Would you dump this friend? (dating, marriage, men, cheating)
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Curious for opinions on this situation. Not looking for anyone to tell me what to do, but interested in how others would deal with this (aside from not getting in it in the first place)
I've known this friend about 5 years. We met because we work very near each other. He initially hid that he had once dated my now ex who I was still with at the time, and knew that we were together. I soon found out when I realized I recognized him from old social media pictures, but agreed to continue getting lunch with him because I enjoyed his company. I did not tell my ex that we had met or continued to spend time together (a definite mistake on my part and there will be more of these).
He's married and has been with his husband for 13 years now. They are in an agreed upon monogamous relationship. He eventually let me know though that their sex life had languished and he had turned to getting sex from many other sources. I didn't and still don't agree with how he has acted and dealt with his marriage problem but naive me thought I could help him either improve his marriage or find someone he is more suitable with.
I was never going to be successful. He doesn't see anything wrong with his situation. Both he and his husband seem to be otherwise happy in their marriage. I also can't believe that the husband hasn't figured it out by now. This friend has to have up to 50 different affairs per year, and some of them turn into multi-week dating situations (of course the dates never know that he is married either). And he soon wanted to turn me into a friends with benefits as well. I resisted for years out of my own moral obligations and a general lack of sexual or romantic interest for him. But I eventually caved to pressure a few of times for reasons that I won't get into here unless someone wants to know and became part of the problem.
I've gotten out of that; I haven't been physically involved for over a year and he's eventually mostly stopped asking that I do. But I keep asking myself why I still have him in my life. On one hand we have very little in common. We have different interests, besides a few shared activities, we even have very different outlooks on life, approaches to relationships, etc. On the other hand, he was there for me during my breakup even though his advice is usually pretty awful. Although it has been interesting to bounce my opinions and situations off of him just to see how the exact opposite approach looks. I have become his closest and (mostly) only friend, but mostly because he doesn't think anyone else who is not having sex with is worth his time. I also get constant play by play updates on many of his affairs which has me conflicted because we occasionally spend time with his husband. It's fascinating in a can't-look-away sort of way, even though I really don't want to know about all of it.
At the heart of it, I know I have a serious people pleasing problem. And knowing that he values me as much as he says--even as part of me doesn't really trust him--I know I may never truly dump this friend.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
26,700 posts, read 41,763,058 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ned B
Curious for opinions on this situation. Not looking for anyone to tell me what to do, but interested in how others would deal with this (aside from not getting in it in the first place)
I've known this friend about 5 years. We met because we work very near each other. He initially hid that he had once dated my now ex who I was still with at the time, and knew that we were together. I soon found out when I realized I recognized him from old social media pictures, but agreed to continue getting lunch with him because I enjoyed his company. I did not tell my ex that we had met or continued to spend time together (a definite mistake on my part and there will be more of these).
He's married and has been with his husband for 13 years now. They are in an agreed upon monogamous relationship. He eventually let me know though that their sex life had languished and he had turned to getting sex from many other sources. I didn't and still don't agree with how he has acted and dealt with his marriage problem but naive me thought I could help him either improve his marriage or find someone he is more suitable with.
I was never going to be successful. He doesn't see anything wrong with his situation. Both he and his husband seem to be otherwise happy in their marriage. I also can't believe that the husband hasn't figured it out by now. This friend has to have up to 50 different affairs per year, and some of them turn into multi-week dating situations (of course the dates never know that he is married either). And he soon wanted to turn me into a friends with benefits as well. I resisted for years out of my own moral obligations and a general lack of sexual or romantic interest for him. But I eventually caved to pressure a few of times for reasons that I won't get into here unless someone wants to know and became part of the problem.
I've gotten out of that; I haven't been physically involved for over a year and he's eventually mostly stopped asking that I do. But I keep asking myself why I still have him in my life. On one hand we have very little in common. We have different interests, besides a few shared activities, we even have very different outlooks on life, approaches to relationships, etc. On the other hand, he was there for me during my breakup even though his advice is usually pretty awful. Although it has been interesting to bounce my opinions and situations off of him just to see how the exact opposite approach looks. I have become his closest and (mostly) only friend, but mostly because he doesn't think anyone else who is not having sex with is worth his time. I also get constant play by play updates on many of his affairs which has me conflicted because we occasionally spend time with his husband. It's fascinating in a can't-look-away sort of way, even though I really don't want to know about all of it.
At the heart of it, I know I have a serious people pleasing problem. And knowing that he values me as much as he says--even as part of me doesn't really trust him--I know I may never truly dump this friend.
Quote:
I have become his closest and (mostly) only friend, but mostly because he doesn't think anyone else who is not having sex with is worth his time.
Based on that sentence alone, I’d dump this dude as a friend. Just not a good look on people in general and I’d not want that around me. Never mind the temptation to enable him to violate his marriage.
At some point this guy's husband is going to find out and feel very betrayed by all of the men who slept with his husband and for anyone who enabled his cheating. There is drama coming your way, when the "it" hits the fan. Do you want to be part of that? Do you want to enable people to engage in self destructive behavior?
If it were me, I wouldn't be interested in all of the drama.
Some people who cross our path's are meant to be for a 'season'. Not everyone is meant to be in our lives, for the rest of our lives. And THAT is o.k....
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