Wedding Woes

Ugh, what a jerk

I am going through it in my marriage. Less than two weeks ago, I discovered infidelity. I was totally blindsided and am very wounded. I’m also planning on trying to work it out (we’re in counseling), and as a result, I’ve not told a ton of people. One of the people I have told is a friend I’ve known for multiple decades. I just went to see her, and her husband basically greeted me with “Hey, how are you? We’re married, so I know all the salacious details.” My life and heartbreak do not feel like gossip fodder to me—they feel terrible. Even as a joke, it hurt a lot. I have found his humor abrasive at times, but this felt borderline intolerable. Would it be dramatic to tell my friend, “Hey, I adore you, but while I’m in this really tender place, I don’t want to spend time around your husband”? I’m feeling so vulnerable at the moment that I’m having trouble judging the appropriateness of my emotional responses.

Re: Ugh, what a jerk

  • What an asshole. 


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  • What an asshole. 
  • I would back off from this friendship. Actually, I did when it happened to me. I wasn't going through anything like infidelity, but I confided in a friend about some embarrassing stuff. Her then husband made a comment a few weeks later that let me know she'd shared it with him. We're still friends, but that was the last time I confided anything in her that I wouldn't want blasted publicly. 

    I know there are a variety of opinions about what is ok to share within a marriage, but I think the unspoken universal is that a spouse who knows all your business is obligated to keep up the polite fiction that they don't. This friend knows her husband is like this and shares stuff with him anyway. She's not someone you can trust with discretion. 
    This part.  He's an asshole and cruel.  There was a way to do this that wouldn't have been so horrid for OP.  "How are you?  Are you doing okay?  We're here for you", etc. 

    I probably wouldn't ever confide in that friend again, which means backing off of the friendship.  Which what an additional emotional burden for OP.
  • Yeah - it's not about how she shared with the H. It's how he's a jerk for stating it in the way that he did.  I'm definitely someone who doesn't keep secrets from my H.  That said, if I ever heard him say things even close to this we'd have words.  

    I wouldn't confide in this person again and I'd be clear, "I interpreted what your husband said as if my life is gossip on a Bravo show and I'm going through something that is very hard for me to navigate.   I wasn't a fan of how I was approached and it makes me question any additional confidentiality or soul bearing." 
  • Oh my goodness.

    Best case scenario, this was a twisted attempt by the H at saying, "Hey, I know you're going through something, so you don't have to pretend you're not in front of me unless you want to."

    However, they fact that what he actually said is not the above sentence, but instead what he said, means that he's not the sort of person who should have been trusted with that information. And by extension you can't really confide in the wife either.

    Now LW knows that, unfortunately.
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