SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm 6 months out from a DDay 2 that has prompted me to leave my WS of 10+ years. We both have a friend group consisting of mostly people that were already WS's friends and that became mine over the course of the relationship. I've known these people anywhere from 5 - 10+ years. Last month I finally decided to send the few that knew about my XWS's cheating a letter. To paraphrase, I let them know the extent of my XWS's cheating - including the fact this wasn't the first time - and that I was leaving him, as before this letter it hadn't been made clear that I was leaving.

To say the responses were underwhelming is an understatement..Not only had none of these friends reached out to me before this point to ask if I as okay, or simply offer their sympathies for the situation, all I got from these "friends", with whom I've been friends with for, again, 5-10+ YEARS, was "Sorry this happened, I love you both." After the fact they all hang out with XWS as if nothing has happened. One of them even had the audacity to imply that at least things weren't as bad as they could have been since my XWS didn't go physically have sex with anyone. I don't even know what to say.

How did you deal with unsympathetic/unsupportive/or downright apathetic friends? In my mind the only thing to do is, once I'm in my own place, completely drop the friend group all together and try building up my own group of people who actually have an ounce of emotional maturity and empathy. Feels like just another shitty thing on the pile of shitty things, losing my relationship, hopes, dreams, plans, and now friends. Was I unfairly expecting too much out of them?

I've been told that losing friends is pretty typical for a BS. We have to build a new tribe of people because we find out who our real friends are and which family members we can trust in a long lasting crisis.

I'm in the same boat and experiencing the same fallout as you. My ex family friends not only ghosted me/my child while supporting STBXWH, they also have the COW that STBXWH cheated on me with (and her husband) over at their place to hang out rather often. They've shown they were never my friends to begin with and I haven't heard from them in months. A bit of a relief really as - in hindsight - they pulled the same judgey, competitive, holier than thou attitudes that my STBXWH (and my mother) have with me. It still hurts though- knowing I invested so much time, energy, and effort for them and they (like STBXWH) cannot or will not do the same for me.

It's not unfair to expect long term friends to be there for you. You're being unfair to yourself - however - if you keep expecting them to act like friends and do the right thing when they've already shown you that they're unable or unwilling to do so. That's a lesson I'm having to slowly learn about my STBXWH, ex friends, and my own mother.

These are not friends, it’s time to find new friends that will be there for you. You also don’t want those blurred lines of common friends, someone sharing your business with XH.

I was pretty much in your exact situation. My closest friends at the time of my divorce were the wives of my ex’s family members and friends. They all had the same response that yours did… either play Switzerland or take his side on the basis that I didn’t actually catch him in the act of a physical affair. No one offered me any comfort or support; they all rallied around him.

I cut these people out of my life, which wasn’t too hard considering they had pretty much cut themselves on mine. Fortunately, I was able to lean on my family, which was 100% on my side, and, with time and effort, was able to rekindle some of my old friendships that had fallen to the wayside during my marriage.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 5:26 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]

Good chance some of those people are also cheaters and don't want to feel guilt or regret themselves.

Yeah, people get weird upon learning of this affair stuff and react in all kinds of strange ways depending on their circumstances, experiences, personal histories, biases, levels of enlightenment, emotional intelligence, fears and insecurities and, their ability to properly empathize. Properly empathize.

Most of us are capable of empathy, but not everyone can properly process their empathic emotions. Victim blaming is one such poorly processed form of empathy. When something is so disturbing that we find fault with the victim to comfort us, to reassure ourselves that this can never happen to us, only to people who predisposed themselves in some way: not eating right; not enough exercise; not paying close enough attention; must not have installed the car seat correctly; must not have been meeting their partner’s needs; must have been miserable to live with; must have a poor picker.

Many of us have been guilty of this to some degree, especially those who have few life experiences and exposure to life’s many adversities.

Good quality friends, wholesome, mature, enlightened, experienced, truly caring will reveal themselves in this instance and the rest…let’s just say it’s a good time to clean house, as you already well mentioned.

Thank you all for the support and advice

@Kanashii I've heard that too. I'm sorry to hear about what happened to you, that really is awful. I don't understand how some people seem to have no conscience at all. Going so far as to have your STBXWH's COW and her husband over??? Talk about a toxic mess. I guess you can be glad you don't associate with people like that anymore.

@Tanner Yeah the plan was/is to drop the entire friend/family group surrounding my XWS to begin with. It still hurts to know how little these people I've known for so long care.

@BluerThanBlue Sounds exactly like my situation. A lot of playing Switzerland and acting like nothing ever happened. To be honest I feel like they are all emotionally immature and also unwilling to leave the comfort of their friend group with my XWS, which is sad but not my problem.

@survrus I don't know about that, none of them have been in a relationship for the past 5 years. Again I think it has to do with emotional immaturity and an unwillingness to disturb their comfort zone.

@RealityBlows Yeah I see what you mean. The thing is I've been in their shoes before! Back in highschool I was friends with a couple. They had been dating all throughout highschool but broke up before we graduated. I never knew why. I continued being friendly with them both for a few months until one day the brother of my guy friend stopped in where I was working at the time and, as we were catching up, he let me know that the breakup was due to the girlfriend cheating. I was shocked. I reached out to my guy friend and told him how sorry I was. I dropped the girl friend immediately, I never spoke to her again. The possibility of staying friends with her didn't even register in my brain despite the fact I had been friends with them both for the same number of years.

[This message edited by WonderingGhost at 7:06 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]

I'm sorry to hear what you're going through. It's really tough to deal with a betrayal from a partner, while also becoming isolated from your friend group.

You're actually doing great - you're six months out and you're seeing things clearly. I wish I could have done so as quickly, it took me much longer to figure out who my friends were in my situation.

You deserve to have friends who support you, especially during tough times. You value loyalty and empathy — qualities that you yourself are expressing and expecting from others. Now, you just know that when things get tough and one cannot stay "neutral", some people don't have it in their character to stand by what is right. It hurts big time. I hope you find strength not to judge them, they are just not a good match in their current state of development. You still have your heart and your values. You'll attract people who can meet you at your level.

I experienced a similar thing myself, and just couldn't bring myself to stay friends with these people because I realised we don't share the same morals or values, so why would I choose to have them in my life. I'd end up being fake around them and I don't think I can live with myself if I do that! x

BluerThanBlue Sounds exactly like my situation. A lot of playing Switzerland and acting like nothing ever happened. To be honest I feel like they are all emotionally immature and also unwilling to leave the comfort of their friend group with my XWS, which is sad but not my problem.

@survrus I don't know about that, none of them have been in a relationship for the past 5 years. Again I think it has to do with emotional immaturity and an unwillingness to disturb their comfort zone.

I think anybody divorcing faces this aspect of breaking up but here you are right, emotional immaturity means they are unwilling/ unable to support you right now. Which has nothing to do with taking sides but on the contrary just being there for someone, but they all sound a bit vacant, which hopefully makes it easier to leave them behind. Having said that, many people here at SI would attest to not knowing how devastating infidelity is until it happens, so it’s a paucity of experience as well as imagination that leaves your friends sitting on a seeming uncaring fence. Sorry you feel abandoned, I hope at least one comes through for you.

Edie - Such a great point about perhaps the friends not realising the absolute devastation that infidelity causes, I really think you've hit the nail on the head with that one. I think one thing we can all agree on is that the aftermath is like nothing you've ever experienced before, and no one can truly understand unless they've experienced it first hand. Definitely a good thing to keep in mind when dealing with joint friends 🙂

We both have a friend group consisting of mostly people that were already WS's friends and that became mine over the course of the relationship. I've known these people anywhere from 5 - 10+ years.

Same situation as you - except his friends that I inherited from him ghosted both of us, because my WH had an A with one have of another couple member of the friends group - the OBS and the AP divorced and the friends group all hang out with the OBS but not the AP, my WH, or me. So, aside from the fairness game you can play in your head about how unfair it is that your WH keeps the friends group (I did about all kinds of things - just not the friends group), you WILL be okay.

WH and I are reconciling and in a good place these days so factor that in.

I told very few people IRL. And those few close trusted friends that I did confide in - now have little to do with me/us. Because...I stayed. One even reached out and said she can't look at me anymore without feeling shame for me. We no longer keep in touch. If our paths do cross [which happens seldomly] we are all hugs and catching up for a few min, but it usually ends with me asking her to go for coffee or shopping and her to promise to do so- and it never happens.

In my case - IRL - those who knew were all about being on Team "kick WH to the curb" but not really on Team Chaos.

In WH case - the very few who knew think he's a lucky son of a bitch who got to keep his BASGU [bad ass sparkly goddess unicorn] of a wife but keep him at arms length after DDays.

There is nothing fair about this. Loss of friendships is just another collateral damage of infidelity.