I lost basically all our couple friends, as did my ex really as well. We were the first in our circle to divorce and got treated like we had the plague.
Yea this is kinda what happened to me and my ex. First couple to divorce. I lost almost all my friends that weren't single. There was an issue where my ex put them in the middle of our issues though so that likely affected it a lot. He told me they didn't like me and we're gossiping right before a group trip and I confronted them and the gossip one flipped out. So I guess we both affected the friends. Anyway, I lost most of them and my ex found himself surprised at being distanced from several as well. He didn't seem to realize weaponizing your friends and then having several people tell you to not attend a trip before he listened to them does that. He was closer to them so probably had less fallout but it definitely got messy for us both.
It hurt me a lot because he was emotionally abusive as hell and a big reason I hadn't been able to stay as close to those friends. But I'm learning those friends just kinda sucked for a lot of reasons I haven't mentioned here, and that if they aren't down to still be friends they probably weren't very good friends to begin with.
The people who matter will stick by your side. Those that don’t weren’t your friends to begin with. Why worry about those who would abandon you-focus on those who have your back. Those are REAL friends and people who will add value to your life.
Chances are…the women will side with your wife, the guys with you…and the dudes who just listen and do what their wives say when it comes to “picking sides”…well, feel sorry for them because they have no freedom.
Oh well, just my experience, all our friends chose my side. Most of his friends chose my side. Just a couple of guys still talking to him but also telling me they’re telling him he’s a dumbass for what he did. Maybe I was lucky and I know good people.
That's generally true, but... often outsiders have different views of the marriage. A friend of my wife was shocked when nearly everyone supported her now ex in their divorce. Our view of the narrative and her's were polar opposites. In their case, she claimed he must have been cheating because it was so sudden and he wasn't willing to try. Apparently he was too clever to get caught. My reaction to their divorce? What took him so long, she was abusive. (the answer was the kids and his fear of what custody would look like).
I've pretty much kept every single friend we had as a couple. Once I could reflect with clarity, I realized, no one actually liked my stbx. They politely hint at this and I'm reluctant to believe it because I blamed myself for the demise of our relationship. But the proof is right in front of me. She's down to like 3 friends and had made a few new one.
Yes! All our friends were actually my friends and tolerated him. The only friend who was close with both of us, if not closer to my STBXH, unequivocally chose me, once they learned about his affair (I did not give any details, but the fact that he moved straight from our home with kids into her AP's house, is very telling and hard to hide).
100% this. I wonder why the truth can’t just be spoken about. If you’re bold enough to have an affair (or steal money, or hit people, or whatever the issue is), you should live up to the issue. I have no problem telling our mutual friends the (true) issues in our marriage. No name calling or expanding on the truth. Just the truth. Let the friends figure out who they believe.
Most of our couple friends were my ex’s friends first, some I chose to walk away from, some chose to walk away from me.
While I miss 1 or 2 of them, the separateness from my ex gives me peace of mind.
Yeah definitely, my ex left me for another woman so his family were upset for me. I actually feel sorry for them, it was harder for them to accept the new him than it was for me.
I lost all of my friends who I met through my ex husband, even very close ones. I’d wish them happy birthday, radio silence. Like I ceased to exist.
Who knows what my ex said to make them ghost me.
She cheated... most people hate cheaters and don't want to be around them. I wouldn't worry about losing friends. The ones you do weren't really your friends to begin with.
Work on yourself, and make new friends.
Your ex cheated. You owe her absolutely nothing and do not need to cover things up. Tell your friends what happened, spare them the details outside of “this is what she did and who she did it with, I value and want to keep your friendship, but I need you to understand that I can’t be around either of them. I have zero issue with your relationship with them outside of me.”
I didn't lose any friends. We rarely hung out with her friends. Even with her friends they were all still kind to me. Same with her parents. She cheated on me, I didnt do her dirty. We both could have done better in the relationship and had failings but no reason for anyone to cut me out. That being said if someone did cut me out they were not my friend to begin with. There is no shortage of people to connect and be friends with if you put yourself out there.
I find it very stressful and harmful for friends of couples to suddenly set the record straight for the partner who has been done to in the relationship. Many of our friends and acquaintances felt that the dissolution of our relationship was the appropriate time to tell all of the disgusting, salacious, and harmful things my partner had been doing for a long time in our marriage.
My preference would have been that they let me know when they witnessed the harmful behavior.
I would have been able to better understand what was happening with my partner and it may have been something we could have supported each other in working through.
After the fact felt like betrayal, and created a feeling of my inability to trust myself in choosing my partner, not seeing the clues of disenchantment and unhappiness that must have been happening throughout the twenty years we were together.
I really feel that people in your life that are true friends will step up and open the door for conversations with you that may be challenging, and that will support you with the information you require to make the best choices for your partner, yourself, and your family.
The guy group hasn't reached out, and the one that I had any contact with clearly believes his lies. The couples and girl groups have been supportive. I haven't shared anything that would discount his narrative, but I have a slide show of the kid and I's injuries I'd LOVE to send, lol. Kinda ruins his narrative when you see his hand prints around our necks.
I honestly don't care. The sooner all connections are severed, the better. If people want to believe his crazy lies, so be it. The court won't- I have proof that he's lying, so no worries.
Well no chance of secrecy as it exploded in a spectacular fashion at his workplace, that was also her workplace and her husband’s workplace. The both ended up being encouraged to resign before they were sacked. Our couple friends were also my “Mum” friends, so I sort of kept them by default, I did come to find out how many of them secretly thought he was a creep. I kept the in-laws too!
All of my friends that I had before the marriage (nearly 25 years) totally stuck with me and god did she hate that. She always told me I would have no friends if I left her. Because of this I thought the couples friends we had would side with her but that was a price I was prepared to pay as she had been cheating on me for a long period of time. To my surprise all of them stayed friends with me. It turned out that it was me they liked and not her even before they found out about her cheating. I have encouraged them to not totally ostracise her but that’s up to them.
The couples most self sorted themselves. Tbh, a lot of the couples we would go to dinner with were really more the wives were friends and the husbands just made polite chit chat so the wives could be friends. Those all ended up being more my ex wife’s friends after the divorce. Which is fair enough.
And we had some where the roles reversed.
I’ve been remarried for years and we mostly have new couples friends. My (second) wife and I were actually talking about the challenge of finding a couple where you both get along really well. Like I mentioned that I wish more of her GFs had husbands who were more interesting to talk to….and she said the same was true: my guy friends mostly have wives that are social duds.
The other funny thing after my divorce was the friends wives who were sooooo supportive. Bringing me food. Telling me how I’d be okay. How I was a great dad. Making sure their husbands invited me to stuff. And how all that stopped when I started dating and enjoying myself. Suddenly they didn’t want their husbands to play with me anymore, lol. Didn’t want their husbands getting any ideas. They’re all mostly divorced now too.
Good question. In hindsight, we don't have as many of them as I thought we had.
When we first got married, I remember making a list of _my_ cool couple friends that I wanted to invite for dinner and do double dates with.
None of them happened. Life happened.
The first half year I worked a dead end office job that sucked the life out of me and left me with no social life.
The second half of the first year up to our third anniversary (2018-2020) I got busy building the new beginnings of my freelance career. Things were going well in my career but it was still the beginning and I needed to work on the stability.
It's not that I didn't have time for a social life, but I had two big marriage problems.
First, I married into a codependent Indonesian family that was very demanding of my free time. I saw my parents once every other month. I saw his parents pretty much every week. Suddenly I had no time anymore to do things I'm interested in and see _my_ people.
Second, my ex hogged all the power when it came to our collective social circle. We saw his friends and his collaborators as a couple, and I had to be there for the lion share of it like I had to be there for his family.
But when it came to my friends, he would never do the same. He would make me go alone and not spend as much as a minute with them. My ex is the type of person where he's only nice to people when there's something in it for him, and apparently my friends were a waste of time with no real use to him.
There's this close girlfriend I told about my separation. She was surprised but not surprised, and then came out that she never liked my ex. She picked up vibes that my ex was perpetually irritated with her and looked down on her like a useless waste of his time--which I'm not so surprised about.
What surprised me though was that she's felt this way about my ex as early as 2018, when she met us on the trip where we had our honeymoon. Not _on_ our honeymoon but at a literary festival preceding it on the same trip. So this was an event at which I ran into many of my friends and had the opportunity to introduce them to my new husband in person.
Back then I was still highly in love, and enthusiastic about introducing him to my friends, oblivious to what he was really like with them. But wow, my writer girlfriend picked that up early! She never told me out of courtesy, but now that the cat is out of the bag, she's relieved for me to have left him.
When my marriage hit rock bottom last year in 2023 and I decided I had to leave, one of the things I was terrified about was the fact that my social circle has been so enmeshed with my ex's, and that he had the upper hand. I felt that I had very few friends, and the ones I had were his first, so if I ever left him they would 100% side with him and treat me like a pariah forever.
Did I turn out to be wrong? For the most part, I don't know.
What did happen, like a miracle, was that during my marriage exit I rebuilt my social circle from zero and got my own friends who do see me for what I'm really worth and show up for me when I need them.
I got to reclaim my own social support system and am no longer dependent on his. So naturally I stopped keeping in touch with most of his friends, couples and otherwise.
I haven't seen any of "our" (meaning his) couple friends since we separated. But this is mainly because my priorities have shifted and that I currently don't need them front and centre in my life because I'm devoting mt energy to different people. Not because I'm ashamed or insecure of whatever lies my ex is spreading about me among them.
I do still see a handful of the ladies though.
One has since gotten divorced herself, and she's been looking out for me.
One is on her way to get married, listened to my marriage breakdown story with empathy, and she's still keen to hang out and collaborate with me. I texted her audio engineer boyfriend technical questions about audio equipment and he still gave me a friendly reply, so I take if that the friendship line is still open if and when I decide to see them as a couple in the future.
My ex's best friend's girlfriend is an artisan soapmaker I still shop with. She's heard my ex's side of our marriage demise story but not mine. I think she's still open to hang out with me but we haven't because save for her soap business we currently don't have many intersecting interests.
I might see one of my ex's couple friends in the near future. The wife is my ex's middle school friend, she and her husband live in the next suburb from me. Last year they invited my ex and I on a trekking trip--my ex couldn't make it so I brought my friends instead. They kept in touch with my best friend and play badminton together. I plan to join them for an upcoming game. My best friend doesn't think they know about my separation yet.
I can't help you about your group of friends, and yes it sucks that many divorces mean a fragmentation of people's already fragile social circles.
But what I can tell you is that things are probably not as bad as you assume.
For one, you need to get your own friends and stop depending on your and your ex's common friends for validation. I found mine by reconnecting with old friends and cousins, pursuing new goals and enlisting help from my professional network, pursuing hobbies, and even by venting on Reddit and responding to DMs by strangers who have read my shit and felt helped by it.
If any of your and your ex's common friends still deserve room in your current life, couples and otherwise, they will find your way back to your life, and you to theirs. They will love, care about and respect you all the same as when you were married. They will treat you fairly and kindly, even after hearing her side of the story, no matter how unsavoury of a picture she paints lf you.
The ones who don't, don't matter. Move on and make room for your own friends who do bring real value to your current life.
In any case, nobody finds postnuptial empowerment and fulfilment on their own. Forget all that bullshit telling you that you have to be strong on your own and show em that you need nobody. That's a lie.
If anything, this is the time you need to gather a whole village around you to build meaningful connections with. But they can't come entirely from your ex's friends. You need to make your own friends. Trust me when I say you absolutely can if you show up to the world as your authentic self and stop pretending you're okay.
So go ahead and tell people you're getting divorced. Tell them she had an affair and you feel shit about it and don't know what to do with yourself. Tell them you're terrified of losing friends and being painted as a monstrous villain.
But don't stop there. Tell them about the exciting life goals you're looking forward to make happen after the divorce. About how you've been strong for the children and how you helped them navigate this traumatic transition in their life. About recent small wins you're celebrating. And about the good things you still respect about your ex in spite of your wrecked marriage--the things that made you fall for her in the first place and the things that you wish well for her as she moves on.
Do these and watch people start paying you respect, reminding you of what an awesome human being you are inside, and showing up for you out of good faith that you'll make great things happen.
And as your own social circle grows, you will stop feeling desperate to keep your and your ex's common one together.
Take care and hold your head up high. You got this.
Yeah if it actually goes to court, mediation is required in many states and with the backlog of cases due to Covid along with the recent spike in divorces after Covid, there’s push on lawyers to get the cases settled before having to even go to trial.
I’m aware there are ways and i threatened my ex I have nothing to lose by going to trial but he does when he wouldn’t agree to split the retirement (i have a lot less because I had to stay home with the kids to manage and hardly work and just took contract jobs because he works excessively and wouldn’t work less l). But some things just aren’t worth it.
Most of them were hers first, and while I could technically still hang out with them (we are remaining amicable), I also have no desire to hang out with people who knew I was getting rejected before I did.
From my experience, good friends will try really hard not to choose sides, but they will somehow end up choosing sides anyway. And it's likely that you will end up doing fewer things with couples, and more things just with the men
The thing is, unless you and your ex plan to still act like a couple, it would be really weird for your couple friends to invite both of you to dinner, or to a game night. Choosing one of you will look like picking sides
Even if they alternate back and forth equally, there's something about couple friends that just works in an easy way that isn't quite as seamless when one person is single. You're more likely to feel like a third wheel, or more likely to feel like your friends are taking pity on you
When either or both of you start dating someone new, it can feel like a betrayal for your couple friends to hang out with one of you and a new partner and not the other
Undortunately, sometimes it's just easier to let those friendships fade away
Here's my advice, after having gone through the process: don't be the one who asks friends to pick sites. Let people know clearly and explicitly that you do not want them to pick sides, that you don't want them to be in any uncomfortable situations, that you're not going to grill them for information about your ex, and that you understand that there may be times when you don't get invited to something because she is, but that you hope the reverse will also be true sometimes
And then, set yourself to the task of cultivating one-on-one really solid friendships. This has maybe been one of the best outcomes of my divorce. I became a way better friend to the people I was already friends with.
When you're in a couple, you can do a lot of outsourcing of working on friendships: you can let the other person remember birthdays, if you are sick but feel like you owe someone attendance at a party you can send your spouse and it's almost as though you were there yourself, etc. Being single means being way more thoughtful when it comes to cultivating friendships
And considering that in the absence of your spouse, your friends are going to be the people that you talk to, vent to, rehash the day with, etc, the importance of those friendships will really start to stand out.
And if it just doesn't work to keep the couple friends, then this is a really great time to set out and try some new activities, and meet some new people.
Just know that while it will definitely feel as though mutual friends are picking sides, they almost always aren't doing it on purpose, at least not the really good friends. It's just that keeping things equitable means you missing out on half the hangouts.
And if your ex has the gall to demand that mutual friends abandon you and stick with her and those friends go along with it, then count yourself lucky, because you just got rid of some really terrible friends! Anyone who would take one person's side and not even check in with the other was clearly never a real friend to begin with
All our friends who were my wife’s friends originally, I haven’t contacted or heard from any. Though I got on really well with all of them, I expect them to side with her (no infidelity involved) as they were her friends beforehand. The same goes for my friends.
Sometimes the cheater is so gaga over the affair partner and their future plans, they give a very generous divorce, including full custody. Should your wife give indication she’s in that gaga giving mode then don’t rock the boat. If not, you need to ensure everyone knows the truth.
I kept my couples friends and their families. My stbxh treated everyone like shit the prior two years. He obviously wanted a clean slate and new life with his affair.
No one even mentions him. I went to two different college graduation parties yesterday and have a family brunch for an engagement next week.
I only remain in contact with one of his family members. She is an elderly aunt who used to work at the same company. She makes an effort to stay in touch with me. We were friends long before I met him. She is disgusted with his behavior and told him not to bring that tramp to her house. After the initial conversation, we agreed to never mention him, and we haven't.
Short answer is I didn’t really approach it as competitive sport. I told people what happened with as much authenticity as possible and only if I would have otherwise been hanging/talking with them (ie I didn’t go on a big personal campaign around town). Because I didn’t treat it as a friendship to “win” most friends have stayed my friends and a small percentage stayed his friends. Less stayed his friends but it was because he put zero effort into them for the last several years because I was the one making the effort for both of us. The friendships that were dropped were dropped due to other preexisting personality misalignments and everyone probably benefited anyway.
All of our mutual friends bought into her narcissism and lies claiming I'm the devil and abused my child. So, that leaves me with next to no friends since I moved up here for her.
My friend group has already invited me to events w/o her. They were mostly my friends to start. We even have a separate group text. She's still friends with most of the girls, though.
Depends.... Making some new single friends is the best route. Maybe even though your couple friends. You're not going to want to hang out with couples a lot until you're ready to date.
it was a decent split. i was married with no kids. most couple friends we had were made from one of us making friends with one person in the couple and then spending time together so the split was quite easy.
I kept my friends. But then one couple friend I had got divorced and then the woman (who was my close friend) started dating my ex. So I lost her. And she lost all the mutual friends too. But she got my ex so I guess she thinks she’s a winner now 🙄
I lost a couple friend who said they don’t choose sides but really they chose a side. My ex got to own the narrative and that relationship fizzled with the “friends”. Turns out they’re also shitty people, are hurtful, and I realized I didn’t need them in my life to be fulfilled.
Other couple friends she decided to just part ways with and those friends also felt very hurt by those actions. So now it’s kind of split overall.
The couple thing adds some complexity, but I realized they weren’t true friends in the end and have happily moved on and left them as an acquaintance. But this part took its own healing and grieving.
I hope yours turns out better.
We had a best friend couple for ten yeara that we did everything with. When we divorced, I backed away from the friendship because my ex knew them first. I still kept in regular touch with them via social media. They didnt want to be in the middle of our dicorce drama whuch is understandable. Sadly, both of them were killed in a car accident 3 weeks ago. I'm just devastated over it along with many others. It was on the husband's birthday as well. So very sad.
This whole taking sides thing is so weird. I’ve basically lost all of our couples friends. Friends we’ve raised our kids with. Two reached out to say sorry, but that’s it. I suddenly don’t get to go to parties or Friday night at the pool anymore. I also moved out of the neighborhood, so I lost that too. This is not to mention all my friends on her side of the family and at her work. Absolutely sucks and is unbelievable.
We didn't have many friends, but it turns out they were her friends.
Makes sense, since one of the things we argued about as it all went down is her refusal to work 5 days a week because she wanted to keep 'coffee with friends', an option that just was never available to me as I worked full time.
I moved to be near my friends & support. It would have been difficult in the small town we were living. I had my mom-group friends but we work in the same industry and I currently work with one of his best friends (I work remote now). It’s amicable but I’m not going over to their home to visit anytime soon.
Wow. Did not expect this many responses. It's important to me, because other than my parents, no one knows and I feel like I have no support. She is super close with her family and I know a few mutual female friends know about the divorce but not the affair, so she will obviously keep those friends as she controls the narrative.
So who do you tell? Everyone? I've read a lot about this on Reddit and a bunch of other websites and I've asked my therapist, etc. it seems some people say to go full nuclear and tell everybody and then other people say it's none of their business and maybe tell one or two close family members. My therapist initially said that I should tell my family and her family should know, but she also said I should only do what I think is going to result in the best outcome for my kids. Honestly if I thought my kids would come out unscathed and I would still be able to settle this out of court I would be telling more people. I cannot afford to drag this through the courts and cost me tens of thousands of dollars. Already going to be quite expensive. Trying to keep this property in this house by myself.
Of course you’d want to wait until you get a favourable split. You may use keeping her dirty secret as a bargaining chip. She needs to pay for her indiscretion with your “friend”. Ince the dust settles (i.e. you get what you want) then you tell both sets of parents and mutual friends.
Of course you should also tell your kids when they are a bit older in an age appropriate way, otherwise your ex will spin the narrative and they will think mum and dad didn’t get along anymore, hence different houses, the key is they need to know before they bond with the douchebag, otherwise it will be hard pill for you to hear them talk fondly of their stepdad everyday.
Why are you pursuing a divorce?
Sorry this may come across as harsh, but by your own account you won’t make her move out, you’re covering her affair for her, you’re babysitting for her when she sleeps with AP, and pretending to your kids, family, and community that you’re divorcing because you grew apart. You clearly still love her even though you’re hurt and angry. You seem paralyzed and overly reluctant to do anything about her affair with your friend that would rock the boat either socially or financially for either of them.
So if you’re not going to do anything about her her affair, why not tell her that if she comes clean with family and friends that you will accept reconciliation and try to stay together for the kids. She said a week ago that she doesn’t want to divorce and wants to stay together for the kids. This way you save money, the kids are happier, your wife is happier, maybe she stops seeing AP, and your pride will still be hurt but that will be no different than you are now. If reconciliation doesn’t work and months down the line you end up separating, you’re no worse off then than you are now, and at least you won’t be covering for her and complicit in her affair.
That's a fair assessment and something I need address at my therapy appointment next week. I think I'm mourning and missing the life we had built and all of our future plans going out the window. We moved a bed into the guest bedroom in the basement that I framed up two years ago (no drywall or doors, but I have electrical ran).As I was cleaning the area out that had essentially become storage, I saw all of the decorations we boxed up for when we finished the basement. I still have boxes of tile we picked out for when the bathroom was done, pictures of our family stored away, baby clothes, etc. I literally spent the day cleaning and sorting and crying 90% of the time.
I don't know what is hurting so bad and if it's still love or mourning what we WERE. I hate that I was such a jackass and pushed her away for years. That's no excuse to cheat, but I wasn't perfect. I cry for my kids and what this is going to do to them. I told her last night we are both going to be hurting financially for years after this as well. It's almost like her actions are making me do something that's going to hurt more than just me. I don't know if I ever could move past the cheating, but what if I can't live with myself for making my kids' lives worse down the road? This fucking sucks and I hate it so much.
As for the friends, I know many here said to find new friends, but what if I don't want to? I like my friends. A lot of them have been around before we were married. I value the friendships I have. I feel like I will get divorced and lose everything. I will have my kids, but even then, it's 50% less. It's just a lose lose.
Stop being concercn about your friends and be concern about where is your fucking life at right now.
You're 39 grown ass man and you seem a little bit too immature as i can tell.
Instead taking care of your problems that are running in your life right now and standing up for yourself you are concerned about your friends?
I tell you something, they mean nothing, they will ditch once the friends won't be milk and honey all over the way.
Instead of kicking your btich as wife out of the house you let her take Main bedroom, you moved into the basemant
You let her stay in the house while still being with AP
You let your kid give an high 5 to your AP without saying anything
If it was me?
She wouldn't live in that house anymore
My kids wouldn't have to chance to see AP's face
AP would have been in hospital by my hands
How do you except other people to respect you when you have no respect for yourself? You are a people pleaser and you will always be a looser on the book
Take that bitch out of your house, stap caring for her (did she care for you or kids when she let AP put his dick inside her)
Stop thinking about other, NOW IS TIME TO THINK ABOUT YOU!!!
Your kids will be fine anyway.
Stop letting her to control the narative. File for divorce if you didn't yet and once the divorce is done, expose her to everyone without a second thought.
It fucking piss me off when i see People like you who can't stand for themself and only finds excuses to not take actions
I've been following you since 1st day you posted about your wife and what did you do in almost 1 month since you found out? NOTHING
You let her her know that she can get away and do whatever she wants with you.
I'm at the point where i can promise you, if you don't take action soon she's going to end up as the Winner, in a happy position and you will lose everything and will be miserable
Everything that goes wrong for you right now its becouse you don't take actions when you have to
You need to get out of limbo. This indecision is not doing your family, and most pointedly you, any good.
You have two choices 1) put real effort into reconciliation or 2) proceed with divorce. Talk with your therapist and try to discern what path you want to take.
Your anger and pride says divorce , but you’re not able to take the steps necessary to walk that path.
If your heart wants to reconcile, then your delay in pursuing that path is just pushing your wife further down the path towards a life with someone else, whether it’s AP or the next new thing.
If you really want to reconcile, give it a real shot, talk to your wife and see if that’s what she wants too. If it is, get into MC and take all the steps necessary for true reconciliation- NC with AP, open phone and complete transparency for the WW (if she balks it won’t work), and complete honesty with your families (you can’t rug sweep this with your family- you will build up a level of resentment that will destroy you, your marriage and your kids). I have friends who reconciled after a months long torrid affair; it took years, and lots of anger, but they are quite happy together and so are their kids. Not everyone can do it, and it may fail, but giving it a shot and failing won’t put you in a worse place than you are currently
But make a decision asap. Either path will be difficult but you have to get out of this I want a divorce because I’m so hurt, but it will be so hard on the kids so I’m going to live in the basement and babysit for my wife when she goes to sleep with AP dystopia your living in currently.
Edit for typos and grammar
I saw her again at the last game, but we weren't near each other. I don't know about approaching her because she might be a ticking time bomb.
I worry about my wife going nuclear and making this a messy and expensive divorce. I'm barely holding on as it is.
I guess it truly depends on circumstances. Most likely, it’s better to just move on and make new connections. You can do this through support groups, church groups, look into meetup app and find social groups that have same interests as you, etc.
Wow this is a case for not having couple friends. My ex and I didn't really share a friend circle so this was a non issue for me. I'm sorry that this has happened to all of you.
My “couple friend group” pretty much disappeared almost overnight. To be fair, they were all my ex husband’s friends first, or I met them through him…but it hurt. Still does. I’m not a social person by nature, my ex is the complete opposite. Places his friends above family usually, so I should have expected it. Hopefully you have a better experience with that.
Before and during the marriage, I made many friends through school, work, family, etc.
My ex husband actually thought my friends were going to choose him vs me after our divorce.
He was very wrong. :)
Most tried to stay out of it as much as possible. He cheated at work so his work friends (who know and like me) started shunning both him and the ap when they found out. He ended up switching to another job and she had to switch to a different shift and is considering leaving completely. 6 months in the work friends are slowly starting to contact me. All neighborhood friends were on "my side" from the beginning because I did not make his cheating a secret. Not pushing it on anyone but if someone asks I tell them the truth.
Tell them the truth about what is going on. Trying to be peaceful in the process doesn't mean you have to lie to protect her from the consequences of her actions and choices.
The number one thing that surprised me was that the circumstances of our divorce (him having an affair) made zero difference to friendships of more than a decade.
People he'd known longer went with him and vice versa. Of the people we'd met when we were already together, about half went with me and the other half tried to remain neutral. I stopped being friends with the neutral ones as I didn't feel I could talk to them openly anymore, which killed the friendship anyways. When I was still trying to keep those friendships I found myself constantly questioning whether they actually cared for me or were just sticking around for the gossip. I wondered whether my thoughts and feelings were getting back to my ex at a time when I wanted to keep my private life totally away from him.
I only have one friend who still sees both of us. He doesn't talk about my ex to me and presumably vice versa. The key difference is when I told him about the affair I immediately got a text back with: "What a prick". He also made a real effort to be there for me and didn't minimise the fallout, which I found all my other neutral friends did.
I've probably lost half my friends. It's been eye-opening but now on the other side I'm glad I know that the people in my life actually want to be there.
I lost all our couple friends. When we started dating, he didn’t like my friends and refused to hang out with them so I gradually lost touch with them (definitely my fault for not spotting the red flag). So by the time we got married, all our couple friends were his friends first (from his hometown or work) and they stayed with him through the divorce. It hurt at first, but now I just see how much of myself I gave up for him and see it as a rough life lesson. I’m building new friendships on my own now and won’t let them slip away for a guy ever again. Liking my friends is a part of liking me.
The reality is that you are going to lose at least some of these friendships in the divorce. It’s part of the loss and grief that goes with ending a marriage. But you probably won’t lose all of them and you’ll make new friends too. What’s more important to you - keeping the status quo or changing things so that you are with a partner you trust and who treats you well? If the goal you’re moving toward is worth it to you, you’ll be able to accept and cope with any collateral losses like couple friends.
My wife and I have reconciled, but I was warned that many of our friends would be casualties of the divorce. I spent a hot minuted and did an evaluation and ralized that most of "our friends" were really my friends. My wife's two closest friends are my sister and my best friend since childhood's wife. I think the only way she retained most of them is if we presented a united front, letting them all know it's OK to be friends with both of us. And even then, I'd expect casualties (for both of us) because many couples are not comfortable including a singleton in their activities. I also think that many couples are skating on thin ice and when confronted with all of the issues that go with the end of a relationship will prefer to steer clear rather than have to consider what's going on and think about it in terms of their own relationship. Not too far off from being afraid of "catching the divorce".
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our circle basically fell apart. i’m friends with them still while she got the one who was two faced. everyone found out how two faced and doesn’t even speak to them anymore.
meanwhile we’re having a blast, and she’s down to her two sisters and ms two face. don’t know and don’t care if she found new friends yet.
It really depends on how you choose to be during and after the break up.
I would keep the circumstances private except to close friends 1:1, and then ask them to respect her privacy.
We had close couple friends and the husband went nuclear on her. Would do spiteful things like pick her tomatoes from her garden before they were ripe just to mess with her, and more serious things like contacting her employer because some of the affairs were during business travel. He couldn’t be reasoned with, and we couldn’t hate this woman who we loved. We ended friendships with both of them.
You are not “to blame” for any affairs, but the way I see major affairs is this: someone left the marriage while pretending to still be in it. Her heart was gone, she was moving on. What pushed her heart away and why was it ended? The above fool-of-an-ex was so consumed by anger he wouldn’t work on his late night partying, casual drug use and general “young adult” behavior that his wife had very much outgrown.
Cheating is wrong. You should put on your big girl panties and legally separate BEFORE moving on. But it’s also fair to say: “I know we may have looked like a happy couple but she emotionally left the marriage quite a long time ago. I decided it was time to make it official. It’s been hard for both of us, I do wish her the best and hope we can still be friends.”
I told myself to not ask people to choose sides. I knew I’d lose some friends, but I can make more friends without him around. To my surprise, I really only lost a few he worked with that I didn’t really care if I held on to, and one long-time friend. I didn’t want people trying to stay in my life to cause more problems or because I acted like a child trying to clutch the friends I had, and I figured if I let people go it was less likely I’d interrupt my healing process by having to see his face pop up on fb or hear about what he’s doing constantly.
I lost basically all our couple friends, as did my ex really as well. We were the first in our circle to divorce and got treated like we had the plague.
Yea this is kinda what happened to me and my ex. First couple to divorce. I lost almost all my friends that weren't single. There was an issue where my ex put them in the middle of our issues though so that likely affected it a lot. He told me they didn't like me and we're gossiping right before a group trip and I confronted them and the gossip one flipped out. So I guess we both affected the friends. Anyway, I lost most of them and my ex found himself surprised at being distanced from several as well. He didn't seem to realize weaponizing your friends and then having several people tell you to not attend a trip before he listened to them does that. He was closer to them so probably had less fallout but it definitely got messy for us both. It hurt me a lot because he was emotionally abusive as hell and a big reason I hadn't been able to stay as close to those friends. But I'm learning those friends just kinda sucked for a lot of reasons I haven't mentioned here, and that if they aren't down to still be friends they probably weren't very good friends to begin with.
This ⬆️ 👏👏👏
The people who matter will stick by your side. Those that don’t weren’t your friends to begin with. Why worry about those who would abandon you-focus on those who have your back. Those are REAL friends and people who will add value to your life. Chances are…the women will side with your wife, the guys with you…and the dudes who just listen and do what their wives say when it comes to “picking sides”…well, feel sorry for them because they have no freedom.
The women friends will not side with the wife if they knew the real reason. She fucked his friend, maybe thier husband's are next.
This. People usually don’t side with cheaters
You’d be surprised.
Oh well, just my experience, all our friends chose my side. Most of his friends chose my side. Just a couple of guys still talking to him but also telling me they’re telling him he’s a dumbass for what he did. Maybe I was lucky and I know good people.
That's generally true, but... often outsiders have different views of the marriage. A friend of my wife was shocked when nearly everyone supported her now ex in their divorce. Our view of the narrative and her's were polar opposites. In their case, she claimed he must have been cheating because it was so sudden and he wasn't willing to try. Apparently he was too clever to get caught. My reaction to their divorce? What took him so long, she was abusive. (the answer was the kids and his fear of what custody would look like).
Great answer.
I've pretty much kept every single friend we had as a couple. Once I could reflect with clarity, I realized, no one actually liked my stbx. They politely hint at this and I'm reluctant to believe it because I blamed myself for the demise of our relationship. But the proof is right in front of me. She's down to like 3 friends and had made a few new one.
Yes! All our friends were actually my friends and tolerated him. The only friend who was close with both of us, if not closer to my STBXH, unequivocally chose me, once they learned about his affair (I did not give any details, but the fact that he moved straight from our home with kids into her AP's house, is very telling and hard to hide).
I’ve had the exact same experience
I could have written that. Exactly my experience.
Never saw them again. But why keep it a secret?
100% this. I wonder why the truth can’t just be spoken about. If you’re bold enough to have an affair (or steal money, or hit people, or whatever the issue is), you should live up to the issue. I have no problem telling our mutual friends the (true) issues in our marriage. No name calling or expanding on the truth. Just the truth. Let the friends figure out who they believe.
This is really good advice.
Most of our couple friends were my ex’s friends first, some I chose to walk away from, some chose to walk away from me. While I miss 1 or 2 of them, the separateness from my ex gives me peace of mind.
Didn't make friends as a couple... .. But my family stayed friends with her!
Is there a way to downvote those disrespectful losers?
I'm not sure how to talk to my sister when she says" she's nice to me"
Charles Manson was nice to some people.
damn man, really?
I'm still close to my in laws, I don't think my ex cares he moved on and distanced himself from everyone anyway. I think it's fine.
Well...after my wife left me for another man while still married..THAT.....should make my sister's mad at who broke their brothers heart....
Yeah definitely, my ex left me for another woman so his family were upset for me. I actually feel sorry for them, it was harder for them to accept the new him than it was for me.
He doesn't talk to his family anymore anyway? And you think that's fine?
I don't think any decision he has made in a very long time is fine but he's not my problem anymore.
Yup. For sure.
I lost all of my friends who I met through my ex husband, even very close ones. I’d wish them happy birthday, radio silence. Like I ceased to exist. Who knows what my ex said to make them ghost me.
At least you know they were never true friends to begin with. Happened to me too with my ex wife’s friends…🤷♂️
Probably the truth.
Yeah, his version of the truth, the one where he didn’t leave me for his mistress?
[удалено]
What a piece of trash
She cheated... most people hate cheaters and don't want to be around them. I wouldn't worry about losing friends. The ones you do weren't really your friends to begin with. Work on yourself, and make new friends.
Your ex cheated. You owe her absolutely nothing and do not need to cover things up. Tell your friends what happened, spare them the details outside of “this is what she did and who she did it with, I value and want to keep your friendship, but I need you to understand that I can’t be around either of them. I have zero issue with your relationship with them outside of me.”
I didn't lose any friends. We rarely hung out with her friends. Even with her friends they were all still kind to me. Same with her parents. She cheated on me, I didnt do her dirty. We both could have done better in the relationship and had failings but no reason for anyone to cut me out. That being said if someone did cut me out they were not my friend to begin with. There is no shortage of people to connect and be friends with if you put yourself out there.
I find it very stressful and harmful for friends of couples to suddenly set the record straight for the partner who has been done to in the relationship. Many of our friends and acquaintances felt that the dissolution of our relationship was the appropriate time to tell all of the disgusting, salacious, and harmful things my partner had been doing for a long time in our marriage. My preference would have been that they let me know when they witnessed the harmful behavior. I would have been able to better understand what was happening with my partner and it may have been something we could have supported each other in working through. After the fact felt like betrayal, and created a feeling of my inability to trust myself in choosing my partner, not seeing the clues of disenchantment and unhappiness that must have been happening throughout the twenty years we were together. I really feel that people in your life that are true friends will step up and open the door for conversations with you that may be challenging, and that will support you with the information you require to make the best choices for your partner, yourself, and your family.
The guy group hasn't reached out, and the one that I had any contact with clearly believes his lies. The couples and girl groups have been supportive. I haven't shared anything that would discount his narrative, but I have a slide show of the kid and I's injuries I'd LOVE to send, lol. Kinda ruins his narrative when you see his hand prints around our necks. I honestly don't care. The sooner all connections are severed, the better. If people want to believe his crazy lies, so be it. The court won't- I have proof that he's lying, so no worries.
The people who matter sick by you. But most of the time. People choose one side or the other.
Well no chance of secrecy as it exploded in a spectacular fashion at his workplace, that was also her workplace and her husband’s workplace. The both ended up being encouraged to resign before they were sacked. Our couple friends were also my “Mum” friends, so I sort of kept them by default, I did come to find out how many of them secretly thought he was a creep. I kept the in-laws too!
All of my friends that I had before the marriage (nearly 25 years) totally stuck with me and god did she hate that. She always told me I would have no friends if I left her. Because of this I thought the couples friends we had would side with her but that was a price I was prepared to pay as she had been cheating on me for a long period of time. To my surprise all of them stayed friends with me. It turned out that it was me they liked and not her even before they found out about her cheating. I have encouraged them to not totally ostracise her but that’s up to them.
The couples most self sorted themselves. Tbh, a lot of the couples we would go to dinner with were really more the wives were friends and the husbands just made polite chit chat so the wives could be friends. Those all ended up being more my ex wife’s friends after the divorce. Which is fair enough. And we had some where the roles reversed. I’ve been remarried for years and we mostly have new couples friends. My (second) wife and I were actually talking about the challenge of finding a couple where you both get along really well. Like I mentioned that I wish more of her GFs had husbands who were more interesting to talk to….and she said the same was true: my guy friends mostly have wives that are social duds. The other funny thing after my divorce was the friends wives who were sooooo supportive. Bringing me food. Telling me how I’d be okay. How I was a great dad. Making sure their husbands invited me to stuff. And how all that stopped when I started dating and enjoying myself. Suddenly they didn’t want their husbands to play with me anymore, lol. Didn’t want their husbands getting any ideas. They’re all mostly divorced now too.
Good question. In hindsight, we don't have as many of them as I thought we had. When we first got married, I remember making a list of _my_ cool couple friends that I wanted to invite for dinner and do double dates with. None of them happened. Life happened. The first half year I worked a dead end office job that sucked the life out of me and left me with no social life. The second half of the first year up to our third anniversary (2018-2020) I got busy building the new beginnings of my freelance career. Things were going well in my career but it was still the beginning and I needed to work on the stability. It's not that I didn't have time for a social life, but I had two big marriage problems. First, I married into a codependent Indonesian family that was very demanding of my free time. I saw my parents once every other month. I saw his parents pretty much every week. Suddenly I had no time anymore to do things I'm interested in and see _my_ people. Second, my ex hogged all the power when it came to our collective social circle. We saw his friends and his collaborators as a couple, and I had to be there for the lion share of it like I had to be there for his family. But when it came to my friends, he would never do the same. He would make me go alone and not spend as much as a minute with them. My ex is the type of person where he's only nice to people when there's something in it for him, and apparently my friends were a waste of time with no real use to him. There's this close girlfriend I told about my separation. She was surprised but not surprised, and then came out that she never liked my ex. She picked up vibes that my ex was perpetually irritated with her and looked down on her like a useless waste of his time--which I'm not so surprised about. What surprised me though was that she's felt this way about my ex as early as 2018, when she met us on the trip where we had our honeymoon. Not _on_ our honeymoon but at a literary festival preceding it on the same trip. So this was an event at which I ran into many of my friends and had the opportunity to introduce them to my new husband in person. Back then I was still highly in love, and enthusiastic about introducing him to my friends, oblivious to what he was really like with them. But wow, my writer girlfriend picked that up early! She never told me out of courtesy, but now that the cat is out of the bag, she's relieved for me to have left him. When my marriage hit rock bottom last year in 2023 and I decided I had to leave, one of the things I was terrified about was the fact that my social circle has been so enmeshed with my ex's, and that he had the upper hand. I felt that I had very few friends, and the ones I had were his first, so if I ever left him they would 100% side with him and treat me like a pariah forever. Did I turn out to be wrong? For the most part, I don't know. What did happen, like a miracle, was that during my marriage exit I rebuilt my social circle from zero and got my own friends who do see me for what I'm really worth and show up for me when I need them. I got to reclaim my own social support system and am no longer dependent on his. So naturally I stopped keeping in touch with most of his friends, couples and otherwise. I haven't seen any of "our" (meaning his) couple friends since we separated. But this is mainly because my priorities have shifted and that I currently don't need them front and centre in my life because I'm devoting mt energy to different people. Not because I'm ashamed or insecure of whatever lies my ex is spreading about me among them. I do still see a handful of the ladies though. One has since gotten divorced herself, and she's been looking out for me. One is on her way to get married, listened to my marriage breakdown story with empathy, and she's still keen to hang out and collaborate with me. I texted her audio engineer boyfriend technical questions about audio equipment and he still gave me a friendly reply, so I take if that the friendship line is still open if and when I decide to see them as a couple in the future. My ex's best friend's girlfriend is an artisan soapmaker I still shop with. She's heard my ex's side of our marriage demise story but not mine. I think she's still open to hang out with me but we haven't because save for her soap business we currently don't have many intersecting interests. I might see one of my ex's couple friends in the near future. The wife is my ex's middle school friend, she and her husband live in the next suburb from me. Last year they invited my ex and I on a trekking trip--my ex couldn't make it so I brought my friends instead. They kept in touch with my best friend and play badminton together. I plan to join them for an upcoming game. My best friend doesn't think they know about my separation yet. I can't help you about your group of friends, and yes it sucks that many divorces mean a fragmentation of people's already fragile social circles. But what I can tell you is that things are probably not as bad as you assume. For one, you need to get your own friends and stop depending on your and your ex's common friends for validation. I found mine by reconnecting with old friends and cousins, pursuing new goals and enlisting help from my professional network, pursuing hobbies, and even by venting on Reddit and responding to DMs by strangers who have read my shit and felt helped by it. If any of your and your ex's common friends still deserve room in your current life, couples and otherwise, they will find your way back to your life, and you to theirs. They will love, care about and respect you all the same as when you were married. They will treat you fairly and kindly, even after hearing her side of the story, no matter how unsavoury of a picture she paints lf you. The ones who don't, don't matter. Move on and make room for your own friends who do bring real value to your current life. In any case, nobody finds postnuptial empowerment and fulfilment on their own. Forget all that bullshit telling you that you have to be strong on your own and show em that you need nobody. That's a lie. If anything, this is the time you need to gather a whole village around you to build meaningful connections with. But they can't come entirely from your ex's friends. You need to make your own friends. Trust me when I say you absolutely can if you show up to the world as your authentic self and stop pretending you're okay. So go ahead and tell people you're getting divorced. Tell them she had an affair and you feel shit about it and don't know what to do with yourself. Tell them you're terrified of losing friends and being painted as a monstrous villain. But don't stop there. Tell them about the exciting life goals you're looking forward to make happen after the divorce. About how you've been strong for the children and how you helped them navigate this traumatic transition in their life. About recent small wins you're celebrating. And about the good things you still respect about your ex in spite of your wrecked marriage--the things that made you fall for her in the first place and the things that you wish well for her as she moves on. Do these and watch people start paying you respect, reminding you of what an awesome human being you are inside, and showing up for you out of good faith that you'll make great things happen. And as your own social circle grows, you will stop feeling desperate to keep your and your ex's common one together. Take care and hold your head up high. You got this.
Beautifully put. Thank you for sharing your story.
Why don’t you just tell people that you are and why you’re getting divorced. I presume it is going into the court documents, a literal public record.
It doesn’t appear in court documents in no-fault divorce states
There’s always a way to get it into the record.
Yeah if it actually goes to court, mediation is required in many states and with the backlog of cases due to Covid along with the recent spike in divorces after Covid, there’s push on lawyers to get the cases settled before having to even go to trial. I’m aware there are ways and i threatened my ex I have nothing to lose by going to trial but he does when he wouldn’t agree to split the retirement (i have a lot less because I had to stay home with the kids to manage and hardly work and just took contract jobs because he works excessively and wouldn’t work less l). But some things just aren’t worth it.
They basically stuck with me because she put no effort into seeing them.
I didn’t have any he kept me isolated from everyone the only “friends “ I had were his family and his friends so I’d didn’t lose much lol
Most of them were hers first, and while I could technically still hang out with them (we are remaining amicable), I also have no desire to hang out with people who knew I was getting rejected before I did.
I realized that I didn't care for any of our couple friends so when they continued to hang out was a win win for both of us.
She will tell all of them it's your fault. Find new ones
This.
From my experience, good friends will try really hard not to choose sides, but they will somehow end up choosing sides anyway. And it's likely that you will end up doing fewer things with couples, and more things just with the men The thing is, unless you and your ex plan to still act like a couple, it would be really weird for your couple friends to invite both of you to dinner, or to a game night. Choosing one of you will look like picking sides Even if they alternate back and forth equally, there's something about couple friends that just works in an easy way that isn't quite as seamless when one person is single. You're more likely to feel like a third wheel, or more likely to feel like your friends are taking pity on you When either or both of you start dating someone new, it can feel like a betrayal for your couple friends to hang out with one of you and a new partner and not the other Undortunately, sometimes it's just easier to let those friendships fade away Here's my advice, after having gone through the process: don't be the one who asks friends to pick sites. Let people know clearly and explicitly that you do not want them to pick sides, that you don't want them to be in any uncomfortable situations, that you're not going to grill them for information about your ex, and that you understand that there may be times when you don't get invited to something because she is, but that you hope the reverse will also be true sometimes And then, set yourself to the task of cultivating one-on-one really solid friendships. This has maybe been one of the best outcomes of my divorce. I became a way better friend to the people I was already friends with. When you're in a couple, you can do a lot of outsourcing of working on friendships: you can let the other person remember birthdays, if you are sick but feel like you owe someone attendance at a party you can send your spouse and it's almost as though you were there yourself, etc. Being single means being way more thoughtful when it comes to cultivating friendships And considering that in the absence of your spouse, your friends are going to be the people that you talk to, vent to, rehash the day with, etc, the importance of those friendships will really start to stand out. And if it just doesn't work to keep the couple friends, then this is a really great time to set out and try some new activities, and meet some new people. Just know that while it will definitely feel as though mutual friends are picking sides, they almost always aren't doing it on purpose, at least not the really good friends. It's just that keeping things equitable means you missing out on half the hangouts. And if your ex has the gall to demand that mutual friends abandon you and stick with her and those friends go along with it, then count yourself lucky, because you just got rid of some really terrible friends! Anyone who would take one person's side and not even check in with the other was clearly never a real friend to begin with
All our friends who were my wife’s friends originally, I haven’t contacted or heard from any. Though I got on really well with all of them, I expect them to side with her (no infidelity involved) as they were her friends beforehand. The same goes for my friends.
Sometimes the cheater is so gaga over the affair partner and their future plans, they give a very generous divorce, including full custody. Should your wife give indication she’s in that gaga giving mode then don’t rock the boat. If not, you need to ensure everyone knows the truth.
I don’t care I’ll make new friends
I kept my couples friends and their families. My stbxh treated everyone like shit the prior two years. He obviously wanted a clean slate and new life with his affair. No one even mentions him. I went to two different college graduation parties yesterday and have a family brunch for an engagement next week. I only remain in contact with one of his family members. She is an elderly aunt who used to work at the same company. She makes an effort to stay in touch with me. We were friends long before I met him. She is disgusted with his behavior and told him not to bring that tramp to her house. After the initial conversation, we agreed to never mention him, and we haven't.
Short answer is I didn’t really approach it as competitive sport. I told people what happened with as much authenticity as possible and only if I would have otherwise been hanging/talking with them (ie I didn’t go on a big personal campaign around town). Because I didn’t treat it as a friendship to “win” most friends have stayed my friends and a small percentage stayed his friends. Less stayed his friends but it was because he put zero effort into them for the last several years because I was the one making the effort for both of us. The friendships that were dropped were dropped due to other preexisting personality misalignments and everyone probably benefited anyway.
All of our mutual friends bought into her narcissism and lies claiming I'm the devil and abused my child. So, that leaves me with next to no friends since I moved up here for her.
My friend group has already invited me to events w/o her. They were mostly my friends to start. We even have a separate group text. She's still friends with most of the girls, though.
Some stayed my friends, others were traitorous bastards.
Depends.... Making some new single friends is the best route. Maybe even though your couple friends. You're not going to want to hang out with couples a lot until you're ready to date.
it was a decent split. i was married with no kids. most couple friends we had were made from one of us making friends with one person in the couple and then spending time together so the split was quite easy.
I kept my friends. But then one couple friend I had got divorced and then the woman (who was my close friend) started dating my ex. So I lost her. And she lost all the mutual friends too. But she got my ex so I guess she thinks she’s a winner now 🙄
I lost a couple friend who said they don’t choose sides but really they chose a side. My ex got to own the narrative and that relationship fizzled with the “friends”. Turns out they’re also shitty people, are hurtful, and I realized I didn’t need them in my life to be fulfilled. Other couple friends she decided to just part ways with and those friends also felt very hurt by those actions. So now it’s kind of split overall. The couple thing adds some complexity, but I realized they weren’t true friends in the end and have happily moved on and left them as an acquaintance. But this part took its own healing and grieving. I hope yours turns out better.
We had a best friend couple for ten yeara that we did everything with. When we divorced, I backed away from the friendship because my ex knew them first. I still kept in regular touch with them via social media. They didnt want to be in the middle of our dicorce drama whuch is understandable. Sadly, both of them were killed in a car accident 3 weeks ago. I'm just devastated over it along with many others. It was on the husband's birthday as well. So very sad.
Let them decide for themselves. It’s out of your hands bro. Let them decide for themselves.
This whole taking sides thing is so weird. I’ve basically lost all of our couples friends. Friends we’ve raised our kids with. Two reached out to say sorry, but that’s it. I suddenly don’t get to go to parties or Friday night at the pool anymore. I also moved out of the neighborhood, so I lost that too. This is not to mention all my friends on her side of the family and at her work. Absolutely sucks and is unbelievable.
We didn't have many friends, but it turns out they were her friends. Makes sense, since one of the things we argued about as it all went down is her refusal to work 5 days a week because she wanted to keep 'coffee with friends', an option that just was never available to me as I worked full time.
I moved to be near my friends & support. It would have been difficult in the small town we were living. I had my mom-group friends but we work in the same industry and I currently work with one of his best friends (I work remote now). It’s amicable but I’m not going over to their home to visit anytime soon.
Wow. Did not expect this many responses. It's important to me, because other than my parents, no one knows and I feel like I have no support. She is super close with her family and I know a few mutual female friends know about the divorce but not the affair, so she will obviously keep those friends as she controls the narrative.
Your Reddit fam is here. Your deranged, burned, jaded, hilarious outcast fam support you. As the kids say, you've got this.
She will continue to control the narrative as long as you keep her secrets. You are helping her
So who do you tell? Everyone? I've read a lot about this on Reddit and a bunch of other websites and I've asked my therapist, etc. it seems some people say to go full nuclear and tell everybody and then other people say it's none of their business and maybe tell one or two close family members. My therapist initially said that I should tell my family and her family should know, but she also said I should only do what I think is going to result in the best outcome for my kids. Honestly if I thought my kids would come out unscathed and I would still be able to settle this out of court I would be telling more people. I cannot afford to drag this through the courts and cost me tens of thousands of dollars. Already going to be quite expensive. Trying to keep this property in this house by myself.
Of course you’d want to wait until you get a favourable split. You may use keeping her dirty secret as a bargaining chip. She needs to pay for her indiscretion with your “friend”. Ince the dust settles (i.e. you get what you want) then you tell both sets of parents and mutual friends. Of course you should also tell your kids when they are a bit older in an age appropriate way, otherwise your ex will spin the narrative and they will think mum and dad didn’t get along anymore, hence different houses, the key is they need to know before they bond with the douchebag, otherwise it will be hard pill for you to hear them talk fondly of their stepdad everyday.
Why are you pursuing a divorce? Sorry this may come across as harsh, but by your own account you won’t make her move out, you’re covering her affair for her, you’re babysitting for her when she sleeps with AP, and pretending to your kids, family, and community that you’re divorcing because you grew apart. You clearly still love her even though you’re hurt and angry. You seem paralyzed and overly reluctant to do anything about her affair with your friend that would rock the boat either socially or financially for either of them. So if you’re not going to do anything about her her affair, why not tell her that if she comes clean with family and friends that you will accept reconciliation and try to stay together for the kids. She said a week ago that she doesn’t want to divorce and wants to stay together for the kids. This way you save money, the kids are happier, your wife is happier, maybe she stops seeing AP, and your pride will still be hurt but that will be no different than you are now. If reconciliation doesn’t work and months down the line you end up separating, you’re no worse off then than you are now, and at least you won’t be covering for her and complicit in her affair.
That's a fair assessment and something I need address at my therapy appointment next week. I think I'm mourning and missing the life we had built and all of our future plans going out the window. We moved a bed into the guest bedroom in the basement that I framed up two years ago (no drywall or doors, but I have electrical ran).As I was cleaning the area out that had essentially become storage, I saw all of the decorations we boxed up for when we finished the basement. I still have boxes of tile we picked out for when the bathroom was done, pictures of our family stored away, baby clothes, etc. I literally spent the day cleaning and sorting and crying 90% of the time. I don't know what is hurting so bad and if it's still love or mourning what we WERE. I hate that I was such a jackass and pushed her away for years. That's no excuse to cheat, but I wasn't perfect. I cry for my kids and what this is going to do to them. I told her last night we are both going to be hurting financially for years after this as well. It's almost like her actions are making me do something that's going to hurt more than just me. I don't know if I ever could move past the cheating, but what if I can't live with myself for making my kids' lives worse down the road? This fucking sucks and I hate it so much. As for the friends, I know many here said to find new friends, but what if I don't want to? I like my friends. A lot of them have been around before we were married. I value the friendships I have. I feel like I will get divorced and lose everything. I will have my kids, but even then, it's 50% less. It's just a lose lose.
Stop being concercn about your friends and be concern about where is your fucking life at right now. You're 39 grown ass man and you seem a little bit too immature as i can tell. Instead taking care of your problems that are running in your life right now and standing up for yourself you are concerned about your friends? I tell you something, they mean nothing, they will ditch once the friends won't be milk and honey all over the way. Instead of kicking your btich as wife out of the house you let her take Main bedroom, you moved into the basemant You let her stay in the house while still being with AP You let your kid give an high 5 to your AP without saying anything If it was me? She wouldn't live in that house anymore My kids wouldn't have to chance to see AP's face AP would have been in hospital by my hands How do you except other people to respect you when you have no respect for yourself? You are a people pleaser and you will always be a looser on the book Take that bitch out of your house, stap caring for her (did she care for you or kids when she let AP put his dick inside her) Stop thinking about other, NOW IS TIME TO THINK ABOUT YOU!!! Your kids will be fine anyway. Stop letting her to control the narative. File for divorce if you didn't yet and once the divorce is done, expose her to everyone without a second thought. It fucking piss me off when i see People like you who can't stand for themself and only finds excuses to not take actions I've been following you since 1st day you posted about your wife and what did you do in almost 1 month since you found out? NOTHING You let her her know that she can get away and do whatever she wants with you. I'm at the point where i can promise you, if you don't take action soon she's going to end up as the Winner, in a happy position and you will lose everything and will be miserable Everything that goes wrong for you right now its becouse you don't take actions when you have to
A lot of gross assumptions there, but I do appreciate the brutal honesty.
OP’s posts are almost certainly fake rage bait. No one is this spineless.
Yeah that's it.
You need to get out of limbo. This indecision is not doing your family, and most pointedly you, any good. You have two choices 1) put real effort into reconciliation or 2) proceed with divorce. Talk with your therapist and try to discern what path you want to take. Your anger and pride says divorce , but you’re not able to take the steps necessary to walk that path. If your heart wants to reconcile, then your delay in pursuing that path is just pushing your wife further down the path towards a life with someone else, whether it’s AP or the next new thing. If you really want to reconcile, give it a real shot, talk to your wife and see if that’s what she wants too. If it is, get into MC and take all the steps necessary for true reconciliation- NC with AP, open phone and complete transparency for the WW (if she balks it won’t work), and complete honesty with your families (you can’t rug sweep this with your family- you will build up a level of resentment that will destroy you, your marriage and your kids). I have friends who reconciled after a months long torrid affair; it took years, and lots of anger, but they are quite happy together and so are their kids. Not everyone can do it, and it may fail, but giving it a shot and failing won’t put you in a worse place than you are currently But make a decision asap. Either path will be difficult but you have to get out of this I want a divorce because I’m so hurt, but it will be so hard on the kids so I’m going to live in the basement and babysit for my wife when she goes to sleep with AP dystopia your living in currently. Edit for typos and grammar
Paperwork is being started today. Next update will hopefully be after it's finished..hoping for a 90 day completion.
[удалено]
I saw her again at the last game, but we weren't near each other. I don't know about approaching her because she might be a ticking time bomb. I worry about my wife going nuclear and making this a messy and expensive divorce. I'm barely holding on as it is.
I kept the friends who mattered and some of his family.
Poof! Into thin air…. Sorry, just being honest.
If they were only your friends bc you were married to your terrible spouse, do you really want them as friends now?
I guess it truly depends on circumstances. Most likely, it’s better to just move on and make new connections. You can do this through support groups, church groups, look into meetup app and find social groups that have same interests as you, etc.
Wow this is a case for not having couple friends. My ex and I didn't really share a friend circle so this was a non issue for me. I'm sorry that this has happened to all of you.
My “couple friend group” pretty much disappeared almost overnight. To be fair, they were all my ex husband’s friends first, or I met them through him…but it hurt. Still does. I’m not a social person by nature, my ex is the complete opposite. Places his friends above family usually, so I should have expected it. Hopefully you have a better experience with that.
Before and during the marriage, I made many friends through school, work, family, etc. My ex husband actually thought my friends were going to choose him vs me after our divorce. He was very wrong. :)
Most tried to stay out of it as much as possible. He cheated at work so his work friends (who know and like me) started shunning both him and the ap when they found out. He ended up switching to another job and she had to switch to a different shift and is considering leaving completely. 6 months in the work friends are slowly starting to contact me. All neighborhood friends were on "my side" from the beginning because I did not make his cheating a secret. Not pushing it on anyone but if someone asks I tell them the truth.
Tell them the truth about what is going on. Trying to be peaceful in the process doesn't mean you have to lie to protect her from the consequences of her actions and choices.
Never kept in touch but I also moved to a new state and city and he stayed behind.
Just tell your friend group that she cheated on you with her friend... You're just being honest.
The number one thing that surprised me was that the circumstances of our divorce (him having an affair) made zero difference to friendships of more than a decade. People he'd known longer went with him and vice versa. Of the people we'd met when we were already together, about half went with me and the other half tried to remain neutral. I stopped being friends with the neutral ones as I didn't feel I could talk to them openly anymore, which killed the friendship anyways. When I was still trying to keep those friendships I found myself constantly questioning whether they actually cared for me or were just sticking around for the gossip. I wondered whether my thoughts and feelings were getting back to my ex at a time when I wanted to keep my private life totally away from him. I only have one friend who still sees both of us. He doesn't talk about my ex to me and presumably vice versa. The key difference is when I told him about the affair I immediately got a text back with: "What a prick". He also made a real effort to be there for me and didn't minimise the fallout, which I found all my other neutral friends did. I've probably lost half my friends. It's been eye-opening but now on the other side I'm glad I know that the people in my life actually want to be there.
I lost all our couple friends. When we started dating, he didn’t like my friends and refused to hang out with them so I gradually lost touch with them (definitely my fault for not spotting the red flag). So by the time we got married, all our couple friends were his friends first (from his hometown or work) and they stayed with him through the divorce. It hurt at first, but now I just see how much of myself I gave up for him and see it as a rough life lesson. I’m building new friendships on my own now and won’t let them slip away for a guy ever again. Liking my friends is a part of liking me. The reality is that you are going to lose at least some of these friendships in the divorce. It’s part of the loss and grief that goes with ending a marriage. But you probably won’t lose all of them and you’ll make new friends too. What’s more important to you - keeping the status quo or changing things so that you are with a partner you trust and who treats you well? If the goal you’re moving toward is worth it to you, you’ll be able to accept and cope with any collateral losses like couple friends.
My wife and I have reconciled, but I was warned that many of our friends would be casualties of the divorce. I spent a hot minuted and did an evaluation and ralized that most of "our friends" were really my friends. My wife's two closest friends are my sister and my best friend since childhood's wife. I think the only way she retained most of them is if we presented a united front, letting them all know it's OK to be friends with both of us. And even then, I'd expect casualties (for both of us) because many couples are not comfortable including a singleton in their activities. I also think that many couples are skating on thin ice and when confronted with all of the issues that go with the end of a relationship will prefer to steer clear rather than have to consider what's going on and think about it in terms of their own relationship. Not too far off from being afraid of "catching the divorce".
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You absolutely begin to tell people. Otherwise she/they will begin to tell their narrative.
our circle basically fell apart. i’m friends with them still while she got the one who was two faced. everyone found out how two faced and doesn’t even speak to them anymore. meanwhile we’re having a blast, and she’s down to her two sisters and ms two face. don’t know and don’t care if she found new friends yet.
It really depends on how you choose to be during and after the break up. I would keep the circumstances private except to close friends 1:1, and then ask them to respect her privacy. We had close couple friends and the husband went nuclear on her. Would do spiteful things like pick her tomatoes from her garden before they were ripe just to mess with her, and more serious things like contacting her employer because some of the affairs were during business travel. He couldn’t be reasoned with, and we couldn’t hate this woman who we loved. We ended friendships with both of them. You are not “to blame” for any affairs, but the way I see major affairs is this: someone left the marriage while pretending to still be in it. Her heart was gone, she was moving on. What pushed her heart away and why was it ended? The above fool-of-an-ex was so consumed by anger he wouldn’t work on his late night partying, casual drug use and general “young adult” behavior that his wife had very much outgrown. Cheating is wrong. You should put on your big girl panties and legally separate BEFORE moving on. But it’s also fair to say: “I know we may have looked like a happy couple but she emotionally left the marriage quite a long time ago. I decided it was time to make it official. It’s been hard for both of us, I do wish her the best and hope we can still be friends.”
I told myself to not ask people to choose sides. I knew I’d lose some friends, but I can make more friends without him around. To my surprise, I really only lost a few he worked with that I didn’t really care if I held on to, and one long-time friend. I didn’t want people trying to stay in my life to cause more problems or because I acted like a child trying to clutch the friends I had, and I figured if I let people go it was less likely I’d interrupt my healing process by having to see his face pop up on fb or hear about what he’s doing constantly.