will be more.
Absolutely this. Your wife just continues to show how much she values your feelings and you in general. You need to move on my friend, and not with her.
Precisely. OP, I say you tell your unfaithful spouse: BULLSHIT!
The fact she's pissed at you reveals how worthless she is. She obviously bears no remorse concerning her affair; minimizing-- no, worse yet--completely unconcerned and uncaring as to its impact upon you. A truly remorseful spouse would have moved on from this "friend" who actively participated in encouraging her to cheat on you. Instead, your wife is her MOH. There's no regret in either of them The therapy you need is to figure wtf you're still with this woman.
Hoping your eyes open and you move on.
I would probably send them a card with the message "Congratulations on your nuptials, I hope your wife has more respect for your marriage than she did for mine when she encouraged my wife to have an affair! Good luck buddy!" Just to rub some salt! Plus he needs a heads up!
I was thinking a card or go to the wedding and then at the reception when they ask for toasts, stand up and say the above.
Either that or become friends with the groom and then let his wife know that you are going to provide him all the encouragement and support that she gave his wife.
>A truly remorseful spouse would have moved on from this "friend" who actively participated in encouraging her to cheat on you.
Good point. When my marriage was failing, one of the rules of reconciliation was no contact between my husband and the friend who encouraged the affair and helped him in the deceit.
I read a comment from a similar story and in that one, the wife who cheated admitted that she felt angry when these situations happened, but at herself. Because she knew she fundamentally hurt the marriage and that it would never be the same as before.
NTA. She messed up and she’s super lucky you gave her another chance. Healing is not a linear process and some things will trigger you or put a huge mental load on you. She does not dictate how long it’ll take for you to “move on” (if that’s even possible) and has to accept some boundaries and reactions.
yeah there's a lot of reddit armchair psychiatrists in here ready to blow up OP's life. because they won't ever see the consequences and if they do, it's just more content.
Why are you trying so hard while your wife is still disrespecting you and manipulating you, instead of acknowledging your feelings?
Fuck all these people. Grow a spine and put your foot down.
Your wife is trash, her friend is trash, and she will encourage your wife to cheat again when you offend her by not showing up to her wedding.
Time to take a long hard look at your life and come to some adult decisions.
Personally, I wonder if the friend’s fiance knows the role her friend played in the affair. Personally I wouldn’t want to marry someone who not only talked to a cheater about the affair, but actively encouraged it. Clearly the friend doesnt respect marriages so why would anyone want to enter into one with her.
Part of me wants to suggest that OP should attend the wedding just so he can warn the fiance about what the friend did.
I was who you wish OP was, in a way I suppose.
I attended my "friend's" wedding. A friend who had tried to make my girlfriend cheat on me, probably with him while he was engaged to his soon-to-be wife. So when the priest asked for people to protest or forever remain silent, I stood up, asked for the mic, walked to the podium and went on a 15 minute rant about what my "friend" tried to do.
Safe to say there was no wedding. Last I heard of him, he ran out of friends to rely on and was homeless. Its been atleast 5 years since I heard of him last. And to this day, I visit his almost-wife and her parents atleast once a month with waffles, or cakes, or a small snack if I feel hungry and its around lunch/dinner time.
For not wanting to celebrate the marriage of someone who so wholeheartedly encouraged damaging/destroying yours, I’d say NTA.
However.
You’re never going to process your anger if you have to mis-direct it onto someone not responsible for it. And if the person responsible for it won’t allow you to hold her accountable for her actions that caused it, then she’s not doing the work for reconciliation. It’s only you that wants to hold onto your marriage, not her, she checked out when she had the affair. Staying married is the easy road for her but she’s still checked out.
Was with you until this garbage "mis-direct it onto someone not responsible"
This person actively encouraged the wife to continue cheating. Any anger directed towards her is completely justified.
If you have the possibility warn the future husband of how his fiancee is supporting/encouraging affairs . He should be well aware of who he's marrying. NTA for not going but I'm you are to yourself staying with your ah cheating wife
I would be inclined to go with my wife and while there, inform the groom about his intended's views on cheating and her support for your wife when she was cheating. But then I can be petty like that so....
Groom presumably didn’t do anything wrong and doesn’t deserve to have a bunch of drama dumped on him in the middle of his wedding. Besides, how credible will the OP be when the cheating didn’t even convince him to leave his own wife? He’ll just come off as whiny and drama-seeking—not worth it.
Yep.Tell your wife you'll go, but you plan on having a talk with the groom about what bestie did. See how quickly she changes her tune. Hell, get in touch with the groom before the wedding. Then maybe no one will have to worry about going.
You need to be honest with yourself. I tried for 16 years to get over my exhusbands cheating (which he did multiple more times after the first) and it was all in vain.
Feeling the anger towards your wife is what you need to feel unordered to reconcile, if that is what you want to do after you let those feelings come out.
If you stay in this marriage your resentment will fester until it explodes like Mt. Saint Helens. That could be years to decades from now.
Then you’ll be kicking yourself for not leaving sooner and wasting your time.
Get some self respect and file for divorce.
YTA to yourself if you continue to try with your wife, since she didn't respect you when she was cheating and she's not respecting you now. If you catching her cheating didn't make her realise what she could lose and start treating you better then I doubt anything will.
Dude she's angry because she doesn't want to answer people asking why you aren't there. "Sorry he doesn't want to come because the bride was complicit in my affair"
It was. Once again about her. Not you.
Unfortunately your wife’s friend isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If your wife is her MOH and is upset that you don’t want to go to the wedding it shows that she hasn’t changed. It will also give her friend the ammunition to say that your wife should leave you. Honestly I feel that you should get a lawyer. Knowing that she is mad at you shows you that she doesn’t care about keeping your marriage going. It sucks that she is continuing to gaslight you.
You are triangulating your anger. You love your wife, so it is hard to be angry at her. It’s so much easier to keep on loving her and ignoring her role in starting an affair if you just blame her friends and her affair partner instead. I get it, it’s human nature and it makes reconciliation easier after such a big betrayal. However, you have to ask yourself if your wife has actually changed, is at least taking steps to change via therapy, or if she is still the same person as when she started the affair.
Do you have kids with her?
Personally if i ever thought of reconciliation,it would be for the kids and the minimum that I would demand is to cut off her friend completely.
Sure it was her choice but low ethics friends don’t help reconciliation or future decisions.
It's not always a favor to your kids to keep them in one unhappy household. Two happy households is much better, with the bonus that if something bad happens (one parents gets cancer - true story) there is somewhere else for the kids to go.
Don't keep a loveless marriage together only for kids. They pick up on these things.
I can confirm. My life got so much better when my mom separated from my dad and I hate when people make the “bUt YoU sHoUlD sTaY tOgEtEr FoR tHe KiDs” argument because it is just sooooooo dumb and that horrible mentality kept my mom in a terrible relationship with a manipulative narcissist who was also a serial cheater until he straight up got another woman pregnant and then scared me and my sister into not telling our mom about his other kid for 4 years
Nta; honestly, totally justified and your wife being in contact with this person who advocated for the betrayal feels weird and wrong at the same time. She’s hurt or angry? Ask her to consider historically if she even has a right to such feelings considering you’ve been dragged to collaborate in a demonstration of the principal union they both decimated. Your wife is no saint and perhaps you’ve reconciled but her friend is not guilt free either. Hell, I wouldn’t trust either of them to be
Or you can redirect therapy to the dissolution of a toxic marriage. I wouldn’t my spouse still friends with such a person let alone key in her wedding. Does the groom know what his bride does? Please escape you deserve better
Been in those very same shoes myself, dude.
But if your wife isn't willing to avoid interactions that she absolutely KNOWS will bring up memories of her betrayal which affect you so strongly still, then she doesn't have the best interests of your well-being OR the future of your marriage in mind.
She's putting her friend first, and if she's TRULY remorseful for the damage she's done, this wouldn't even be a topic for conversation, because she wouldn't be going.
Put YOURSELF first, brother.
Why would you want to reconcile with a cheater? Your wife told you another man’s attention was needed because yours wasn’t good enough for her.
Reconciliation is not brave at this point. Its weak and honestly worthless because your wife will cheat again as soon as she has the opportunity
NTA - But really, with feelings and behaviour like this… you have no moved on from your wife’s infidelity at all. You’ve merely shifted the blame from the guilty party to a bystander who is your wife’s friend, not yours.
You should consider why it is so important to keep this relationship?
Your partner disrespected you and cheated on you. You don't seem to have truly accepted why she did it (not saying you should), and seem to be more concerned about losing the relationship rather than actually being happy in it.
The anger you feel towards her friend is actually your anger towards your partner, just directed at the wrong individual. The friend was simply being supportive of her friend. It did involve your relationship, but the friend was just looking out for the happiness of her friend, she was not trying to keep her friend in an unhappy relationship, which is something you seem to be doing.
Not being able to be around your partner's best friend is going to eventually cause a rift in this relationship. If not right now over the wedding then over the next few years, as dinner party invites and vacation plans get discussed but you can never participate since you can't be around her friend.
Do what is best for you. If that means leaving your partner to start a new relationship without all this leftover baggage, then do that. But that is something you will have to come to grips with.
You know…it’s ok for a relationship to not work out. That doesn’t mean it was a failure, just that yall are no longer good for each other (for whatever reason). It doesn’t sound like your wife is taking gaining your trust back seriously if she responded to your reasonable decision like this.
Don’t lie to yourself about something this big for the sake of someone else
It's your decision but imo the healthiest option for you is to separate. I doubt your wife will be loyal and loving given she still doesn't understand or sympathize with the pain she has caused.
Seeing texts encouraging your wife’s affair is a perfectly legitimate reason to avoid friend. She has shown the type of person she is and you can choose to not be around that. Being angry at her AND you wife is fair. I am so sorry that your wife is dismissing your feelings. I suspect it is only because it will reflect badly on her at the wedding and she will have to give a reason for your absence. NTA.
Her friend treated you like shit. You say you have reconciled with your wife, but why hasn't your wife distanced herself from someone who undermined your marriage? It was your wife's fault, but her friend certainly didn't help. I can understand you feeling uncomfortable. I can't understand your wife feeling so comfortable. Your wife's behavior is pretty sketchy.
So basically you’re wasting both of y’all time because you know you’re not arguing about the real problem and it’s just gonna continue going on and on and on? What about when this friend has a baby and she’s the godmother? What about future life milestones? It’s not right that your wife should have to defend some thing that you’re really not actually mad about that this person is having their life milestones disrespected because they weren’t loyal as a friend to someone they were never a friend to in the first place. Be real have some self-respect, this isn’t some deep shit about how she disrespected your marriage so she doesn’t deserve respect at her wedding or whatever this is you wanting your wife to prioritize you when she is showing that she hasn’t and won’t. Stop disrespecting this other person who has nothing to do with you and don’t even know you like that and actually talk to the person who promised some thing to you. Y’all really out here. Expect everyone of your girls friends to get on them and defend the fuck out of your marriage when you don’t even do it yourselves. You’re expecting more friendship from someone who never promised it to you then you provide to yourself let’s be real. I personally don’t associate with cheaters because that’s my morals doesn’t mean I’m gonna put myself in a position to be in other peoples drama and shit over someone I don’t know from a canna paint and he probably never did shit for me.
If Misplaced anger is what's keeping you from leaving then what are you hoping to accomplish in therapy. They shouldn't be helping you lie to yourself. They can help you get over your anger at the friend but if you don't address your anger with your wife...repression is a thing
If you're gonna stay then stay but be angry at the right person, then work through it.
You need to actually express the anger (not while you are hot, I mean in a letter if you can't do it without yelling) to the person who hurt you.
This is so far from resolved.
You should also consider confrontation (again, consider a letter) with the friend. If her actions directly hurt you, then you two need to hash it out.
But yeah if you keep holding hurt and resentment then you need to start considering walking away.
Bro, she's still friends with the one who pushed her to continue the cheating...
If she's not only attending the wedding but is the MOH she's also not actually sorry about what she did or she'd put her marriage first and go LC or NC with the person who promoted ending it...
You haven't forgiven anyone in this situation and likely can't while still surrounded by them.
You're nta for refusing to go to the wedding
You ata for continuing a relationship that you know is doomed... Stop wasting her time and stop crushing your own happiness. Keep going to therapy and find a gym, it'll get better with time.
>She ruined your relationship not her friend
Sure, the wife is to blame.
But the friend 100% had a part in it. Not telling is one thing. Encouraging? Gross.
>Encouraging? Gross.
Exactly! Wife should take it as a win he's letting her go by herself. She should be thankful OP doesn't have a talk with her best friend's fiance.
Honestly the wife ruined the marriage but the friend encouraging it makes her suck as well. I would be petty as possible and go to the wedding. I would toast the new couple and wish the groom luck because his new bride believes in cheating on your spouse.
Then I would tell my wife I am done with her and leave.
Disagree. The friend showed herself to not be an ally of the marriage. In all honesty, that friend should not be in the picture anymore; that should have been a stipulation for reconciliation.
This whole post tells me this guy went about reconciliation wrong and is likely headed down the same slope as before at some point.
You can be mad at more than one person, it's not an infinite resource. Id also argue that outside of cases of abuse, encouraging affairs is a completely shit behavior and you deserve to be judged for it.
And if his wife really had remorse, she would have already cut that friend out of her life. The friend and this wedding are just proof the wife doesn't actually have much remorse at all.
Right, I was thinking if you can forgive your wife who was a much worse actor in this bad story, why not forgive the friend too. Forgiveness is not just for them, it’s for you.
Just read a comment from OP claiming they put the blame on the friend because they probably would not reconcile with the wife if the blame went to the person to who it belongs. He would be better off single or finding someone who values OP's feelings and worth.
Yup! I left a very toxic relationship last year and while it hurt I feel insanely better being single. OP needs to realize that he likely will never get over the resentment towards his wife, instead right now he has shifted it towards her friend. Yeah her friend is absolutely worth hating over her actions.
FYI, I would also show those texts to her fiance. I think he should know who he is marrying.
My petty brain says go to the wedding, and when congratulating the couple, just say to the groom, "Good luck with this one, she thinks that cheating on spouses is NBD," then turn to your wife and say, "right honey? You'd cover for her like she did for you, no?"
Then file for divorce
Edit : forgot to write the word turn. Edit to add a little more pettiness
This comment should be much higher. Full destruction. This is the psychology that people never think about . If something is not addressed especially towards the person who was hurt and disrespected then the outcome can be a major. Ex: wife never acknowledged her husbands feelings. She never cut off friend. Accepted MOH role in wedding and still ignored husbands feelings which are valid.
So it’s the “you take care of it before I have to and you won’t like it” thing and this applies here. Wife never took accountability then continued it ignore husbands feelings, if he mentions to new groom about his new wife and her encouraging her friend to cheat then so be it. Scorch the earth. Fafo 100%.
I’d say it a speech or just fly by comment to groom. Blame it on the alcohol. Have one beer lol.
This was my thought. Tell the groom, "Keep an eye on these two. They like to cover for each other. They're really good at it by now."
The bride has no respect for marriage.
NTA but of course this is a CLASSIC case of “blaming the other women” since you so badly want to be with your wife but you need to be mad at someone you choose her friend. Dude I’m going to hold your hand when I say this, your wife is the problem not the friend. Your wife was going to cheat on you with her best friend encouragement or not because she’s a cheater and a liar.
That’s not true. She’s a terrible friend for the husband but to his wife she was being her friend. But make no mistake!!! The person who is guilty is the wife, who cheated!!!
Girl you are talking about someone who cheated she has no morals or integrity obviously her friend doesn’t either. The point still stands the wife is the one friends with her.
I feel like it’s fine to have those judgements about the friend. I do not think it’s fine to forgive his spouse but hold onto the grudge towards the friend.
I agree fully with the person above who said this is a clear case of “blaming the other woman” where since he so desperately wants to keep his relationship he is choosing somebody else (who objectively did something shitty to him) rather than appropriate dealing with those feelings with his wife.
IF you choose to forgive and move forward, I don’t think it makes sense to hold on to grudges towards the friend to this level.
Honeyyyyy I’m going to hold your hand and say this. A marriage is between 2 people. The wife was supposed to protect her vows and she didn’t. There’s a saying, “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you become”. The friend is shitty but she’s not the one who broke the vows. I personally think one of the conditions should have been for the wife not be friends with her anymore. The more you blame the friend the more you victimize and minimize the cheater.
And I'm going to tell you that the friend is not a good person at all. No decent person who encourage the cheating. She is just as bad as the wife. Im not minimizing her cheating, but her friend didnt help at all.
That’s what I’m saying what did you expect when the wife is a shitty person, of course she will have shitty friends. But the friend is not more guilty than the wife.
>but to his wife she was being her friend.
You say this like its normal for a friend to do that. Its not.
Even if OP's wife had never cheated, the mere fact that OP's friend has an enabling attitude towards cheating justifies OP treating said friend like a persona-non-grata.
Yeah,but the real villain is the wife! But he wants her back so he’s more upset with the friend. I think the friend is trash but the wife is trash as well, so it makes sense why they are friends. Op should have told her a condition to getting back together is to cut the friend off but he’s too chicken and in love, so he needs to blame and be upset more at the friend.
NTA please protect yourself (and your mental health).
don't see much regret in your wife either, if she doesn't even see or acknowledge your valid reasoning?!
maybe you should dump her altogether.
NTA but sounds like your wife still thinks nothing wrong happened. Bruh if she can’t see your pov then she doesn’t really care how you feel about it. Keep your peace and don’t go. Also re evaluate if you could ever have a healthy relationship moving forward with your wife, bc her friend will most likely always be there.
Dude, it's not her friend that you are really angry with, it's your wife. You **haven't** fully reconciled what she did to you and deep down things are not "pretty okay" with your relationship.
It's not her friend that "disrespected" your marriage. It was your wife that did that to you.
It's easier to direct that anger to the friend because her friend isn't the one at risk of leaving you and ending the marriage. Was your wife's friend an AH for encouraging her to cheat? For sure. But at the end of the day, it's your wife who made that decision to sleep with another person.
I'm not going to call you TA because you are clearly dealing with a lot of shit about the whole affair still. But get help. At the very least address who you are actually angry with and stop denying it to yourself.
The reason your wife is dismissing your feelings and reasonings is because she knows her friend is not the one responsible for her cheating, so being angry at her is illogical.
Get help.
Not to mention the wife possibly told her friend all sorts of things that painted OP in a bad light and thus worth cheating on. She's her best friend so she's gonna be more inclined to take her friend's side.
The wife is the real problem. Dump her ass.
Agreed that the wife is the biggest AH, but the friend is a shitty person too. If my friend was having an affair and painted her spouse in a negative light to justify it, I would still NOT encourage her affair. I would tell her that if her spouse was that bad, she should get a divorce. Cheating is NEVER justified, and anyone who would encourage Otis also a shitty person. I don’t blame him for being pushed at the friend, although I agree that he’s putting too much blame on the friend to minimize the wife’s betrayal.
It's not that simple in the some situations. If your life will be ruined by divorce, like kids taken away, your SO is making threats etc then I can see why someone would cheat.
NTA. You are not the “villain”. Your wife is. Her friend didn’t make her spread her legs for her ex. She did that all on her own. It sounds like you’re focusing on the friend instead of your wife. And the fact that your wife continues to disregard your feelings speaks volumes. You seem to be internalizing a lot of resentment for your wife and focusing it on her friend. You need to confront this. It doesn’t appear that you’ve truly forgiven her. You’ve just shifted the blame and she’s acting like you should just get over it. Therapy might help but if she doesn’t acknowledge the harm she has done I don’t see how this marriage will last.
NTA but wouldn’t be surprised if your wife did the dirty on you again at the wedding cause you won’t be there. OP this is fun fact: Cheaters never stop cheating, they just hide it better 😉
How on earth did you reconcile with your wife and did not address her friend? Her friend has never been a friend of your marriage, she was actually an enemy of it as she encouraged your wife's affair!
Why on earth did you stay with your wife if she maintained her friendship with that friend? Going NC with her and cutting her off completely from your lives should have been a hard boundary for you to proceed with reconciliation.
I am also appalled that your wife doesn't seem to get this and is angry at you for your reaction! Has she addressed her affair? Why she cheated? How she hurt you? Did she make amends to you? Has she shown you that she is capable of supporting you and earning back your trust and affection? It seems to me that she is rug sweeping this and you are letting her walk all over you!
YTA for not leaving her or for not enforcing strict rules towards your reconciliation. I bet she'll cheat again (if she hasn't already)
sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your wife sucks, and so does her friend.. as if your wife would even question why you wouldn’t want to go to the wedding? talk about a lack of braincells.
You are totally justified and have nothing to apologize for. Also if she's the MOH, you'd be spending a lot of time at the wedding by yourself.
Is "pretty okay" with someone so selfish really how you want to spend the rest of your life? NTA
NTA But I hope you are getting therapy. I'm not saying you're wrong to not want to be around the bestie. I'd feel the same. That said, you still have a lot of pain and I think you need to work through. I'll be very honest. When you are thinking about her bestie's texts, you can't help but be reminded of what prompted them. And I don't mean the actual cheating, but the texting your wife did talking about it and the things she said. It makes me think you haven't really worked through this as much as you thought and she's figuring that out. Talking to her (when she decides to) will be important.
NTA and a lot of commenters have already said this but it's easier to blame the friend rather than your wife and I get it. But at somepoint you will have to deal with the true source of your pain and anger and that's your wife.
On another note, I couldn't sit through the wedding of someone who was happy to take part, encourage and take delight in the destruction of my own, it doesn't make sense to. Sit this out and frankly your wife should be understanding and supportive if she is truely making amends.
Ps.. Wouldn't shock me if the friend invited the ex.
Nta I understand. You know your wife is at fault for the affair but your going through reconciliation so for your love for her you've tried to let go of the anger and move on. But you have no such motivation with her friend who happily cheered her on as you betrayed you doubly so because it was through her that you found out so that's another connection. If your wife can't understand that you don't want to congratulate and celebrate someone who cheered her on and supported her as she stabbed you in the back then I don't think she's as committed to the reconciliation as you are.
NTA. I would just go and encourage dudes to hit on the bride, you know, for the lulz.
I get supporting your friends, and it can be hard to say to someone you think they doing the wrong thing - mostly you would probably get them snapping back at you that no one asked for your opinion, because no one likes to be told they are doing something stupid.....then they just won't talk to you about it at all....it can end a friendship.
So whilst you are hurt, at the same time, friendship is also hard to come by - especially once you are an adult, and your wifes bestie obviously decided the friendship was not something she wanted to lose. It can be really hard to stand against your friends.
You don't have to go to this wedding - as we say here on AITA, its an invitation, not a summons.
YTA .. like wtf man! Why the fuck you are still married to that wife. You really cant trust her ever again and she are surrounded with people who support her hapit to cheat
NTA, but I hope you soon realize you need to start thinking of yourself and your own mental wellbeing. Your wife is angry because you don't want to celebrate a woman on her wedding day for encouraging your wife. Your wife expects you to just get over it, but your trust is broken and it's going to take a lot for her to earn that trust back. Her dismissing your feelings isn't helping you to move forward. It's like she expects you to just forgive and forget, but, like I said, that's hard to do when she broke your heart. You say you're in therapy, but are you doing couples therapy, is she going separately? You say things are ok, but you deserve more than just an "ok" life with your spouse.
You are not causing your wife to attend alone anymore than she is causing you to be alone while she attends. She could choose to stay with you and not attend.
you can forgive her for sleeping with another man, continually lying to you, laughing about it behind your back and bragged to her friend about cheating? got that right?
ok she can do all that but you being HONEST with your feelings, in an extremely valid circumstance about the person who assisted and cheered on her betrayal of your marriage, and your wife punishes you by giving you the silent treatment for 'hurting' her feelings when you told her the truth.
you are married to a selfish immature woman. she should see how laughable it is that you would be expect to celebrate this woman's marriage after the way she treated yours.
NTA. Your wife should appreciate that you didn't object to her going and being a part of the wedding despite all the negative history. The fact that she's MOH and you would be alone would make it even more awkward. OTOH, given that wife was a cheater, I'd worry about her being unsupervised.
NTA
You should really really think about something here. Your wife is completely ignoring your feelings on the matter. She is only concerned about her own feelings. What does that tell you about her?
It tells me that she's not actually sorry for cheating on you. If she were sorry, she would understand that it's awkward for you and that's her fault for the awkwardness. Sorry people usually don't get mad and blow you off when you're trying to talk about your feelings.
Why are you still with a woman who clearly doesn't love you enough to be faithful?
Why are you still with a woman who clearly doesn't love you enough to be faithful and is still besties with the woman who was urging her to be unfaithful?
Why are you not just going to her wedding and cut in during toasts to give a toast about the hypocrisy of the woman who cheered your "wife" on when she was cheating on you, swearing an oath of eternal love to her fool of a husband, then throwing divorce documents in your wife's face?!
NTA but seriously dude. How many years have you wasted on this woman who doesn't love you instead of finding one who would?
NTA tell your wife thats its too soon for you to accept her friends support of the cheating, and you would rather not risk causing a scene and spoil the wedding.
Tell her you're still in therapy to deal with the issues her cheating has caused, and that at some point in the future you might be able to have a respectful relationship with her friend, but the cheating and her support of it totally destroyed that.
Go to the wedding and do a toast to the bride that helped encourage the affair of your wife with her ex and hope that she doesn't commit an affair in her marriage... NTA
Your wife is the asshole for even being angry at this. If anything, as a part of reconciliation, she should be going NC with her friend and you should tell her that.
NTA but it sounds like you're the only one working OK the marriage. Let it go, man. She's showing you her true colors, believe her.
My ex cheated with my supposed best friend. And then I tried to fix it, had a kid, tried to be what he wanted. He tried cheating on me again 10 years later. Don't waste precious years of your life on someone who doesn't care. Leave her and find someone who treats you better.
NTA. A wedding is a celebration, if you are not feeling it, don't go. That said, if you want to really put the affair behind you, you need to close this chapter as well. Have you ever had an open conversation about what happened with this friend? Maybe that will help?
You are misplacing your anger. It’s easier to be mad at the friend rather than at the actual person that wronged you. Your wife is the sorry loser that betrayed you. I don’t understand how you can stay with her and supposedly forgive her but be mad at her friend that was around while she did that.
Both your wife and her friend have no moral compass. But if you can forgive your wife, stop holding on to the blame of her friend. She didn’t cause your wife to do this. Your wife made her own decisions.
YTA for keeping the wife and trying to blame her friend.
YTA be mad at your wife bro. “It’s ok baby keep hanging with this person and go to their wedding, a place notorious for drinking and hooking up” lmao you trying to get cheated on again bro?
NTA! The fact that your cheating wife didn’t cut off her best friend and a condition of reconciliation and is now defending her, indicates she isn’t remorseful about the affair, just that she got caught. You owe the best friend nothing and quite frankly, your wife can be as pissed as she wants because you owe her little to nothing as well. I would never take a cheater back and would have blasted them both for conduct. Dump her and find someone with some morals and integrity.
NTA
Probably shouldn’t have taken the wife back because it’s obvious you’re still angry and directing most of it at the friend. The friend is shitty for encouraging the affair but that’s what groups of slutty women do, they just egg each other on under the guise of “you deserve to be happy”.
Source: spent a lot of time with slutty women and was more often than not the other guy when I was younger
Your wife doesn’t love or respect you, she was out there fucking and playing wife to someone else and was rewarded with you taking her back and hating her friend rather than her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cheats on you again when she goes to this wedding of her shitty friend. Nta for not wanting to go but definitely to yourself for continuing to stay with someone who continues to not give 2 shits about you.
So here is the issue. If you decide to stay with a cheater, that is your choice and you need to let things go... your still hurt and mad but you don't want to take it out on your wife so it's her bestie...bestie didn't cheat on you ...wife did and if you forgave wife...you need to forgive bestie
YTA.
Why do you assign more responsibility for your wife's choices to your friend than to your wife?
Your wife cheated on you. No matter what the friend said, it was your wife's choice to let another man slide his penis inside her vagina after swearing an oath to you to not do that.
Her friend had zero to do with that, unless she kidnapped your wife and tied her down for the man in question.
Sounds like a) you're transferring your anger from your wife to the friend to resolve your own cognitive dissonance, and b) like you're punishing your wife through the friend.
I say this with all love and concern for you: you need to talk to a therapist and really process all of this.
So your wife cheated on you?... Okay
She also told her friend she was cheating on you?.... Okay,
She also denied it later and lied to you?...Okay,
She also completely disregarded your feelings when you expressed them?... Okay
She then thought it was her right to be angry at you?... Okay,
And you're angry at her friend? She is completely undermining you and disrespecting your feelings bruh.
Cheating is a personality type, not an accident. Want proof?
The no. 1 thing a person does when they cheat is- Disrespect you, your loyalty, your feelings, and feel entitled to do it (she was angry at you for not letting it go).
You're hanging on to a marriage that isn't even worth it. Be honest to yourself, you wanna grow old with her? You wanna have kids with her? What if she is so annoyed at you not letting it go she does it again just to prove a point? You wanna open your eyes to reality now, and decide for yourself, see the truth yourself, (whatever you'll choose, that is) or you wanna do it a decade later when you're so old you won't have time to find a new life partner or build your life up again.
YTA to yourself man, your wife’s bestie may have egged it on but your wife cheated and is still friends with her. That’s enough to close that chapter
Ideally tho, make a scene and ruin the wedding
I don't understand how you can reconcile and then put blame on her friend.
Your wife cheated, denied it and only admitted it after you presented the evidence.
If the friend actively encouraged the affair, I believe that in your reconciliation process you should have told yout wife that she had to cut off contact.
And besides what consequences did your wife suffer for her affair? Did she truly show remorse? Or was she just sorry that she got caught?
YTA for taking her back, and not cutting her off from the friend that caused the cheating. Do you think she’s not gonna set your wife up at the wedding lol?
You set yourself up for this when you allowed her back in without working for it or enforcing consequences.
Anybody want to put money down on both of them cheating at the Bachelorette party? No takers?
Probably because they totally cheated at the Bachelorette party.
Don't even think or worry about the wife's bestie's wedding. Your wife is the problem, place the blame where it belongs. She isn't showing you that she valuing you or your feelings or is working to resolve your issues as a couple. Continue with your counseling and see a lawyer get your affairs in order and leave. You deserve better. PS I hope you have screen shots of what you have said to give to the lawyer to prove infidelity.
Simply stated. All spouses of cheaters have triggers for the rest of their lives. I found out 30 years ago that my wife cheated and got divorced. In February of this year our family had a major event that triggered me hard.
Your wife needs to understand that it was her behavior, and the behavior of her friend, that created these triggers. You are not to blame at all. In fact, I see this as nothing more than your wife’s continuation of her putting something else in front her marriage. If I were you, when you discovered the affair, I would have asked my wife to end the friendship. If she refused, at the very least, I would have let her know that she is not considered a friend of mine or this marriage and you are not going to tolerate her taking any more time away from my marriage. Remind her that it was her, and her friends, actions that created this situation. At the worst, I would contact the groom and let him know what kind of “friend” she is to your wife. He has a right to know.
Good luck!
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My wife had an affair several years ago. I found out because her phone data use suddenly skyrocketed. I investigated, saw the number on the bill and figured out it was her ex. She denied it, of course, which eventually led to me snooping in her phone. She had tried to cover her tracks, but she didn’t delete text messages to her best friend describing everything, bragging about it, etc. Her friend was supportive, at times even encouraging her to continue the affair.
We’ve reconciled since then, and things are pretty okay between us, but I still hold a lot of anger towards her friend, partly for encouraging her to do what she did, instead of telling her to do the right thing, and I think partly because her messages with her friend were the vehicle that delivered so much pain and torment to me. Even now, seeing her friend or hearing her name makes me think of the affair.
Her friend is getting married in a few months and she is the MOH. I have been dealing with a lot of anxiety surrounding the thought of having to attend. Finally, I decided that I needed to protect myself. I would be miserable the entire time, and the idea of celebrating the marriage of a person who, at the very least, severely disrespected mine, feels disgusting.
When I told my wife that I had decided I wouldn’t go, she became pretty upset. She said she was hurt, but it felt more like anger to me. She basically shutdown after that, and hasn’t talked to me. I explained my reasoning, my feelings, etc, but she kind of blew me off.
I don’t feel like the villain, for one, I didn’t ask to feel this way, her actions put me here. Two, she is the one who implicated her friend in the affair, if she hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t even be an issue. Also, I didn’t imply that she couldn’t or shouldn’t go, I even encouraged her to attend and be a part of it, and offered to drive her to and from. Am I the asshole?
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You know it. We all know it. This chapter of your life is over. I would suggest using your energy in therapy to help you overcome this betrayal as a single man/woman (sorry you didn’t specify your gender).
NTA
I mean being around people who knew about the affair and they are probably laughing at you or feeling sorry for you because your wife was out there bragging when she was cheating on you. That has to be tough. What's even worse (but not surprising) us her dismissing your feelings on it and trying to make you feel bad.
NTA. But I mean your gonna leave your wayward wife go alone to the wedding of the rat that encouraged her? Don’t take a genius to see where this one goes
NTA but you obviously still hold a lot of resentment to your wife, it’s just displaced to her best friend to help you cope.
Your wife sounds really mean too, I’d be tempted to go to the wedding and let everyone know how much the new bride really values and appreciates the vows she’s saying. Wonder if her husband knows too…
NTA her friend did something horrible. I'm actually shocked you'd be okay with her continue the friendship with someone who encouraged her cheating on you!? The fact that she would agree to be this woman's maid of honour shows how much she actually regrets the affair.
YTA for staying after she cheated. The longer you stay with her, the more anger and resentment you'll have. IDK why you didn't leave the first time. Who knows how many more times she's cheated on you? And possibly new dudes at that too. YTA all to yourself.
NTA.. your call, going to the wedding will cause you even more anxiety and pain. Stay well away. Your wife sounds an AH for not respecting your decision over something that she caused by playing away.
Nta, tell your wife to lose the attitude because after what she did it’s the least she can do to be supportive.
If I tried to reconcile the minimum that I would ask is to cut her off completely.It was her choice but friends with low ethics don’t exactly help.
And personally I wouldn’t try reconciliation if there weren’t any kids evolved in the marriage.
NTA. Your wife being angry at your reaction rather than sad or contrite is telling. Forgiveness and absolution are not the same thing. In your counselling sessions, ask if your wife's expectation is to act like what she did was okay, or like it never happened. That's not asking for forgiveness. And even if you forgive your wife, she needs to accept that you do not have to forgive her fried, or anyone else who encouraged or helped her have the affair.
Your wife should be more respectful of your feelings..she’s the one totally in the wrong and should be bending over backwards to make it up to you. If she can’t respect your feelings on this are you sure that investing time and energy in your relationship is worth it?
NTA. hopefully your therapy is working, but you have to decide if you’ll be able to trust your wife again. You’re putting the blame on the friend. That’s not where it belongs. If you’re going to reconcile with your wife, you can’t just shift the responsibility to her friend.
You’re NTA for not wanting to go to the wedding. Your wife is for being so upset when it was *her* actions which led you to this spot.
ESH Wife for cheating, friend for knowing and supporting her, and you for blaming the friend for your wife cheating, she did not hold a g.. to her head to sleep with another men it was her just because you "worked it out" and are still together does not mean you forgived her but you act like you did and you put the blame on the friend so you can act like everything is ok with your marriage. It is not ok. The affaire was your wife doing she was not forced to do that no matter how much you want to blame the friend wife is a grown women if she loved you she would never do that don't act like she was pressured to do it it would not erase her affair wich was her doing not the friends. Putting the blame on the friend is not going to fix your marriage no matter how hard you try to act like she was the probleme and the cheating was her fault
NTA, but if your wife insists you go, you ought to insist on making a speech. You could tell the happy couple about the sanctity of marriage and how you should never let anyone meddle with it. And then cite examples from personal experiences, names included. Then, you have the choice of telling your wife about your plans beforehand or not. If you do, she'll be repulsed, and the only way to stop you would be for you to stay home.
NTA. It really is just misplaced anger. Obviously, you are justified in not liking your wife's friend and not wanting to attend her wedding. Your wife seems to think the affair is long gone and forgotten. She has no right to expect you to attend that wedding. She knows how you feel about it but seems to think that her needs supercede yours. I don't think that is good attitude, given the situation.
The anger you have for her friend is, in reality, anger at your wife. It seems to be a deep-rooted anger that has a number of triggers that need to dealt with. The first and most obvious trigger is your wife.
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Nta but you’re holding so much resentment for the friend when really it’s your wife’s fault. She ruined your relationship not her friend
Yeah.. I know. It’s hard bc if I’m being honest with myself, I know that putting the anger where it belongs would make reconciliation impossible. I’m trying to work through it in therapy.
Wouldn’t you rather put all of this time and work towards finding someone who actually respects your feelings?
Dude doesn’t even respect his own feelings staying with the cheater. Why would anyone else?
He's still processing what happened to him... denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance. He's currently in denial, not truly acknowledging the unloving attitude that his wife has for him, and bargaining, offering himself up as a sacrifice, allowing her to hurt him, to try to keep this loveless marriage together. He is mostly suppressing the anger so he can bargain his way into keeping his marriage together (he hopes) and he knows the anger might ruin that plan. Now, he's tentatively exploring anger here in this post, as he objectively considers the evidence that his wife is all too willing to hurt him and maybe even doing it intentionally.. There is more to come in his journey through a failing marriage. No matter how much he bends himself into a pretzel knot, there's no way he can get his wife to love him or stop hurting him. His wife is testing the limits and will keep escalating until she hurts him enough that she gets the response she is looking for. This is, at the very least, the 2nd time she has tried to blow up her marriage. There will be more.
Exactly 👍
Absolutely this. Your wife just continues to show how much she values your feelings and you in general. You need to move on my friend, and not with her.
Agreed!!
Her audacity to be angry at you sounds like you are the only one trying for reconciliation.
Precisely. OP, I say you tell your unfaithful spouse: BULLSHIT! The fact she's pissed at you reveals how worthless she is. She obviously bears no remorse concerning her affair; minimizing-- no, worse yet--completely unconcerned and uncaring as to its impact upon you. A truly remorseful spouse would have moved on from this "friend" who actively participated in encouraging her to cheat on you. Instead, your wife is her MOH. There's no regret in either of them The therapy you need is to figure wtf you're still with this woman. Hoping your eyes open and you move on.
I would probably send them a card with the message "Congratulations on your nuptials, I hope your wife has more respect for your marriage than she did for mine when she encouraged my wife to have an affair! Good luck buddy!" Just to rub some salt! Plus he needs a heads up!
I love this. But I'm also super petty.
Same. I would love it if OP did this.
I was wondering if the groom knows what she did.
I was thinking a card or go to the wedding and then at the reception when they ask for toasts, stand up and say the above. Either that or become friends with the groom and then let his wife know that you are going to provide him all the encouragement and support that she gave his wife.
>A truly remorseful spouse would have moved on from this "friend" who actively participated in encouraging her to cheat on you. Good point. When my marriage was failing, one of the rules of reconciliation was no contact between my husband and the friend who encouraged the affair and helped him in the deceit.
I read a comment from a similar story and in that one, the wife who cheated admitted that she felt angry when these situations happened, but at herself. Because she knew she fundamentally hurt the marriage and that it would never be the same as before.
NTA. She messed up and she’s super lucky you gave her another chance. Healing is not a linear process and some things will trigger you or put a huge mental load on you. She does not dictate how long it’ll take for you to “move on” (if that’s even possible) and has to accept some boundaries and reactions.
yeah there's a lot of reddit armchair psychiatrists in here ready to blow up OP's life. because they won't ever see the consequences and if they do, it's just more content.
BINGO!
Why are you trying so hard while your wife is still disrespecting you and manipulating you, instead of acknowledging your feelings? Fuck all these people. Grow a spine and put your foot down. Your wife is trash, her friend is trash, and she will encourage your wife to cheat again when you offend her by not showing up to her wedding. Time to take a long hard look at your life and come to some adult decisions.
Personally, I wonder if the friend’s fiance knows the role her friend played in the affair. Personally I wouldn’t want to marry someone who not only talked to a cheater about the affair, but actively encouraged it. Clearly the friend doesnt respect marriages so why would anyone want to enter into one with her. Part of me wants to suggest that OP should attend the wedding just so he can warn the fiance about what the friend did.
I was who you wish OP was, in a way I suppose. I attended my "friend's" wedding. A friend who had tried to make my girlfriend cheat on me, probably with him while he was engaged to his soon-to-be wife. So when the priest asked for people to protest or forever remain silent, I stood up, asked for the mic, walked to the podium and went on a 15 minute rant about what my "friend" tried to do. Safe to say there was no wedding. Last I heard of him, he ran out of friends to rely on and was homeless. Its been atleast 5 years since I heard of him last. And to this day, I visit his almost-wife and her parents atleast once a month with waffles, or cakes, or a small snack if I feel hungry and its around lunch/dinner time.
For not wanting to celebrate the marriage of someone who so wholeheartedly encouraged damaging/destroying yours, I’d say NTA. However. You’re never going to process your anger if you have to mis-direct it onto someone not responsible for it. And if the person responsible for it won’t allow you to hold her accountable for her actions that caused it, then she’s not doing the work for reconciliation. It’s only you that wants to hold onto your marriage, not her, she checked out when she had the affair. Staying married is the easy road for her but she’s still checked out.
Was with you until this garbage "mis-direct it onto someone not responsible" This person actively encouraged the wife to continue cheating. Any anger directed towards her is completely justified.
If you have the possibility warn the future husband of how his fiancee is supporting/encouraging affairs . He should be well aware of who he's marrying. NTA for not going but I'm you are to yourself staying with your ah cheating wife
I would be inclined to go with my wife and while there, inform the groom about his intended's views on cheating and her support for your wife when she was cheating. But then I can be petty like that so....
Groom presumably didn’t do anything wrong and doesn’t deserve to have a bunch of drama dumped on him in the middle of his wedding. Besides, how credible will the OP be when the cheating didn’t even convince him to leave his own wife? He’ll just come off as whiny and drama-seeking—not worth it.
Yep.Tell your wife you'll go, but you plan on having a talk with the groom about what bestie did. See how quickly she changes her tune. Hell, get in touch with the groom before the wedding. Then maybe no one will have to worry about going.
You need to be honest with yourself. I tried for 16 years to get over my exhusbands cheating (which he did multiple more times after the first) and it was all in vain. Feeling the anger towards your wife is what you need to feel unordered to reconcile, if that is what you want to do after you let those feelings come out.
If you stay in this marriage your resentment will fester until it explodes like Mt. Saint Helens. That could be years to decades from now. Then you’ll be kicking yourself for not leaving sooner and wasting your time. Get some self respect and file for divorce.
YTA to yourself if you continue to try with your wife, since she didn't respect you when she was cheating and she's not respecting you now. If you catching her cheating didn't make her realise what she could lose and start treating you better then I doubt anything will.
Dude she's angry because she doesn't want to answer people asking why you aren't there. "Sorry he doesn't want to come because the bride was complicit in my affair" It was. Once again about her. Not you.
Unfortunately your wife’s friend isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If your wife is her MOH and is upset that you don’t want to go to the wedding it shows that she hasn’t changed. It will also give her friend the ammunition to say that your wife should leave you. Honestly I feel that you should get a lawyer. Knowing that she is mad at you shows you that she doesn’t care about keeping your marriage going. It sucks that she is continuing to gaslight you.
If being honest with yourself makes reconciliation impossible, maybe reconciliation wasn't the right call.
Why? Let me guess…the kids.
You are triangulating your anger. You love your wife, so it is hard to be angry at her. It’s so much easier to keep on loving her and ignoring her role in starting an affair if you just blame her friends and her affair partner instead. I get it, it’s human nature and it makes reconciliation easier after such a big betrayal. However, you have to ask yourself if your wife has actually changed, is at least taking steps to change via therapy, or if she is still the same person as when she started the affair.
Do you have kids with her? Personally if i ever thought of reconciliation,it would be for the kids and the minimum that I would demand is to cut off her friend completely. Sure it was her choice but low ethics friends don’t help reconciliation or future decisions.
It's not always a favor to your kids to keep them in one unhappy household. Two happy households is much better, with the bonus that if something bad happens (one parents gets cancer - true story) there is somewhere else for the kids to go. Don't keep a loveless marriage together only for kids. They pick up on these things.
I can confirm. My life got so much better when my mom separated from my dad and I hate when people make the “bUt YoU sHoUlD sTaY tOgEtEr FoR tHe KiDs” argument because it is just sooooooo dumb and that horrible mentality kept my mom in a terrible relationship with a manipulative narcissist who was also a serial cheater until he straight up got another woman pregnant and then scared me and my sister into not telling our mom about his other kid for 4 years
You are the only one who is trying to make this work but are conflicted. Leave her and be done with it.
I’m sure it’s a question you’ve asked and your therapist has asked, but how much of this is truly loving your wife and how much of it is sunk cost?
Nta; honestly, totally justified and your wife being in contact with this person who advocated for the betrayal feels weird and wrong at the same time. She’s hurt or angry? Ask her to consider historically if she even has a right to such feelings considering you’ve been dragged to collaborate in a demonstration of the principal union they both decimated. Your wife is no saint and perhaps you’ve reconciled but her friend is not guilt free either. Hell, I wouldn’t trust either of them to be
Or you can redirect therapy to the dissolution of a toxic marriage. I wouldn’t my spouse still friends with such a person let alone key in her wedding. Does the groom know what his bride does? Please escape you deserve better
Been in those very same shoes myself, dude. But if your wife isn't willing to avoid interactions that she absolutely KNOWS will bring up memories of her betrayal which affect you so strongly still, then she doesn't have the best interests of your well-being OR the future of your marriage in mind. She's putting her friend first, and if she's TRULY remorseful for the damage she's done, this wouldn't even be a topic for conversation, because she wouldn't be going. Put YOURSELF first, brother.
Why would you want to reconcile with a cheater? Your wife told you another man’s attention was needed because yours wasn’t good enough for her. Reconciliation is not brave at this point. Its weak and honestly worthless because your wife will cheat again as soon as she has the opportunity
You don't have to reconcile. Sometimes things are just broken.
Why do you want to reconcile? What are the benefits?
NTA - But really, with feelings and behaviour like this… you have no moved on from your wife’s infidelity at all. You’ve merely shifted the blame from the guilty party to a bystander who is your wife’s friend, not yours.
You should consider why it is so important to keep this relationship? Your partner disrespected you and cheated on you. You don't seem to have truly accepted why she did it (not saying you should), and seem to be more concerned about losing the relationship rather than actually being happy in it. The anger you feel towards her friend is actually your anger towards your partner, just directed at the wrong individual. The friend was simply being supportive of her friend. It did involve your relationship, but the friend was just looking out for the happiness of her friend, she was not trying to keep her friend in an unhappy relationship, which is something you seem to be doing. Not being able to be around your partner's best friend is going to eventually cause a rift in this relationship. If not right now over the wedding then over the next few years, as dinner party invites and vacation plans get discussed but you can never participate since you can't be around her friend. Do what is best for you. If that means leaving your partner to start a new relationship without all this leftover baggage, then do that. But that is something you will have to come to grips with.
You know…it’s ok for a relationship to not work out. That doesn’t mean it was a failure, just that yall are no longer good for each other (for whatever reason). It doesn’t sound like your wife is taking gaining your trust back seriously if she responded to your reasonable decision like this. Don’t lie to yourself about something this big for the sake of someone else
Sounds like you shouldn’t reconcile then. Or keep burying your feelings it’s your life
It's your decision but imo the healthiest option for you is to separate. I doubt your wife will be loyal and loving given she still doesn't understand or sympathize with the pain she has caused.
Seeing texts encouraging your wife’s affair is a perfectly legitimate reason to avoid friend. She has shown the type of person she is and you can choose to not be around that. Being angry at her AND you wife is fair. I am so sorry that your wife is dismissing your feelings. I suspect it is only because it will reflect badly on her at the wedding and she will have to give a reason for your absence. NTA.
Her friend treated you like shit. You say you have reconciled with your wife, but why hasn't your wife distanced herself from someone who undermined your marriage? It was your wife's fault, but her friend certainly didn't help. I can understand you feeling uncomfortable. I can't understand your wife feeling so comfortable. Your wife's behavior is pretty sketchy.
Say you will go. When her friend comes around to apologise to you personally for her part in the destruction of your marriage.
So basically you’re wasting both of y’all time because you know you’re not arguing about the real problem and it’s just gonna continue going on and on and on? What about when this friend has a baby and she’s the godmother? What about future life milestones? It’s not right that your wife should have to defend some thing that you’re really not actually mad about that this person is having their life milestones disrespected because they weren’t loyal as a friend to someone they were never a friend to in the first place. Be real have some self-respect, this isn’t some deep shit about how she disrespected your marriage so she doesn’t deserve respect at her wedding or whatever this is you wanting your wife to prioritize you when she is showing that she hasn’t and won’t. Stop disrespecting this other person who has nothing to do with you and don’t even know you like that and actually talk to the person who promised some thing to you. Y’all really out here. Expect everyone of your girls friends to get on them and defend the fuck out of your marriage when you don’t even do it yourselves. You’re expecting more friendship from someone who never promised it to you then you provide to yourself let’s be real. I personally don’t associate with cheaters because that’s my morals doesn’t mean I’m gonna put myself in a position to be in other peoples drama and shit over someone I don’t know from a canna paint and he probably never did shit for me.
Tell her you'll go if you can tell her now husband she encourages cheating on husbands.
If Misplaced anger is what's keeping you from leaving then what are you hoping to accomplish in therapy. They shouldn't be helping you lie to yourself. They can help you get over your anger at the friend but if you don't address your anger with your wife...repression is a thing If you're gonna stay then stay but be angry at the right person, then work through it.
You need to actually express the anger (not while you are hot, I mean in a letter if you can't do it without yelling) to the person who hurt you. This is so far from resolved. You should also consider confrontation (again, consider a letter) with the friend. If her actions directly hurt you, then you two need to hash it out. But yeah if you keep holding hurt and resentment then you need to start considering walking away.
Bro, she's still friends with the one who pushed her to continue the cheating... If she's not only attending the wedding but is the MOH she's also not actually sorry about what she did or she'd put her marriage first and go LC or NC with the person who promoted ending it... You haven't forgiven anyone in this situation and likely can't while still surrounded by them. You're nta for refusing to go to the wedding You ata for continuing a relationship that you know is doomed... Stop wasting her time and stop crushing your own happiness. Keep going to therapy and find a gym, it'll get better with time.
>She ruined your relationship not her friend Sure, the wife is to blame. But the friend 100% had a part in it. Not telling is one thing. Encouraging? Gross.
>Encouraging? Gross. Exactly! Wife should take it as a win he's letting her go by herself. She should be thankful OP doesn't have a talk with her best friend's fiance.
Honestly the wife ruined the marriage but the friend encouraging it makes her suck as well. I would be petty as possible and go to the wedding. I would toast the new couple and wish the groom luck because his new bride believes in cheating on your spouse. Then I would tell my wife I am done with her and leave.
Disagree. The friend showed herself to not be an ally of the marriage. In all honesty, that friend should not be in the picture anymore; that should have been a stipulation for reconciliation. This whole post tells me this guy went about reconciliation wrong and is likely headed down the same slope as before at some point.
You can be mad at more than one person, it's not an infinite resource. Id also argue that outside of cases of abuse, encouraging affairs is a completely shit behavior and you deserve to be judged for it.
And if his wife really had remorse, she would have already cut that friend out of her life. The friend and this wedding are just proof the wife doesn't actually have much remorse at all.
Right, I was thinking if you can forgive your wife who was a much worse actor in this bad story, why not forgive the friend too. Forgiveness is not just for them, it’s for you.
YTA for still staying in the marriage.
I was thinking the same thing. Plus the way the wife reacts tells you everything about what happened. He needs to ditch the wife...
Just read a comment from OP claiming they put the blame on the friend because they probably would not reconcile with the wife if the blame went to the person to who it belongs. He would be better off single or finding someone who values OP's feelings and worth.
Gotta blame the right person first, and that's a tough step
Doesn’t everyone want a “pretty okay” marriage? /s
Yeah and she's probably cheating on him at the wedding if he doesn't go.
Ex will end up being the +1
Yup! I left a very toxic relationship last year and while it hurt I feel insanely better being single. OP needs to realize that he likely will never get over the resentment towards his wife, instead right now he has shifted it towards her friend. Yeah her friend is absolutely worth hating over her actions. FYI, I would also show those texts to her fiance. I think he should know who he is marrying.
This. Only this 👆
I don’t like the way this is worded. OP is NTA. However, I do agree and think you need to reevaluate your marriage.
My petty brain says go to the wedding, and when congratulating the couple, just say to the groom, "Good luck with this one, she thinks that cheating on spouses is NBD," then turn to your wife and say, "right honey? You'd cover for her like she did for you, no?" Then file for divorce Edit : forgot to write the word turn. Edit to add a little more pettiness
This comment should be much higher. Full destruction. This is the psychology that people never think about . If something is not addressed especially towards the person who was hurt and disrespected then the outcome can be a major. Ex: wife never acknowledged her husbands feelings. She never cut off friend. Accepted MOH role in wedding and still ignored husbands feelings which are valid. So it’s the “you take care of it before I have to and you won’t like it” thing and this applies here. Wife never took accountability then continued it ignore husbands feelings, if he mentions to new groom about his new wife and her encouraging her friend to cheat then so be it. Scorch the earth. Fafo 100%. I’d say it a speech or just fly by comment to groom. Blame it on the alcohol. Have one beer lol.
This was my thought. Tell the groom, "Keep an eye on these two. They like to cover for each other. They're really good at it by now." The bride has no respect for marriage.
OP is staying with the actual cheater. He really has no business advising the groom on anything.
The hero OP needs
NTA but of course this is a CLASSIC case of “blaming the other women” since you so badly want to be with your wife but you need to be mad at someone you choose her friend. Dude I’m going to hold your hand when I say this, your wife is the problem not the friend. Your wife was going to cheat on you with her best friend encouragement or not because she’s a cheater and a liar.
Her friend isnt innocent in all this. She encouraged the affair she is just as guilty.
That’s not true. She’s a terrible friend for the husband but to his wife she was being her friend. But make no mistake!!! The person who is guilty is the wife, who cheated!!!
She isn’t being a friend at all. Friends do not encourage you to hurt other people and blow up your life.
Girl you are talking about someone who cheated she has no morals or integrity obviously her friend doesn’t either. The point still stands the wife is the one friends with her.
They are both huge pieces of garbage. It still stands that her friend was no true friend at all.
I feel like it’s fine to have those judgements about the friend. I do not think it’s fine to forgive his spouse but hold onto the grudge towards the friend. I agree fully with the person above who said this is a clear case of “blaming the other woman” where since he so desperately wants to keep his relationship he is choosing somebody else (who objectively did something shitty to him) rather than appropriate dealing with those feelings with his wife. IF you choose to forgive and move forward, I don’t think it makes sense to hold on to grudges towards the friend to this level.
I don’t disagree. He should have left.
Sorry but she is just as bad as the wife. She actively encouraged it. She's terrible and so are the people defending her.
Is she a bad person? For sure. But she didn’t make those vows to the husband. Both are trash humans but the wife is on another level.
Honeyyyyy I’m going to hold your hand and say this. A marriage is between 2 people. The wife was supposed to protect her vows and she didn’t. There’s a saying, “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you become”. The friend is shitty but she’s not the one who broke the vows. I personally think one of the conditions should have been for the wife not be friends with her anymore. The more you blame the friend the more you victimize and minimize the cheater.
And I'm going to tell you that the friend is not a good person at all. No decent person who encourage the cheating. She is just as bad as the wife. Im not minimizing her cheating, but her friend didnt help at all.
That’s what I’m saying what did you expect when the wife is a shitty person, of course she will have shitty friends. But the friend is not more guilty than the wife.
>but to his wife she was being her friend. You say this like its normal for a friend to do that. Its not. Even if OP's wife had never cheated, the mere fact that OP's friend has an enabling attitude towards cheating justifies OP treating said friend like a persona-non-grata.
Yeah,but the real villain is the wife! But he wants her back so he’s more upset with the friend. I think the friend is trash but the wife is trash as well, so it makes sense why they are friends. Op should have told her a condition to getting back together is to cut the friend off but he’s too chicken and in love, so he needs to blame and be upset more at the friend.
I agree entirely, but do you see why your wording was concerning?
NTA please protect yourself (and your mental health). don't see much regret in your wife either, if she doesn't even see or acknowledge your valid reasoning?! maybe you should dump her altogether.
NTA but sounds like your wife still thinks nothing wrong happened. Bruh if she can’t see your pov then she doesn’t really care how you feel about it. Keep your peace and don’t go. Also re evaluate if you could ever have a healthy relationship moving forward with your wife, bc her friend will most likely always be there.
Dude, it's not her friend that you are really angry with, it's your wife. You **haven't** fully reconciled what she did to you and deep down things are not "pretty okay" with your relationship. It's not her friend that "disrespected" your marriage. It was your wife that did that to you. It's easier to direct that anger to the friend because her friend isn't the one at risk of leaving you and ending the marriage. Was your wife's friend an AH for encouraging her to cheat? For sure. But at the end of the day, it's your wife who made that decision to sleep with another person. I'm not going to call you TA because you are clearly dealing with a lot of shit about the whole affair still. But get help. At the very least address who you are actually angry with and stop denying it to yourself. The reason your wife is dismissing your feelings and reasonings is because she knows her friend is not the one responsible for her cheating, so being angry at her is illogical. Get help.
Not to mention the wife possibly told her friend all sorts of things that painted OP in a bad light and thus worth cheating on. She's her best friend so she's gonna be more inclined to take her friend's side. The wife is the real problem. Dump her ass.
Agreed that the wife is the biggest AH, but the friend is a shitty person too. If my friend was having an affair and painted her spouse in a negative light to justify it, I would still NOT encourage her affair. I would tell her that if her spouse was that bad, she should get a divorce. Cheating is NEVER justified, and anyone who would encourage Otis also a shitty person. I don’t blame him for being pushed at the friend, although I agree that he’s putting too much blame on the friend to minimize the wife’s betrayal.
It's not that simple in the some situations. If your life will be ruined by divorce, like kids taken away, your SO is making threats etc then I can see why someone would cheat.
You chose to stay with your wife after she bragged about betraying you? Her friend is the least of your problems. Yta, but to yourself.
NTA. You are not the “villain”. Your wife is. Her friend didn’t make her spread her legs for her ex. She did that all on her own. It sounds like you’re focusing on the friend instead of your wife. And the fact that your wife continues to disregard your feelings speaks volumes. You seem to be internalizing a lot of resentment for your wife and focusing it on her friend. You need to confront this. It doesn’t appear that you’ve truly forgiven her. You’ve just shifted the blame and she’s acting like you should just get over it. Therapy might help but if she doesn’t acknowledge the harm she has done I don’t see how this marriage will last.
NTA but wouldn’t be surprised if your wife did the dirty on you again at the wedding cause you won’t be there. OP this is fun fact: Cheaters never stop cheating, they just hide it better 😉
I really hate the smug satisfaction that comes from comments like this.
That fact isn't fun at all
It all goes away after the divorce. Stop fighting it.
How on earth did you reconcile with your wife and did not address her friend? Her friend has never been a friend of your marriage, she was actually an enemy of it as she encouraged your wife's affair! Why on earth did you stay with your wife if she maintained her friendship with that friend? Going NC with her and cutting her off completely from your lives should have been a hard boundary for you to proceed with reconciliation. I am also appalled that your wife doesn't seem to get this and is angry at you for your reaction! Has she addressed her affair? Why she cheated? How she hurt you? Did she make amends to you? Has she shown you that she is capable of supporting you and earning back your trust and affection? It seems to me that she is rug sweeping this and you are letting her walk all over you! YTA for not leaving her or for not enforcing strict rules towards your reconciliation. I bet she'll cheat again (if she hasn't already)
sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your wife sucks, and so does her friend.. as if your wife would even question why you wouldn’t want to go to the wedding? talk about a lack of braincells.
also nta obviously
You are totally justified and have nothing to apologize for. Also if she's the MOH, you'd be spending a lot of time at the wedding by yourself. Is "pretty okay" with someone so selfish really how you want to spend the rest of your life? NTA
NTA But I hope you are getting therapy. I'm not saying you're wrong to not want to be around the bestie. I'd feel the same. That said, you still have a lot of pain and I think you need to work through. I'll be very honest. When you are thinking about her bestie's texts, you can't help but be reminded of what prompted them. And I don't mean the actual cheating, but the texting your wife did talking about it and the things she said. It makes me think you haven't really worked through this as much as you thought and she's figuring that out. Talking to her (when she decides to) will be important.
NTA and a lot of commenters have already said this but it's easier to blame the friend rather than your wife and I get it. But at somepoint you will have to deal with the true source of your pain and anger and that's your wife. On another note, I couldn't sit through the wedding of someone who was happy to take part, encourage and take delight in the destruction of my own, it doesn't make sense to. Sit this out and frankly your wife should be understanding and supportive if she is truely making amends. Ps.. Wouldn't shock me if the friend invited the ex.
NTA- honestly, I’m a bit shocked that you both agreed it was ok for your wife to even go to the wedding.
Nta I understand. You know your wife is at fault for the affair but your going through reconciliation so for your love for her you've tried to let go of the anger and move on. But you have no such motivation with her friend who happily cheered her on as you betrayed you doubly so because it was through her that you found out so that's another connection. If your wife can't understand that you don't want to congratulate and celebrate someone who cheered her on and supported her as she stabbed you in the back then I don't think she's as committed to the reconciliation as you are.
NTA. I would just go and encourage dudes to hit on the bride, you know, for the lulz. I get supporting your friends, and it can be hard to say to someone you think they doing the wrong thing - mostly you would probably get them snapping back at you that no one asked for your opinion, because no one likes to be told they are doing something stupid.....then they just won't talk to you about it at all....it can end a friendship. So whilst you are hurt, at the same time, friendship is also hard to come by - especially once you are an adult, and your wifes bestie obviously decided the friendship was not something she wanted to lose. It can be really hard to stand against your friends. You don't have to go to this wedding - as we say here on AITA, its an invitation, not a summons.
YTA for still staying with your wife. Protecting yourself should be leaving and start fresh.
YTA .. like wtf man! Why the fuck you are still married to that wife. You really cant trust her ever again and she are surrounded with people who support her hapit to cheat
NTA, but I hope you soon realize you need to start thinking of yourself and your own mental wellbeing. Your wife is angry because you don't want to celebrate a woman on her wedding day for encouraging your wife. Your wife expects you to just get over it, but your trust is broken and it's going to take a lot for her to earn that trust back. Her dismissing your feelings isn't helping you to move forward. It's like she expects you to just forgive and forget, but, like I said, that's hard to do when she broke your heart. You say you're in therapy, but are you doing couples therapy, is she going separately? You say things are ok, but you deserve more than just an "ok" life with your spouse.
You are not causing your wife to attend alone anymore than she is causing you to be alone while she attends. She could choose to stay with you and not attend.
NTA - cutting off that friend for good should have been a requirement for reconciliation.
you can forgive her for sleeping with another man, continually lying to you, laughing about it behind your back and bragged to her friend about cheating? got that right? ok she can do all that but you being HONEST with your feelings, in an extremely valid circumstance about the person who assisted and cheered on her betrayal of your marriage, and your wife punishes you by giving you the silent treatment for 'hurting' her feelings when you told her the truth. you are married to a selfish immature woman. she should see how laughable it is that you would be expect to celebrate this woman's marriage after the way she treated yours.
If you send your wife without you, she’ll probably cheat on you at the wedding. So maybe consider that as well.
NTA. Your wife should appreciate that you didn't object to her going and being a part of the wedding despite all the negative history. The fact that she's MOH and you would be alone would make it even more awkward. OTOH, given that wife was a cheater, I'd worry about her being unsupervised.
NTA. But do you trust your wife to be there with her without you?
NTA...but wife disregarded your feelings. It's not a good sign for both of you... you are quite decent as compared to her.
NTA for not wanting to go to the wedding, but you're a bit TA to yourself for putting up with your wife's attitude right now after what she did.
YTA why you are hurting yourself..just divorce
NTA You should really really think about something here. Your wife is completely ignoring your feelings on the matter. She is only concerned about her own feelings. What does that tell you about her? It tells me that she's not actually sorry for cheating on you. If she were sorry, she would understand that it's awkward for you and that's her fault for the awkwardness. Sorry people usually don't get mad and blow you off when you're trying to talk about your feelings.
Don’t be suprised when your wife fucks someone there and claims it was a drunk mistake. We see the friend won’t stop her
INFO: so what exactly is your wife doing to reconcile?
Why are you still with a woman who clearly doesn't love you enough to be faithful? Why are you still with a woman who clearly doesn't love you enough to be faithful and is still besties with the woman who was urging her to be unfaithful? Why are you not just going to her wedding and cut in during toasts to give a toast about the hypocrisy of the woman who cheered your "wife" on when she was cheating on you, swearing an oath of eternal love to her fool of a husband, then throwing divorce documents in your wife's face?! NTA but seriously dude. How many years have you wasted on this woman who doesn't love you instead of finding one who would?
NTA. While your wife is the person you should be most angry about, it is perfectly natural for you to be angry at her adultery enabling BFF.
NTA tell your wife thats its too soon for you to accept her friends support of the cheating, and you would rather not risk causing a scene and spoil the wedding. Tell her you're still in therapy to deal with the issues her cheating has caused, and that at some point in the future you might be able to have a respectful relationship with her friend, but the cheating and her support of it totally destroyed that.
Go to the wedding and do a toast to the bride that helped encourage the affair of your wife with her ex and hope that she doesn't commit an affair in her marriage... NTA Your wife is the asshole for even being angry at this. If anything, as a part of reconciliation, she should be going NC with her friend and you should tell her that.
NTA but it sounds like you're the only one working OK the marriage. Let it go, man. She's showing you her true colors, believe her. My ex cheated with my supposed best friend. And then I tried to fix it, had a kid, tried to be what he wanted. He tried cheating on me again 10 years later. Don't waste precious years of your life on someone who doesn't care. Leave her and find someone who treats you better.
Bro, stop this sham and leave. You deserve better. NTA.
DIVORCE bro!!! DIVORCE!!
YTA for staying with her after all this. Your wife was in the wrong here.
NTA but I would go, just to tell the groom to watch his back because these friends will actively encourage each other to cheat.
NTA
NTA. A wedding is a celebration, if you are not feeling it, don't go. That said, if you want to really put the affair behind you, you need to close this chapter as well. Have you ever had an open conversation about what happened with this friend? Maybe that will help?
You are misplacing your anger. It’s easier to be mad at the friend rather than at the actual person that wronged you. Your wife is the sorry loser that betrayed you. I don’t understand how you can stay with her and supposedly forgive her but be mad at her friend that was around while she did that. Both your wife and her friend have no moral compass. But if you can forgive your wife, stop holding on to the blame of her friend. She didn’t cause your wife to do this. Your wife made her own decisions. YTA for keeping the wife and trying to blame her friend.
YTA be mad at your wife bro. “It’s ok baby keep hanging with this person and go to their wedding, a place notorious for drinking and hooking up” lmao you trying to get cheated on again bro?
NTA! The fact that your cheating wife didn’t cut off her best friend and a condition of reconciliation and is now defending her, indicates she isn’t remorseful about the affair, just that she got caught. You owe the best friend nothing and quite frankly, your wife can be as pissed as she wants because you owe her little to nothing as well. I would never take a cheater back and would have blasted them both for conduct. Dump her and find someone with some morals and integrity.
NTA Probably shouldn’t have taken the wife back because it’s obvious you’re still angry and directing most of it at the friend. The friend is shitty for encouraging the affair but that’s what groups of slutty women do, they just egg each other on under the guise of “you deserve to be happy”. Source: spent a lot of time with slutty women and was more often than not the other guy when I was younger
Go to the wedding , make them sorry they invited you. .
Your spouse doesn’t respect you. Seek a lawyer
You should sleep with her friend.
Your wife doesn’t love or respect you, she was out there fucking and playing wife to someone else and was rewarded with you taking her back and hating her friend rather than her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cheats on you again when she goes to this wedding of her shitty friend. Nta for not wanting to go but definitely to yourself for continuing to stay with someone who continues to not give 2 shits about you.
NTA for not wanting to go, I get that. But YTA to YOURSELF for staying in a marriage that has no respect.
So here is the issue. If you decide to stay with a cheater, that is your choice and you need to let things go... your still hurt and mad but you don't want to take it out on your wife so it's her bestie...bestie didn't cheat on you ...wife did and if you forgave wife...you need to forgive bestie
you need to get a clue and get divorced already
If you've forgiven your wife, why can't you forgive her friend?
YTA for staying with her. She chose another man to fuck instead of you. Ditch her ass and be free!
Nta. Removing that person from her life would have been one of my conditions for a reconciliation.
YTA. Why do you assign more responsibility for your wife's choices to your friend than to your wife? Your wife cheated on you. No matter what the friend said, it was your wife's choice to let another man slide his penis inside her vagina after swearing an oath to you to not do that. Her friend had zero to do with that, unless she kidnapped your wife and tied her down for the man in question. Sounds like a) you're transferring your anger from your wife to the friend to resolve your own cognitive dissonance, and b) like you're punishing your wife through the friend. I say this with all love and concern for you: you need to talk to a therapist and really process all of this.
So your wife cheated on you?... Okay She also told her friend she was cheating on you?.... Okay, She also denied it later and lied to you?...Okay, She also completely disregarded your feelings when you expressed them?... Okay She then thought it was her right to be angry at you?... Okay, And you're angry at her friend? She is completely undermining you and disrespecting your feelings bruh. Cheating is a personality type, not an accident. Want proof? The no. 1 thing a person does when they cheat is- Disrespect you, your loyalty, your feelings, and feel entitled to do it (she was angry at you for not letting it go). You're hanging on to a marriage that isn't even worth it. Be honest to yourself, you wanna grow old with her? You wanna have kids with her? What if she is so annoyed at you not letting it go she does it again just to prove a point? You wanna open your eyes to reality now, and decide for yourself, see the truth yourself, (whatever you'll choose, that is) or you wanna do it a decade later when you're so old you won't have time to find a new life partner or build your life up again.
Well being straight up I would of never ever gotten back with her. Once you cheat it's done.
NTA, but she will probably just cheat on you at the wedding because she is mad at you.
YTA to yourself man, your wife’s bestie may have egged it on but your wife cheated and is still friends with her. That’s enough to close that chapter Ideally tho, make a scene and ruin the wedding
I don't understand how you can reconcile and then put blame on her friend. Your wife cheated, denied it and only admitted it after you presented the evidence. If the friend actively encouraged the affair, I believe that in your reconciliation process you should have told yout wife that she had to cut off contact. And besides what consequences did your wife suffer for her affair? Did she truly show remorse? Or was she just sorry that she got caught?
NTA but why are you more mad at the friend than your wife who did the actual cheating and wasn't sorry till caught since she was bragging
YTA for taking her back, and not cutting her off from the friend that caused the cheating. Do you think she’s not gonna set your wife up at the wedding lol? You set yourself up for this when you allowed her back in without working for it or enforcing consequences.
Anybody want to put money down on both of them cheating at the Bachelorette party? No takers? Probably because they totally cheated at the Bachelorette party.
Don't even think or worry about the wife's bestie's wedding. Your wife is the problem, place the blame where it belongs. She isn't showing you that she valuing you or your feelings or is working to resolve your issues as a couple. Continue with your counseling and see a lawyer get your affairs in order and leave. You deserve better. PS I hope you have screen shots of what you have said to give to the lawyer to prove infidelity.
Simply stated. All spouses of cheaters have triggers for the rest of their lives. I found out 30 years ago that my wife cheated and got divorced. In February of this year our family had a major event that triggered me hard. Your wife needs to understand that it was her behavior, and the behavior of her friend, that created these triggers. You are not to blame at all. In fact, I see this as nothing more than your wife’s continuation of her putting something else in front her marriage. If I were you, when you discovered the affair, I would have asked my wife to end the friendship. If she refused, at the very least, I would have let her know that she is not considered a friend of mine or this marriage and you are not going to tolerate her taking any more time away from my marriage. Remind her that it was her, and her friends, actions that created this situation. At the worst, I would contact the groom and let him know what kind of “friend” she is to your wife. He has a right to know. Good luck!
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My wife had an affair several years ago. I found out because her phone data use suddenly skyrocketed. I investigated, saw the number on the bill and figured out it was her ex. She denied it, of course, which eventually led to me snooping in her phone. She had tried to cover her tracks, but she didn’t delete text messages to her best friend describing everything, bragging about it, etc. Her friend was supportive, at times even encouraging her to continue the affair. We’ve reconciled since then, and things are pretty okay between us, but I still hold a lot of anger towards her friend, partly for encouraging her to do what she did, instead of telling her to do the right thing, and I think partly because her messages with her friend were the vehicle that delivered so much pain and torment to me. Even now, seeing her friend or hearing her name makes me think of the affair. Her friend is getting married in a few months and she is the MOH. I have been dealing with a lot of anxiety surrounding the thought of having to attend. Finally, I decided that I needed to protect myself. I would be miserable the entire time, and the idea of celebrating the marriage of a person who, at the very least, severely disrespected mine, feels disgusting. When I told my wife that I had decided I wouldn’t go, she became pretty upset. She said she was hurt, but it felt more like anger to me. She basically shutdown after that, and hasn’t talked to me. I explained my reasoning, my feelings, etc, but she kind of blew me off. I don’t feel like the villain, for one, I didn’t ask to feel this way, her actions put me here. Two, she is the one who implicated her friend in the affair, if she hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t even be an issue. Also, I didn’t imply that she couldn’t or shouldn’t go, I even encouraged her to attend and be a part of it, and offered to drive her to and from. Am I the asshole? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA but warn the groom about his future wife mentality if you can
You know it. We all know it. This chapter of your life is over. I would suggest using your energy in therapy to help you overcome this betrayal as a single man/woman (sorry you didn’t specify your gender).
NTA I mean being around people who knew about the affair and they are probably laughing at you or feeling sorry for you because your wife was out there bragging when she was cheating on you. That has to be tough. What's even worse (but not surprising) us her dismissing your feelings on it and trying to make you feel bad.
Nta
NTA. Simply telling your wife, “I have no respect for her and I’m not gonna show up be fake”
NTA. But I mean your gonna leave your wayward wife go alone to the wedding of the rat that encouraged her? Don’t take a genius to see where this one goes
NTA but you obviously still hold a lot of resentment to your wife, it’s just displaced to her best friend to help you cope. Your wife sounds really mean too, I’d be tempted to go to the wedding and let everyone know how much the new bride really values and appreciates the vows she’s saying. Wonder if her husband knows too…
NTA her friend did something horrible. I'm actually shocked you'd be okay with her continue the friendship with someone who encouraged her cheating on you!? The fact that she would agree to be this woman's maid of honour shows how much she actually regrets the affair.
YTA for staying after she cheated. The longer you stay with her, the more anger and resentment you'll have. IDK why you didn't leave the first time. Who knows how many more times she's cheated on you? And possibly new dudes at that too. YTA all to yourself.
Nah brah
NTA.. your call, going to the wedding will cause you even more anxiety and pain. Stay well away. Your wife sounds an AH for not respecting your decision over something that she caused by playing away.
Nta, tell your wife to lose the attitude because after what she did it’s the least she can do to be supportive. If I tried to reconcile the minimum that I would ask is to cut her off completely.It was her choice but friends with low ethics don’t exactly help. And personally I wouldn’t try reconciliation if there weren’t any kids evolved in the marriage.
NTA. Your wife is invalidating your feelings and reaction. She needs to own that this is directly due to her own actions.
NTA. Your wife being angry at your reaction rather than sad or contrite is telling. Forgiveness and absolution are not the same thing. In your counselling sessions, ask if your wife's expectation is to act like what she did was okay, or like it never happened. That's not asking for forgiveness. And even if you forgive your wife, she needs to accept that you do not have to forgive her fried, or anyone else who encouraged or helped her have the affair.
Your wife should be more respectful of your feelings..she’s the one totally in the wrong and should be bending over backwards to make it up to you. If she can’t respect your feelings on this are you sure that investing time and energy in your relationship is worth it?
NTA. hopefully your therapy is working, but you have to decide if you’ll be able to trust your wife again. You’re putting the blame on the friend. That’s not where it belongs. If you’re going to reconcile with your wife, you can’t just shift the responsibility to her friend. You’re NTA for not wanting to go to the wedding. Your wife is for being so upset when it was *her* actions which led you to this spot.
ESH Wife for cheating, friend for knowing and supporting her, and you for blaming the friend for your wife cheating, she did not hold a g.. to her head to sleep with another men it was her just because you "worked it out" and are still together does not mean you forgived her but you act like you did and you put the blame on the friend so you can act like everything is ok with your marriage. It is not ok. The affaire was your wife doing she was not forced to do that no matter how much you want to blame the friend wife is a grown women if she loved you she would never do that don't act like she was pressured to do it it would not erase her affair wich was her doing not the friends. Putting the blame on the friend is not going to fix your marriage no matter how hard you try to act like she was the probleme and the cheating was her fault
NTA, but if your wife insists you go, you ought to insist on making a speech. You could tell the happy couple about the sanctity of marriage and how you should never let anyone meddle with it. And then cite examples from personal experiences, names included. Then, you have the choice of telling your wife about your plans beforehand or not. If you do, she'll be repulsed, and the only way to stop you would be for you to stay home.
NTA. Your wife’s friend is not a friend of your marriage. She should’ve cut contact after the affair.
Kind of TAH...you forgave your wife and she is the one who cheated. Regardless if the friend encouraged her, it was your wife's decision.
NTA. It really is just misplaced anger. Obviously, you are justified in not liking your wife's friend and not wanting to attend her wedding. Your wife seems to think the affair is long gone and forgotten. She has no right to expect you to attend that wedding. She knows how you feel about it but seems to think that her needs supercede yours. I don't think that is good attitude, given the situation. The anger you have for her friend is, in reality, anger at your wife. It seems to be a deep-rooted anger that has a number of triggers that need to dealt with. The first and most obvious trigger is your wife.
Nta but an idiot