hyndsight1

Think about this situation: you find through friends that a mutual friend of you and your wife finds her "attractive". Once a week they both play on an adult basketball league together. She shows no signs of feeling the same way, but when she expresses feelings of neglect and you are mmmmmmmm, not completely accomodating, she might throw out, "well, im sure HE would be happy to have lunch with me if you dont have the time!" What would You consider to be the correct etiquette here?

Dont do anything, respect her judgment on this and trust that she is just going to play the game, nothing more.

Tell her she can no longer play because you do not trust the situation and feel like this could lead to something more.

let her know your concern and allow her to keep going on the understanding that you do respect her and would not want her to quit doing something she realy enjoys doing over some mild jealousy.

My struggle is, if I had reacted differently, could I have stopped the affair here, or was it inevittable? she obviously was filling a void that I wasnt, but once the ball starts rolling, is it really controllable, or will it really just run its own course?

TNgirl232

NOTE: I AM NOT CONDONING THE AFFAIR

Ultimately she made the decision BUT the point at which you could of cut it off was when she tried to communicate with you about problems in the marriage and you mmmmmmmmmmmm didn't do anything about it. She was reaching out to try and correct the free fall and you didn't work on it with her. Once you neglected to show an interest in addressing her concerns, this guy was poised to catch her when she was emotionally needy.

What she did after that is still her very bad decision - but you did have forewarning that things were off in your marriage and could of tried to prevent the slide at that point.

hyndsight1

Hindsight is all I have at this point............she was my first and only love. I hear you but I truly have to plead ignorance. I did not and still do not see the problems that could have lead to this type of devastation. You see, little comments like the one she made was just "her". Nothing I wouldnt have heard the first year we were together. later she would brush it off and say "you know I wasnt serious, I could never do anything like that to you". And also , in my defense, I more than made up for a few missed lunch dates in our time together, and if you asked her, she would say the same.

Why didnt they teach us some of this stuff in high school? I mean really, we all sat through health class and sex ed, surely there must be some way to at least begin to prepare our children for healthy relationships?

speedy77

Hello I feel your pain. If you are that worried about it. I would have a talk with your mutual friend. Let him know to not even think about putting his paws on your lady.