# Friend just found out her husband is having an affair



## on_the_verge (May 10, 2017)

Hi everyone, my friend just confided in me that she has only very recently found out that her husband is having an affair. It hasn't been going on for long but she does not yet know the emotional depth of it. They have been married 16 years and have a mortgage and 3 kids together. Our kids are friends. She is in shock and also has barely been eating for the last week or so. I saw her today and she looks very frail and exhausted.

My question is, what advice can you give me to help her? Is there anything that I can do to help???


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## growing_weary (Jul 23, 2017)

Smoothies, protein shakes and other liquid things are easier to choke down, from experience. Offer to take her and the kids to the park, if she's up for it. Get her out of the house if it feels oppressive to her. Listen, support, don't judge her. Tell her to think about how she feels. Send her some sites like this to look at when she's up to it.


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## Mizzbak (Sep 10, 2016)

It can be very easy to have an opinion about what she should do or be doing - try not to do that. As growing_weary says - offer support, listen and just be there for her. Frankly, treat her like you would if someone close to her had died. (It's a pretty reasonable approximation.) And send her to TAM or a site like it (knowing many others are in the same boat and being able to communicate with them can be very helpful). And if she is open to it, try hard to encourage her to go into counselling. The first few months are truly crap. And professional help is usually more efficient and effective at getting through it. 

Be careful about picking sides - if she and her husband come through this and decide to reconcile, you don't want to be alienated because you seemed to be against that. And equally, don't try to tell her that she needs to stay in her marriage and fight for it. This decision is hers to make. And she needs to make it in her own way and in her own time. (I would say that you are allowed to agree that her husband is acting like total ass if she says it first... and you agree.) Because your families are intertwined it is probably going to be hard for you to be natural with her husband if you see him, but try to be as neutral as possible. Unless he is abusive in some way beyond the infidelity itself. 

What you can tell her, over and over again, is that her husband's affair is NOT her fault. That no shame for his actions and decisions should fall on her. That no matter how bad their marriage might have been, he chose to be unfaithful. For me, that was a realisation that I wish had come much earlier.


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## KrisAmiss (May 1, 2017)

I'd recommend she see a therapist. I found a good fit right before a few major yucks happened to me and it really helped me sort out my thoughts and feelings. That helped me take action.

I had a few friends checking in on me alot. They listened to me ramble on. I'd wake up at night and remember their supportive voices and repeat the positive things they said back to myself. It really meant alot to me as I felt so vulnerable. I would build her up so she knows she can handle whatever happens. Girl power. You've got her back.


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## growing_weary (Jul 23, 2017)

KrisAmiss said:


> I'd recommend she see a therapist. I found a good fit right before a few major yucks happened to me and it really helped me sort out my thoughts and feelings. That helped me take action.
> 
> I had a few friends checking in on me alot. They listened to me ramble on. I'd wake up at night and remember their supportive voices and repeat the positive things they said back to myself. It really meant alot to me as I felt so vulnerable. I would build her up so she knows she can handle whatever happens. Girl power. You've got her back.


This too. Just be a person she can text, or chat to whenever you are able. My friends check in on me and I try not to bug them too often but for the first few weeks every time something new would happen or he'd say something I needed clarity on, I'd blow up their text messages.

I also second be supportive, but try not to take a side (if possible). Your friend has to make the decision on her own, but what helped with me is telling me that they'd support me no matter what. They continue to tell me what they felt was "normal"/acceptable in their marriages and relationships and what seemed abnormal in the retelling of the events of mine. Apparently I accepted/am accepting of a _lot_, but I'm pretty easy going which gave me no immunity to this at all.

Therapist and friends are key. They help you cut through the Bullshi..., what ChumpLady describes as the UBT, but from people you know who know you. Friends and family are there to assure you that you can't have been that bad even if you question yourself. That they did witness your love of the person and that person's apparent love for you. Be her validation, her rock. Are there other friends in your circle that she can confide in and trust? I try to switch who I'm dumping on so they get reprieve from my stream of consciousness coping babble. 

They tell me "no, you don't have to respond to him" or "yes it's ok to disconnect," or "he's not a good listener at all," or "he's on his path so where are you going?" or "he's stupid," to "I don't have time to care about anything but getting g_w through this, **** WS," or " so? now what are YOU going to do." I can get into loops about what I could have done in the past, or how it's not fair, or how could he have done xyz during pqr, or how he won't even try to salvage all our years together. They help me focus.


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## Betrayedone (Jan 1, 2014)

Send her to this forum!


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

Betrayedone said:


> Send her to this forum!


I concur!


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## on_the_verge (May 10, 2017)

Thank you


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