SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Maybe this is the wrong website for me. Maybe I just need a generic grief or relationship forum to seek advice, but I am specifically looking for perspective from people who have experienced the fallout of infidelity, particularly as a whistleblower.

I am in my mid 40s. In late 2020, shortly after I moved out of state, my best friend of nearly 30 years admitted to me that she was having an affair with her boss, a local dentist.

For about a month prior, she had been texting me about how attractive he was, which was a bizarre shift from the previous 13 years where she had essentially loathed him. She repeatedly came to me for advice on how to make those thoughts stop, but despite anything I told her, she kept right on indulging them. Time and time again, I explicitly asked her not to tell me anything I would have to hide from her husband, because he is like a brother to me, and has been since they married 12 years prior.

Just a couple of weeks later, we all met in a park to celebrate my birthday, and she pulled me aside told me that they had slept together, framing it as a one-time mistake.

Looking back, I know I should have told her husband that she was harboring inappropriate feelings for her boss before the physical boundary was ever crossed. But at the time, I didn't know how to approach him since she was technically just confiding her mental struggles to me. In my naivety, I never truly believed she would do it… I thought she was just venting the way best friends do. This woman loved her husband with every fiber of her being and I never imagined she could do that sort of thing.

Anytime she came to me for advice afterward—which was frequently, as she seemingly couldn't shut up about it—I took every opportunity to tell her what a devastating mistake she was making and how badly she was hurting everyone around her. I tried to use every tool available to get her to stop… emotional appeals, logic, and shame. None of it worked. She maintained that she wanted it to end but claimed she couldn't break it off entirely until she found another job.

I should have gone straight to her husband, but she expressed intense remorse and regret from the start, consistently telling me she was trying to end it. I genuinely believed she had gotten caught up in an unfair workplace power imbalance, and I didn't want to blow up their lives when they had three very small children. Keeping her secret was wrong, but I incorrectly believed I was choosing the path of least harm because I thought she was actively fighting to get out of the mess she got herself into.

A few months later, in early 2021, she found another job and told me the affair was finally over. That was the last time she ever mentioned her former boss to me, and I was more than happy to never have to think about it again.

I carried a tremendous amount of guilt for years for holding onto that historical secret, but I told myself she had made a mistake and corrected it. It wasn't how I would have handled it—I wouldn't have cheated to begin with—but I believed she had cut contact with the affair partner and reinvested herself into her family.

Earlier this year, I went back home to visit them like I do several times every year. She and I went out to dinner, where she became severely intoxicated and casually mentioned her former boss in the present tense, speaking in code.

Shocked and angry, I asked her if she was still in contact with him. She smiled connivingly and told me not to ask any questions.

I maintained my composure and a strict poker face, driving us back to her house in total silence. In the driveway, she finally admitted that the affair had only briefly paused in 2021, and that it had been ongoing for five and a half years. She told me she had no regrets and saw no reason to stop, rolling out a laundry list of justifications for her betrayal. I struggled to say entirely neutral things just to maintain my composure, filled with a mixture of raw rage and sadness, saying whatever I could to just to get to the end the conversation.

I cried myself to sleep that night in their guest bedroom. The next morning, I could barely look at her at the breakfast table before packing my bags and driving back home.
I knew I had no choice but to tell her husband and completely own up to my historical role as an unwilling secret-keeper.

I waited about a week and a half before doing so, purely because my nervous system was struggling with the agonizing reality that doing the right thing meant the permanent loss of a 28-year friendship with her, and likely my nearly 20 year brotherhood with him.

I decided to tell him on a Thursday, and just before the day arrived, she texted me a long, dramatic confession about the affair, claiming she had finally ended it for good this time. As it turned out, she had been so drunk at dinner during my visit that she had absolutely no memory of the conversation in the driveway.

I called the husband and exposed the entire timeline, apologizing deeply for making the wrong decision by staying silent in 2020. He asked for proof, so I sent him every screenshot I possessed from the 2020–2021 window, alongside her recent written confession.

He confronted her, and she immediately entered crisis containment. Pretended to her husband that it was a simple misunderstanding while she came at me with barely contained rage. She trickle-truthed him for days and actively lied to her mother—with whom I am also very close—claiming I had been maliciously trying to tear their marriage apart for over a year. Eventually, backed into a corner by the evidence, she was forced to fess up to the affair.

The husband and I stayed in contact for about ten days after the initial exposure. He let me know that he had made her stand in front of her mother and admit to the entire five-year affair, as well as admit that she had entirely fabricated the narrative about me attacking their marriage.

Eventually she gave him an ultimatum: that I wouldn’t be a part of her life or his life either if their marriage was to survive.

The husband called me. He explicitly thanked me for what I did, reiterated it was the right thing to do. He told me he loved us (my husband and I), and explained that mostly due to his children, they were going to try to work things out and that he needed to "back off".

I could hear the immense weight and heartache in his voice and could tell it was a brutal choice for him to make. I told him I completely understood and that he was doing what he had to do for his kids. That phone call was the last time I heard from him.

I have been in therapy, which has been vital in helping me process this profound loss. I have very little immediate family of my own, and for decades, her family system was my surrogate family. Parents, children, aunts, uncles, and cousins—an entire social ecosystem vanished overnight. It has been a devastating, isolating, and uprooting.

I know that the strategic outcome would have been exactly the same had I told him the truth in 2020, but I still battle the deep guilt of withholding that information from a man who deserved to have agency over his own life.

Therapy has helped me realize that she was never coming to me for actual advice. She was using me as a moral proxy and engaging in systematic "confessional offloading" so that my clean conscience would absorb and carry her toxic waste.

Recognizing this makes the last several years of our friendship feel like a complete illusion. I am forced to carry the heavy realization that my silent compliance inadvertently subsidized a long-term fraud against a man who was a brother to me.

I am in a more stable place than I was four months ago when the bomb went off, but the sadness and anger are still incredibly heavy. I had faith that my best friend possessed a character she simply didn't have, and I made a massive error in judgment by protecting her secrecy. I feel an intense anger that someone who supposedly loved me could intentionally maneuver me into such an impossible relational trap, and that I failed to see her utility-based manipulation for what it was.

I know my friendship with her is gone forever, but I hold a quiet hope that some of the other pieces of that ecosystem might realign in time. I know I mishandled the early timeline, but the husband treated me with flawless grace, dignity, and explicit gratitude during our final conversations when he owed me absolutely nothing. I am holding a small, quiet space for the potential of a future reconnection with him, though I fully respect the severity of the boundaries he is currently forced to maintain.

So far, the only person to cross my timeline is one of his parents, who occasionally leaves general comments on my social media posts. I have no idea whether she even knows what has transpired between us/them.

As a final layer to this layout, the affair partner—the dentist—treated me as a patient for several years before I moved out of state. I feel strongly that his wife deserves the same agency and truth that the husband was robbed of, but I am torn.

Part of me feels alerting her belongs solely to the husband, and that if I step across that line, even anonymously, it will be viewed as strategic meddling—something I have spent months steering completely clear of to protect my clean hands and preserve any long-term potential of repairing any of these relationships.

How do I navigate this specific terrain? Is providing a betrayed spouse with the truth my business, or does it belong exclusively to the history I've already handed over to the betrayed husband?

Also, if anyone has any experience being a third party discloser/whistleblower and what was that like?

My brain tells me to just write off this entire chapter of my life—and all the people in it—as a lesson learned and move on but my heart isn’t ready just yet.

And how do I deal with the anger at being put in a position where my only option was loss? This all has left me so afraid to be open to new friendships or even acquaintances. I’m so afraid of investing time and energy into someone I think is a quality person who may just turn around and put me in an impossible situation. I feel like my world has permanently gotten smaller because I have lost the ability to trust.

No you don’t have to write it off and yes the dentist wife should have the chance to reclaim her agency and know what a piece of shit lives at her side everyday.

Just to ward herself off from stds if nothing else.

Unfortunately you were caught in the betrayal fallout, your friend was chasing validation from everyone who was available to give her. You weren’t treated as a friend and your loyalty to her meant you had to betray your other friend (her husband), she forced you to pick a side.

For the bs, erasing from life all friends of the wayward who me help keeping hidden or facilitated the affair is part of healing, so that he cut you off is "good" in that sense.

In the other sense, you weren’t endorsing the betrayal, you were positioned to either be loyal to your friend (and betray the other friend, her husband), or to betray her friendship by being loyal to her husband.

A catch 22, is really unfair and you are not at all the type of the toxic friend (she is though). You are a good friend who got lost into the betrayal swamp, and caught in the blast.

Everything is solely on her, not on you not on the husband.

It’s all her fault and even if late, in the end, you did the right thing.

A final thing though: she… she can’t dictate any conditions for "staying in the marriage ", her husband should step up and clearly say "I am done with you, unless you show me beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are regretful and working to change, here is the divorce papers, we are done talking".

She doesn’t decide shit, she destroyed the marriage. If she doesn’t like the destruction she caused she can leave and accept divorce.

Her husband is the one who should be in control of the if and what boundaries he demands for giving a chance to reconcile.

She is not entitled to reconciliation. That’s is a second chance that nobody deserves, is a gift the bs decide if it’s worthy to try.

This means she is likely still caught in the affair fog, completely unremorseful and convinced she can still lie and manipulate to resume as soon as there’s a chance.

That’s not reforming behavior, she is distancing you from him because she is likely lying and afraid you blow up her lies.

The excuse is childish. You can’t "destroy her marriage ". It wasn’t you the one fucking around with other men, that was her and only her.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 10:05 PM, Saturday, July 18th]

That the husband told me the last time we spoke that he and I were still on good terms means a lot to me, even if I don’t ever hear from him again. I understand that in these situations someone always has to take the fall and I was just the most convenient person. That phone call was several months ago, but he didn’t unfriend me until very recently. I don’t have any context for why now, as the wife blocked me everywhere as soon as she knew I told him about the affair (but not before she called me and ripped me a new one).

Even if he has indeed had a change of heart about the choices I made back then it is comforting to know that when we last talked he acknowledged the difficult spot she put me in. He said that she is a master manipulator and the best liar he’s ever known.

I have stayed far away from engaging with any of our mutual friends (mostly friends of theirs that I’ve met over the years) about the affair or any other topic. The only time I interact is when one of them comments on my posts first. Even then I keep it on topic and don’t bring anything sensitive up. I guess I’m doing that to protect any future possibly of friendship with him or anyone from that circle again, but it certainly is isolating because of our decades-long history and the mutual friends I have made along the way.

I did not unfriend or block anyone as a result of the fallout as I didn’t want it to appear like I was making anyone choose sides or that I was stirring anything up.

Because of that, I have had the occasional accidental view into my former best friend’s social life. She has been hanging out with a girl (to whom I was barely an acquaintance) who I learned after the blowup also knew about the affair and is a cheater herself.

So it seems that knowledge of the affair doesn’t appear to be a deal breaker, but calling it out is.

I totally agree that reconciliation isn’t something he owes her, but it does appear that the wife is calling all the shots. Such is life when kids are involved. It makes me sad for the husband as he is a hardworking, stand up guy who doesn’t deserve any of this. That said, I’ve done all I can do, the rest is up to him.

Hopefully I have unfollowed/hidden everyone from that circle but every now and then I’ll see a post or a story that slips through. I don’t like seeing updates about people’s lives I’m no longer welcome in.

It’s tough being the scapegoat. I wouldn’t wish any part of this on anyone but all I know to do is cherish the good memories and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

You absolutely did the right thing. Please hold onto that truth when the guilt tries to creep back in.

The harsh reality is that you do not want a person like her in your life. Friendship requires a foundation of shared values and she completely lacked them. Think about it logically: if she was willing to stab her husband in the back over and over again, the man she swore to love and protect, what would she have done to you the second it suited her personal interests? You were never a real friend to her; you were just an emotional shield.

What you did took immense courage. Doing the right thing is incredibly hard, especially when it comes at a massive personal cost. You chose integrity despite knowing it would be painful, and you did it even though you had absolutely nothing to gain. Stepping up to give someone the truth with zero selfish motives is the most noble thing anyone can do.

If you must carry any regret, let it only be that you did not speak up sooner. But give yourself some grace there because it was an incredibly toxic and impossible situation to navigate and you were intentionally manipulated into it.

Honestly, I would be highly surprised if their marriage lasts. The husband seriously needs to find a backbone. She got caught in a massive five year affair and she has the absolute audacity to issue an ultimatum demanding that he cut you out. Even entertaining that request for a second is incredibly spineless on his part. What exactly was her justification to him? "You must cut her out lest she reveals more truths about my disgusting character"? It is pathetic.

The simple truth is that she is entirely unworthy of him. A five plus year affair built on a foundation of resentment, lies and constant self-justification proves exactly who she is. The husband cutting you out right now is likely just the initial shock, fear and trauma response of the bomb going off. He has to clear the entire blast radius just to breathe. Once the dust settles, he will ultimately come to his senses, see through her manipulation and the inevitable divorce will go through. When that happens, he will likely welcome you back into his life. He already showed you flawless grace and gratitude when he was at his absolute lowest, which speaks to who he truly is.

By the way, has she made any direct contact with you since everything blew up?

Stay strong. You traded a massive and beautiful illusion for a painful truth, but the truth is the only thing you can actually build a real life on.

You don't need to carry any guilt. You are obviously a good and thoughtful person.

If you must carry any regret, let it only be that you did not speak up sooner. But give yourself some grace there because it was an incredibly toxic and impossible situation to navigate and you were intentionally manipulated into it.

I will forever regret not telling him as soon as she pulled me aside at that park and admitted to the affair. Through the help of my therapist, I have finally come to understand and accept that I was manipulated into believing she really did see it as a mistake and tried to find ways out of the affair. It was a hard pill to swallow that I was so easily fooled and that her framing it as needing advice kept me in a "fixer" role and gave me hope that I could talk her out of this massive mistake. It never dawned on me that it was manipulation even though she never took any of my advice and sometimes did the exact opposite of what I told her she should be doing. I generally view myself as a smart guy but I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Besides betraying her trust, I always felt like there might be other reasons she needed me out of the picture. After the fallout I spent a lot of time—probably an unhealthy amount—rereading our text messages through the years. Reading them through the lens of "these are texts from someone who is capable of massive, calculated betrayal" I found several isolated texts that on their own seem innocuous but together might indicate that she likely started cheating much earlier than 2020.

Most notably she asked me how to keep iMessages from her phone from syncing to her MacBook.

Earlier this year when I was gathering screenshots to send her husband I saw where she asked me that question in 2020 about a week and a half before she first ever mentioned how "hot" her boss was. I shared that with her husband to show that she was likely planning something and didn’t want evidence on her computer that sat at home on her desk. It didn’t stick out to me back then because she isn’t very tech savvy and they both often leaned on me for tech support.

After her husband broke off contact and I started scrolling farther and farther back through our texts I found where she asked me the exact same question in 2015 during a weekend where she was staying at a primitive campground (no internet and barely any phone service) with her mom out of state. When she returned she told me she saw a camp worker who she was oddly attracted to because he wasn’t really her type because he was a ginger. Naively I got hung up on the fact she didn’t like gingers (something I didn’t know about her—I thought everyone found redheads attractive ) and didn’t even question why she needed tech support in a place that barely had phone service.

Obviously I see now that was simply a pattern of concealment but it just never registered with me because for all intents and purposes she was very happily married… so I thought.

Of course there’s nothing I can do with that information now because if I break no contact with the husband I’ll just look like a scorned friend trying to ruin her life. And besides, if he is staying for the kids and a 5+ year affair/parallel relationship isn’t a dealbreaker, some circumstantial (at best) evidence of previous wrongdoing five years earlier than the known affair won’t make a difference anyway.

However it does make me question how much of our friendship was real and how much of it was just me being useful to her. What I can say is that from my end our friendship was real. I gave her my best even when it put me in a terrible position… one that I had repeatedly asked her not to put me in.

I understand now that she had to put me in that position because it was her way of relieving her guilt without suffering the consequences of confessing her adultery to the person she should have been telling—her husband.

I keep telling myself that his compliance with her ultimatum is part of a larger plan and not his lack of a backbone. He is one of the smartest people I know, and I just need to trust that he is doing what he needs to do to survive right now. His world was turned upside down in an instant. I hope he is complying with her ultimatum not out of fear but rather to be able to say he did everything he could to keep the marriage together for his kids in the event the marriage fails.

And I totally agree that the grace and gratitude that he showed me when he probably didn’t have much capacity to do so speaks to his character more than anything else. It’s hard to let go of the worry I have for him and his kids but I know I need to so that I too can heal from this loss. At the end of the day he has a much tougher battle to fight than I do because I am able to come home every day to a home where there is love and trust and the unconditional support of my spouse and he doesn’t have that. I cannot even fathom what that must be like.

[This message edited by ColdFront at 9:20 AM, Sunday, July 19th]

@ColdFront

What did the conversation go like when she called you?

Never being in that positions I can't quite imagine it. How can someone be angry at you for telling the truth? What did she say and how did you respond?

I am the wayward (the one that cheated), so I probably have a different angle on the matter.

I don’t think you should carry any guilt, you did the best you could given the complex situation.
I wish I had a friend like you, a friend that called out my despicable behaviour - rather than a friend who enforced it (because unfortunately this is what my former best-friend did).

So don’t be hard on yourself.

I wonder if this is the best community for you though, as here there are waywards and betrayed spouses. People who have lost, are losing their marriages and / or that are fighting to save their marriages and families.

The exposure was earlier this year. For your friend, this is still the beginning stages for him. He has WAY more information than many betrayed, thanks to you, but his wife was still in 100% wayward mode when he found out. Who know if she has found a shred of remorse yet. His world unraveled in that moment, and time will move strangely for him as he learns to accept his new reality.

Don't worry about the POS dentist. If your friend is as level headed as you believe, he will eventually reach out to his betrayed wife. As tragic as this whole situation is, you gave his the huge gift of agency. What he chooses to do with that is of his own free will. From what we know so far, I can only hope that he gathers his strength back, and chooses to only accept a marriage that HE is happy with. Again, that's his choice.

As for you, no one here, or anyone who has experienced infidelity first hand, is going to criticize you for the path you took to reveal to your friend. You were also being betrayed, and as you now can tell, is very hard to see clearly when you are in the middle of it. They say that an affair is all about the cheaters, and EVERYONE else is collateral damage. The husband, the children, the other wife/family/friends, you and others are unfortunately just caught in the blast wave. There will never be any justice for all of this....at best, it is acceptance. So for you to be carrying around any burdens of guilt are unfair and unwarranted. I assume you already know that, but it is your responsibility to put that burden down. Don't carry what isn't yours.

Hey there, ColdFront. I'd like to personally commend for doing what you did and to thank you for being an authentic human being. Your "friend" abused your good nature and I'm sure that hurt, and still does.

As mentioned by another member, it's not your responsibility to inform the dentist's wife. You've played your part, done what was right, and I think it's time to let it all go, pat yourself on the back, and move on.

It's now up to the BH to reach out to the OBS in his situation. I hope he does so.

***

I wonder if this is the best community for you though, as here there are waywards and betrayed spouses. People who have lost, are losing their marriages and / or that are fighting to save their marriages and families.

LonelyGuilty, I disagree here. I think this is a great place to help anyone who has been affected by infidelity.

I wonder if this is the best community for you though, as here there are waywards and betrayed spouses. People who have lost, are losing their marriages and / or that are fighting to save their marriages and families.

There are two very hard aspects for me in terms of processing everything. The first is that this is a textbook example of ambiguous loss. The loss of my friendship with the husband is incomplete, uncertain, and lacks a traditional, definitive closure and thus has been incredibly exhausting for my nervous system to process.

The second is that I am also experiencing disenfranchised grief because the type of loss I have experienced is not openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned, or publicly mourned. Because it falls outside of the traditional, socially acceptable grief script, it is difficult to find support from typical support networks/rituals/validation that help people heal. Disenfranchised grief can almost be boiled down to anything you can’t find a sympathy card for at the grocery store. It’s the stuff that’s not universally recognized so it’s hard to find support for.

So far I’ve found the best support from infidelity groups such as this one because although I wasn’t cheated on, I suffered the loss of multiple relationships as the result of cheating and manipulation. It has been a very lonely road to navigate but my fellow travelers—you guys—have helped me remember why I did it and feel better about having done it. I feel like this one of the better places to help me find my footing.

@LonelyGuilty

Radiohead had it right: there's always a siren singing you to shipwreck

Might be for another post but I'd love to know what's up with so many waywards being encouraged in their affairs. It's seems extraordinarily common.

I could suppose a few theories but ultimately it's strange because I've never heard anyone dare to encourage or defend infidelity in my social circle.

Well done ColdFront!

Retired guy across the street let me know when he asked "Who drives that green Nova he's seen a couple of times at my house?"

Many years since he passed away but I'll never forget him and what he did for me that day. I'm sure he was dreading the walk to my house to have that conversation. Probably saved me years of being married to a cheater!

Peace

Unhinged: I want to clarify that I know this is not my forum, so I would never tell anyone to leave or that their pain is not valid.

I admit I find this post triggering, but again, this is my "issue". It’s just that if one of our friends came to us (either me or my BS) saying that they are also suffering while we are so deep in hell, I would probably go ballistic (inside at least). This is not to say that their pain or sense of loss is not valid. But they are not comparable. This is only my personal view.

Coldfront

I still wanted to stop by just to say that you didn’t do anything wrong and that as a wayward myself, I wish someone called out my behaviour. I hope you will find peace, because you didn’t do anything wrong. The opposite.

(And please, don’t mind me)

DRSOOLERS ha, sure. I haven’t "analysed" that aspect much, it might be interesting for another post

[This message edited by LonelyGuilty at 7:48 PM, Sunday, July 19th]

My vote is for you to tell the dentist's wife. She had a right to know where she stands in her marriage. I waited five months before reaching out to the wife of my wife's AP and I regret every day. I had no right to decide what she gets to know about her cheating husband.

Would you want someone to tell you about your husband? I certainly would.

She has no remorse for her betrayal. Once her betrayed husband works that out your friendship with him might resume. But that could take months or years or may never happen.

As for the dentist’s betrayed wife, if your wayward ex friend demanded your excommunication I would assume not screwing up her affair partners life was likewise a demand. Tell her.

ColdFront

FWIW - what treatment you received is so very common.

That's why our Federal Government has a whisleblower protection law.

FWIW #2
When I informed a member of my family about wifey cheating - and then she found out - she "chewed my ass" for outing her.

ROFL!

'If you can't do the time - don't do the crime" - or something like that.

Then again - some folks believe such shenanigans should never be discussed. (Gransmas too?)

Others don't like "gossip" or even mention of gossip.

I’m sorry you’re suffering ColdFront. You have been treated very badly and you have every right to be hurt and angry.

I’ll join the chorus of those validating your decision to tell the BH. You did the right thing. I’m devoutly of the opinion that BP’s ought to be informed of their partner’s cheating. I honestly can’t think of a realistic scenario where someone shouldn’t be told. I’m not saying you should tell the Dentist’s wife - I agree with those who’ve said your duty’s been done in informing the BH - but I’m saying that if you did decide to do it, you wouldn’t be in the wrong.

Why do you say the loss of your friendship with the BH is ambiguous though? It seems to me like you did get closure when he called you to tell you why he was cutting you out. He validated what you did and thanked you for it and explained why he was doing what he was doing. I’m not sure what else you could get to constitute closure. Was it the unfriending on Facebook? I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that was her doing, either by insisting upon it or getting on his account and doing it herself.

I also suspect he finds he way back to you. Based on what you’ve written I have massive doubts about their R. People here sort cheaters into two categories: those who are good candidates for R, and those who aren’t. Your xBFF is not a good candidate for R. It’s already been pointed out, but her placing restrictions on who her BH can get support from (i.e., you and your H) is a major red flag, as is her new BF who’s a cheater herself.

On this site, people talk about Waywards doing the "Work". This is what the Work looks like: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/recovery/wayward-the-work/

Is your xBF capable of that kind of introspection and strong enough to change? Doesn’t seem like it. She had a 5+ year affair and "had no regrets and saw no reason to stop, rolling out a laundry list of justifications for her betrayal". We have seen that kind of person here before many times, and I’m worried for the BH. You were the one person along the way who was trying to save her M and she told everyone you were trying to destroy it. And everyone got an apology but you. In a way, that alone makes you welcome here, since there are so many of us who are owed apologies from cheaters that are never going to come.

You’re also kind of going through what so many of us have had to: mourning the loss of the person you thought they were. It’s very hard to grieve the death of a person who is still alive. Was she always a bit selfish? Was she always a Drama Queen? I know you said she used you as her confessional priest, but I wonder if that wasn’t the role she really wanted you to play - I get some sense that what she really wanted was you to be the "you go Girl!" Cheerleader, which also explains her new bestie. A lot of Main Character syndrome vibes coming off her from your story.

I'm sorry you are caught up in this mess. It sounds like you are going through a microcosm of what betrayed spouses go through, and it's good you are getting help to work through it.

Just know her betrayal wasn't about you, or him. It was about her. Infidelity is self destructive and the people around them, including the betrayed spouse, friends, family, children, are all caught up in the blast radius. It's extremely unfair for others to suffer from their decisions. But thats the nature of the beast.

Looking back, I know I should have told her husband that she was harboring inappropriate feelings for her boss before the physical boundary was ever crossed.

In my wife's case she had two friends that she told about her AP pursuing her. Neither of them chose to enlighten me about it unfortunately.

She repeatedly came to me for advice on how to make those thoughts stop, but despite anything I told her, she kept right on indulging them.

This is very similar to the situation with my wife.

Interestingly she kept most of the details, and her feelings about him, secret from her BFF, and told the other friend. She confided her feelings for him, and asked her friend to help get them to stop. In her case as well nothing worked, and eventually the affair became physical.

I took every opportunity to tell her what a devastating mistake she was making and how badly she was hurting everyone around her. I tried to use every tool available to get her to stop… emotional appeals, logic, and shame. None of it worked. She maintained that she wanted it to end but claimed she couldn't break it off entirely until she found another job.

From what she tells me her friend also did this for her. Constantly urging her to tell me and make a decision between the two of us. Urging her to tell me. She eventually did tell me, about a month after the AP's wife found out on her own and threatened to tell me herself.

I relay that story because sometimes people are put in very difficult situations where they are faced with no win scenarios and they do the best they can. In my wife's case her friend was unable to dissuade her from having an affair just like you were unable to dissuade your friend. In reality it's not up to us. You tried, and you did the best you could with the information you had at the time. Would it have been better to tell him early on? I think so. I think telling is almost always the right choice.

You eventually got there though, and I think you should be commended for having the courage to take that very difficult action, even at great personal cost to you.

My opinion is you should tell the dentists wife as well. There is no guarantee the husband will tell her at all, and if he does it might be many months or years later. How long is this poor woman going to be living in a false reality? How long is she going to be making decisions about her life based on bad information?

I have a slightly different read here as "captain infidelity" (revealer of three affairs not including my wife's to OBS).

While I did sometimes struggle with the best way to reveal new information for *weeks* I didn't let it go on for years.

You are complicity in her affair and in denying your friend agency.

Your friend had to cut you out because, simply put, you were not a "friend of the marriage". If you had revealed it early, you may (or may not!) have lost your friendship with the cheater, but there would be no reason to lose your friendship with your friend. I'm still friends with all the people in the couples I've outed an affair in. So take that for what it's worth if you are ever presented this conundrum again. Agency, honesty, and accountability always trump "loyalty to a friend" in the face of immoral behavior.

You recognize this, and you have changed your framing and won't make the mistake again. That's good, and I'm happy you have grown.