Husband loves best friend more than me?

LegacyUser · 28-10-2011 6:33pm

I have to say that that to me, you come across quite controlling and unwilling to make any comprimises.

Your husband does spend a lot of time with his friend, but it doesn't sound anything more than a close friendship to me.

It really seems like you are trying to control every little piece of your husband's life. You decided he was not to have any female friends (even though it was only one woman who sent him an inappropriate text), and he complied. He cooks, cleans and looks after your daughter and has a meal ready for you when you get home. His friend leaves as soon as you get in. This sounds to me as if he is keeping your husband company while you are at work and then showing respect to you and your husband by leaving you to have your evening together without his presence.

What exactly is it that you want from your husband?? First no female friends and now you want his male friend gone too! You want him to stop doing his charity work. And to top it all off, you expect him to be in a marriage without any sexual contact. To be honest, I feel so sorry for your husband.

I do understand about the sex thing as I also have a low sex drive, but you have to comprimise too. You can't just expect everything in the relationship to suit you. What are you doing to suit your husband? Sex doesn't have to only be 'the man putting his bits inside the woman'!! I'm not going to go into detail, but there's many other things you can do. It's nice to do things for someone else sometimes if you get what I mean.

And to end, I jsut want to say that I was so disgusted to read that you thought there was more to the abuse as the family sided with the abuser. Families siding with the abuser is not at all uncommon, and certainly does NOT mean that there is more to it. My heart goes out to your husband's friend. Firstly, he obviously had a difficult upbringing with his mother being a nasty alcoholic. Then, he is sexually abused by a member of his own family. And the very people who should have been protecting him turn against him and side with the abuser. THe poor man. It is little wonder he turned to drugs and fair play to him for having the strength to try and put his life back together. You husband is probably one of the only people that has shown this man that people can actually be kind and caring, so of course he is going to cherish that friendship.

strandroad · 29-10-2011 12:37pm

nonameuser wrote: »

It really seems like you are trying to control every little piece of your husband's life. You decided he was not to have any female friends (even though it was only one woman who sent him an inappropriate text), and he complied. He cooks, cleans and looks after your daughter and has a meal ready for you when you get home. His friend leaves as soon as you get in. This sounds to me as if he is keeping your husband company while you are at work and then showing respect to you and your husband by leaving you to have your evening together without his presence.

What exactly is it that you want from your husband?? First no female friends and now you want his male friend gone too! You want him to stop doing his charity work. And to top it all off, you expect him to be in a marriage without any sexual contact. To be honest, I feel so sorry for your husband.

I do understand about the sex thing as I also have a low sex drive, but you have to comprimise too. You can't just expect everything in the relationship to suit you. What are you doing to suit your husband? Sex doesn't have to only be 'the man putting his bits inside the woman'!! I'm not going to go into detail, but there's many other things you can do. It's nice to do things for someone else sometimes if you get what I mean.

OP this rings very true. You do seem to take some desperate measures to have your husband back and your isolating tactics are wrong. However, I am wondering whether you really had him in the first place. Have you read the topic posted further up thread where a husband gives his account of a nearly identical situation? I that thread the wife was never really his wife, his most important partner in life, his confidante and true love - she was just brought in in an attempt to divert his attention from the friend in a desperate bid for stable family life; when it didn't work he resumed the relationship with his friend and the wife was just left hanging there.

I really get the impression that it's the same for you here. The relationship of your husband and his friend has been there forever and you were just bolted on without any changes to their original arrangement. The friend probably sees you as an intruder because in this scheme of things this is what you are. Whether they have sex or not is really not important because they share everything else and are real partners in every sense of the word. Your husband spends with him multiples of the time he spends with you, he shares all his thoughts, laughs, cuddles and worries with him. The friend is around the house constantly. No matter how I like my friends or my OH's friends, male or female, to have any of them around nearly every single day for hours and some nights too (all after having worked with them through the day) just feels truly weird. Everyone needs space for themselves and their family, your husbands time is all spent with the friend in person or in touch with him if apart. This is not friendship, they are joined at the hip. He does indeed seem the most important person in your husband's life.

The question remains whether you have indeed pushed your husband away or whether he used you as a tool for him to become a husband and father but still enjoy unencumbered relationship with the person he cares about the most. Since their relationship far predates yours, the signs were already there when you met and your marriage problems started so soon after the wedding I feel it's the latter. He now has a respectable married life, a daughter both "fathers" adore and he can still be with the friend 24/7 - the only price they both have to pay is your presence but it looks like they find it worth it because you seem resigned to your place. I can see how an external observer such as your sister might be amazed at the amount of time and affection they share which for you by this stage is quite normal. You are trying to fight for something you never really had apart from a brief "perfect romance" stage. The sex thing might be a factor in why he left you emotionally but it might also be a sign your own body and mind were giving you that you were never loved in the first place; your clumsy attempts to bring him closer were all unsuccessful because there was nothing there in him for you to reach. While he might be wonderful with and to others, you seem to be way down on the list as illustrated by the situations when he was openly flirting in front of you, sexting etc.

I wonder is it worth it to fight at all since it must be humiliating for you to be forced to observe and approve such an affection between them (again there may or may not be sex involved - but long term emotional cheating is just as degrading) and with such a strong bond with the friend I do not see your husband giving up on him no matter what you do. I would not stay there playing second fiddle to them forever (imagine the three of you aged and retired, with them still hugging, iloveyouing and sharing everything and you hovering nearby, waiting for God knows what) - but that's just me.

LegacyUser · 30-10-2011 12:04am

OP, lets call a spade a spade. You and your husbands' best friend are currently vying for his friendship; you will NEVER win this battle. They have a lot of shared history, and a deep unbreakable bond.
However, should you decide- and this is what you'll need to do; make a conscious decision- to up the ante, and start fighting for your marriage, then you'll need to step up to the mark and get physical (not fighting! Intimate relations with your husband). It's your biggest trump in this whole thing, and you're onto a loser if you don't use it.
Your libido isn't great? Well then, you'll just have to live with the situation as it stands. But if you really, truly, want to try to improve things, take celibacy out of the equation. Then, after a few months, if things with the best friend still remain as they are now, at least you can say, hand on heart, that you made every effort.
Everyone makes sacrifices/does things they don't want to do, for the greater good. You may not enjoy physical intimacy much, but if it brings you emotional intimacy, surely it's worth it?

saerynsun · 30-10-2011 4:13pm

I have many male friends that are close, would hug each other and tell each other that they love them as do many brothers that I know.

I think that your husband seems to be a very open minded person who doesn't let what other people think affect what he does, so if he was gay, it sounds like he wouldn't hid it. If he was having an affair with this man I don't think he would be affectionate towards him in front of you, he would try to hide it.

Partners having close friends seems to be a big issue for a lot of women, to me it is an insecurity on their part. If your husband wanted to be with this man he would have been with him by now.

Your husband is obviously the only family that this man has and he has known him since childhood. I think that it is unfair to ask anyone to give up their friends especially if they are this close to them. Would you ask him to cut his brother out of his life, because this is probably how your husband views him?

That being said if you feel he doesn't pay you enough attention then say that to him. Tell him you want him to be more affectionate towards you, men need these things spelt out for them, woman aren't the most transparent of people. Tell him that he should threat you in a manner that shows he loves you.

But if your main issue is the relationship with his friend maybe you could have designated nights that are yours where the friend isn't invited and then nights where your husband can hang out with his friend. Compromise see how that works out for you.

For yourself, I don't know if you have any hobbies or anything, if not maybe you could join a group or something and develop relationships outside of your marriage. This way you will have your own time to spend with other people too.

iguana · 30-10-2011 5:57pm

Mhge may very well be right and you and your husband may never have had a chance as he may have consciously/unconsciously chosen you for a beard role, so he could have a façade of "normality" while continuing on his deeper emotional relationship with is friend. It does happen, I know of two middle aged couples where after 20 years of marriage the husband left his wife for his best friend. In those cases no matter what the wife did would ever have made much difference as the husband was just using their marriage as a form of denial and a way to have a family.

On the other hand it is more than possible that your lack of interest in sex is in many ways at the root of their closeness. The fact that your husband's earliest responses to the breakdown of your sex life was to seek intimacy with a female friend and that he tried to work it out in counselling with you suggest that your marriage might have originally been based on genuine desire.

Either way the state of your marriage right now is intolerable. It's good for married people to have close friendships but this friendship, as it is currently conducted is detrimental to your relationship. If the situation is as mhge suggests it might be, then I think you would be better off out of that marriage and able to continue on with your lives in a way that suits you all best. But if it is the second way then you do have a shot at fixing things and making your marriage a better one, and while your husband will need to make big changes to how he acts so will you. If your sex drives are at odds then a compromise needs to be found. Expecting one partner to live in a sexless relationship is cruel and selfish.

It is also the beginning of the end for the majority of relationships.

brokenwife wrote: »

I find it bothersome that people will put that level of importance on a man placing his bits inside a woman.

You clearly haven't the first idea about the science behind sex. It's not just about the surface physical act, a lot goes on in our bodies, chemically and neurologically during sex. Sex has an effect on our brains' limbic system. This is the part of the brain where many of our emotions and attachments come from. Love, lust, attachment are all controlled by what happens in our limbic system.

No matter how we want to feel about something, if those desires aren't matched by corresponding neurochemical reactions in the limbic system, we won't feel those feeling. If you've ever heard someone say, "I wish I could love you, you appear perfect for me, but I just don't feel that way about you" that is why. But when the chemistry is right, people bond together, the right chemicals activate when they are close and that's what makes them fall in love. Having regular sex plays a huge part in maintaining the right chemical reactions in the brain. Very, very few people manage to maintain romantic love in a sexless relationship. Those who do usually have equally low/non-existent sex-drives. It doesn't matter if your husband used to love you with all his heart, a prolonged period of sexlessness will eradicate those feelings in time. It's biologically inevitable.

I think that if it's possible to save your marriage your first stop needs to be with a medical doctor. There are numerous physical reasons for a non-existent sex drive and numerous solutions. The problem could be caused by a medication you are on, including a hormonal contraceptive. You could have low testosterone levels, which can be addressed by wearing a hormonal patch. There could be issues with depression, sleeplessness or diet. There are diet changes that can be made which could restore your energy levels and increase your sex drive. But you will never know while you continue pretending the issue isn't important and ignoring it. Seek professional advice.

Lastly, and I'm very surprised nobody else has mentioned this, in your first post you say;

brokenwife wrote: »

The problem is I honestly feel he probably would choose the friend over me. He is a fantastic father and our daughter is far more attached to my husband than she would be to me, he takes her with him (and the friend) to work a lot and spends more time with her than I can. I don’t want to take him away from her but I can’t handle this friendship any longer.

No matter what happens in your marriage, and while I hope it does work for you there is a big chance it may not, your daughter is not a weapon here. If your marriage ends he is still her father and you have absolutely no business in threatening him with loss of access to her. That's a low and disgusting thing to do and if you do it you will most likely end up with an adult daughter who will find it hard to forgive you.

tinkerbell · 31-10-2011 1:32pm

OP, when you get married you put your husband/wife first, always. Your #1 priority is your spouse, NOT your friends. Your marriage is a sham, it really is. It is not healthy to have a friend around constantly at your house - like that is insane. He has his own room at your house? That's just ridiculous. No friend should be around that much. I can't imagine how it must make you feel that this friend is over most of the time when you arrive home from work and a lot of the time he stays over too. That is just not on. Yes you should have friendships, but that amount of time spent over at the house just seems excessive.

And regarding the intimacy, sure there's NO intimacy whatsoever in your marriage - you don't even cuddle up in bed together, he seems to do all his intimacy like hugging etc with the friend!

I think the whole thing is just a vicious cycle. Your husband has got to choose who his number 1 priority is, it's either you, his wife, who he has made vows with or his friend. He can still have his friendship with the friend but at the end of the day, if he puts him first, then he is not keeping to the vows which he said on the day that you got married. I would not put up with being a third wheel in a marriage. In a marriage, there is you and your husband. In your family, there is you, your husband and your child. He is putting neither his marriage nor his family first.

And tbh, the friend sounds completely unstable - arriving up to your door numerous times at 3 or 4 am in the morning just sounds off the wall a bit. If I was in your position, I would not let a child alone with him either. I mean you've said yourself that you wouldn't have the guy in your life, nevermind your child's life (who is at a very influential age). I don't think you are being snobbish here. The friend has never given you any reason for you to think he's trustworthy, or whatever.

And besides, it's YOUR child and your husband's child! If you both do not agree with who the child should see, then it shouldn't be happening. You both have an equal say in who your child spends time around. Your husband should respect your decision that you are not comfortable in your child spending time around this guy. Yes he is her father, but you are her mother - you both should involved in making decisions like this. It is not fair that he completely ignores what you feel and undermines you when the friend is around by suggesting that the friend looks after your child in front of the friend.

OP honestly, you need to sit down with your husband and you both need to make a decision. Your marriage is not working and it's never going to. You're gonna be playing third wheel in your own marriage until you both decide that the marriage has to come first and you both work on it and the friend has to take a backseat.

At the end of the day, yes friends are important but your husband/wife is on a totally other level of importance. They are the ones that made the vow with you the day you got married, and they are the ones that will grow old and grey with you.

PS
I also think you should go see a sex therapist over your low sex drive - there could be any number of reasons for a lack of interest and you may be able to overcome it.

I am a friend · 31-10-2011 3:52pm

The op hasn't responded in a long time. Hope things have improved a bit op

LegacyUser · 31-10-2011 4:01pm

tinkerbell wrote: »

OP, when you get married you put your husband/wife first, always. Your #1 priority is your spouse, NOT your friends. Your marriage is a sham, it really is. It is not healthy to have a friend around constantly at your house - like that is insane. He has his own room at your house? That's just ridiculous. No friend should be around that much. I can't imagine how it must make you feel that this friend is over most of the time when you arrive home from work and a lot of the time he stays over too. That is just not on. Yes you should have friendships, but that amount of time spent over at the house just seems excessive.

And regarding the intimacy, sure there's NO intimacy whatsoever in your marriage - you don't even cuddle up in bed together, he seems to do all his intimacy like hugging etc with the friend!

I think the whole thing is just a vicious cycle. Your husband has got to choose who his number 1 priority is, it's either you, his wife, who he has made vows with or his friend. He can still have his friendship with the friend but at the end of the day, if he puts him first, then he is not keeping to the vows which he said on the day that you got married. I would not put up with being a third wheel in a marriage. In a marriage, there is you and your husband. In your family, there is you, your husband and your child. He is putting neither his marriage nor his family first.

And tbh, the friend sounds completely unstable - arriving up to your door numerous times at 3 or 4 am in the morning just sounds off the wall a bit. If I was in your position, I would not let a child alone with him either. I mean you've said yourself that you wouldn't have the guy in your life, nevermind your child's life (who is at a very influential age). I don't think you are being snobbish here. The friend has never given you any reason for you to think he's trustworthy, or whatever.

And besides, it's YOUR child and your husband's child! If you both do not agree with who the child should see, then it shouldn't be happening. You both have an equal say in who your child spends time around. Your husband should respect your decision that you are not comfortable in your child spending time around this guy. Yes he is her father, but you are her mother - you both should involved in making decisions like this. It is not fair that he completely ignores what you feel and undermines you when the friend is around by suggesting that the friend looks after your child in front of the friend.

OP honestly, you need to sit down with your husband and you both need to make a decision. Your marriage is not working and it's never going to. You're gonna be playing third wheel in your own marriage until you both decide that the marriage has to come first and you both work on it and the friend has to take a backseat.

At the end of the day, yes friends are important but your husband/wife is on a totally other level of importance. They are the ones that made the vow with you the day you got married, and they are the ones that will grow old and grey with you.

PS
I also think you should go see a sex therapist over your low sex drive - there could be any number of reasons for a lack of interest and you may be able to overcome it.

I really disagree with your attitude, tinkerbell. Didn't you read the entire thread??

Firstly, the wife says the husband does cuddle her in bed, there is just no sex.

The friend had a room in the husband's house since long before the OP was on the scene and that room just happens to still exist.

The friend hasn't done anything untrustworthy in a very long time from what the OP says.

From what the OP said above, I believe the friend is clean of drugs for 8 years?? We all have things in our past that I'm sure we'd hate to have held against us years down the line.

Say you went through some stress in Leaving Cert and had some form of mental breakdown/depression/episode, would you like to think that 10 years down the road, a close friend or sibling would refuse to let you spend a few minutes alone in the company of their child because what, you might attack them or sexually abuse them?? That's ridiculous!

It's an extremely small minded view to have.

I know I indulged in various substances throughout college, I hit a low point where depression led to some self harming, and thankfully very few people know about that - I got counselling, I sorted myself out, I never touched any drugs or even alcohol again, I really put that time behind me, but I'd HATE to think that in another few years someone would be wary of me and judge me by that one time in my life.

This poor guy sounds as though he's gone through HELL. Frankly, he's done well to make it out the other side at all, never mind managing to go through stuff like a heroin overdose and get back to being clean and a decent human being [ I don't see anything that suggests he isn't - he is also working to educate people about mental health issues with the OP's husband and is working in a charity area according to the OP].

I think the sex [or lack of] issue is a far bigger player in this terrible marriage than the friend, I think the OP's issues are purely being projected onto the friend, I sense from her words that she really, really hates this guy and really wants everyone to agree. She's got the backing of her family, and so far her husband hasn't been manipulated into getting rid of him from his life, but that could happen soon if she gets her way.

I don't see the relationship as gay or corrupt, I see a very loving man who treats his best friend as his little brother, he looks out for him, he helps him in his time of need, there's no need to corrupt this or draw a line through what level of affection they should share. There are no signs of sex or anything of that nature going on between them, from what the OP says.

By the sounds of it, the OP isn't available to spend very much time with her husband or child anyway, spending two nights a week in the gym rather than going home after work, I think the husband is perfectly entitled to spend time with his buddy during those hours, or he could start feeling like a single parent.

I think people really need to be less small minded and typical Irish and accept that everyone has a past, we may not always like it, but we shouldn't judge someone entirely by it!

tinkerbell · 31-10-2011 5:31pm

32rweeg wrote: »

I think people really need to be less small minded and typical Irish and accept that everyone has a past, we may not always like it, but we shouldn't judge someone entirely by it!

Actually I did read the entire thread. The OP said that there is no sex and no intimacy at all. Her husband gets as far away from her in the bed as possible - he seems to keep all the affection for his friend, stroking the friend's arm, etc. He doesn't do any of that with his wife. The OP said that they don't cuddle in bed.

Yes the friend has gone through hell and I am not being small minded but the friend does not appear to be stable - the OP said that he turns up on their doorstep at 3 or 4am in the morning sometimes, that to me is worrying and to be around a 4 year old all the time when the friend doesn't appear to have sorted out their own issues fully is concerning. It is not about the friend's past - it is the friend's current behaviour. He is not helping his case with the OP as he doesn't make himself trustworthy to the OP. She does not trust him, and that is not my problem or your problem - she is the one who feels that way, she is in the situation, not us so if that is how she feels she needs to sort that out with her husband.

Regarding the room in the house which is typically the friend's room - I just find that weird. He has his own place. He does not need to have clothes permanently in his friends house, that happens when you are going out with someone and have some things in their house, but this is just weird. The OP said she can't even properly decorate it since it's the "friend's room"! The marital home should not have a room that is anybody elses, that is just really weird tbh.

LegacyUser · 31-10-2011 6:07pm

tinkerbell wrote: »

Actually I did read the entire thread. The OP said that there is no sex and no intimacy at all. Her husband gets as far away from her in the bed as possible - he seems to keep all the affection for his friend, stroking the friend's arm, etc. He doesn't do any of that with his wife. The OP said that they don't cuddle in bed.

Yes the friend has gone through hell and I am not being small minded but the friend does not appear to be stable - the OP said that he turns up on their doorstep at 3 or 4am in the morning sometimes, that to me is worrying and to be around a 4 year old all the time when the friend doesn't appear to have sorted out their own issues fully is concerning. It is not about the friend's past - it is the friend's current behaviour. He is not helping his case with the OP as he doesn't make himself trustworthy to the OP. She does not trust him, and that is not my problem or your problem - she is the one who feels that way, she is in the situation, not us so if that is how she feels she needs to sort that out with her husband.

Regarding the room in the house which is typically the friend's room - I just find that weird. He has his own place. He does not need to have clothes permanently in his friends house, that happens when you are going out with someone and have some things in their house, but this is just weird. The OP said she can't even properly decorate it since it's the "friend's room"! The marital home should not have a room that is anybody elses, that is just really weird tbh.

To quote the OP:

brokenwife wrote:

We sleep very close together when things are good, he'll hold me in my sleep all night and it's all very happy, just right now isn't good.

I believe the friend no longer turns up at the door at all hours of the morning as the OP states he has been 'very good' for the past 18 months, so this was again in the past. The OP can correct me on this, but that's what I get from what she says:

brokenwife wrote:

Of the past 18 months the friend has surprisingly been very good (free of nervous breakdowns and problematic behaviour)

brokenwife wrote:

On those nights, if he's very settled and asleep when I arrive home my husband will say "Leave him there" ahead of waking him to go home to a flat on his own. It isn't every week but it's quite common.

He has a room in our house that was always 'his room' before I met my husband (the house we live in has been my husband's house for many years). They lived together at various times in their 20s. It's not that we don't have the space, we have a few spare bedrooms, but I don't like the fact that he has what he sees as 'his room' as it allows him to feel more at home here and is a big part of the problem. I have attempted to redecorate it on several occasions in the past and have cleaned his stuff out of it more than once (there is very little in the room now other than a couple of pairs of his jeans in a wardrobe, but he still sees it as his). My husband doesn't understand why I'd want to remove his friend from having a presence in the house.

From this, the OP tells us the friend is not staying several nights per week as people are seeming to assume. It's not every week that he stays. He has recently gone through a marriage breakdown and the loss of seeing his child grow up. It is natural that any good friend would feel sorry for someone they love to be going home to an empty flat on their own. The husband has spare rooms in his house. It seems perfectly fair to me that he would occasionally offer him somewhere to crash for the night.

They've lived together in the past, the room still happens to be there, it is the husband's house originally and I have to question how much the wife has actually expressed her distaste at the friend staying over? Has she been keeping all of this inside? Sometimes men need to be told directly when their partner is upset. We don't always see it.

There is nothing in the room of the friend's other than a couple of pairs of jeans. He's hardly taking over the place.

I still see the husband as a wonderful kind caring man, a fantastic person with a cold wife who is possibly holding a lot of what she feels inside and quietly judging.

LegacyUser · 01-11-2011 5:48pm

OP here. Don't have much time now so just a brief update. More details maybe later.

Talked it over with husband about this on Saturday night. He's agreed to limit the time they spend together on weekdays to just work hours and for weekends to be just family time - no friend contact.

I'm hoping we can build on things from there. I don't want the marriage to end. It's easy to say 'just walk away' but when you add a child into the equation that makes it all different.

He's already talked to the friend and he stayed away on Sunday and Monday leaving us to be together as a family which was lovely.

If the mods leave this thread open I can come back and update when a few more days have passed as I'm afraid it's too good to be true.

They will be working together today so it'll be interesting to see what the friend has come up with. He was late for work this morning [avoiding me perhaps?] so I haven't seen him yet but probably will this evening if he's not gone before I get home.

I have to admit I'm doubting if he can stick to this agreement..

Thanks for all of your replies.

I'll update again soon.

tinkerbell · 01-11-2011 7:34pm

OP, that's some good news at least, I am happy for you that at least he is agreeing with you. Spending more time with a friend than your own spouse is not on, and it is perfectly reasonable to ask that you have family time together which is for you, your husband and your child.

I hope it goes well for you, I really do. Your husband has got to realise that on the day he took his vows to be your husband that he would be there for you and put you first. He's not showing that at the moment, so I am hoping that things will change for you.

Danniboo · 01-11-2011 9:14pm

So basically you weren't all that concerned with getting advice or coming to a compromise you just wanted to get your own way (Again). Well done on pushing yet another person out of your husbands life, hope it works out.

LegacyUser · 01-11-2011 9:33pm

I really, really feel sorry for your poor husband's friend. I don't think your husband was doing ANYTHING wrong, now you've gone and eliminated that poor friend completely. Totally over the top and unfair request, OP. I highly doubt there was any affair or any such thing going on between your husband and his friend. Not right..

Sleepy · 02-11-2011 1:23am

Congratulations OP, one more step towards making your husband despise you.

Sonics2k · 02-11-2011 2:24am

I'll be honest here OP. Possibly brutally.

I am very very close to my best friend, we've known each other since we were 12 years old, so it's very nearly been 20 years.
He is the god-father to my kids, helped me through a lot of personal (drug related) issues in the past and pulled me through attempted suicide on more than one occasion.

Now, as much as I may love a girlfriend/wife, this friend will often be my priority when he needs help. It's not because I don't love my partner, but friendship like that is an incredible bond, and that's not to say I'd ignore my partner completely just to go hang out with him, but if he is in a vulnerable place (which coincidentally he is, he's about to get divorced) I will be there for him as much as I can.

We don't know the full details on your husband obviously, but you don't need to worry that he's gay, or loves the friend "more" than he loves you. But this friend is clearly an important part of his life, almost like a brother at this stage.

The worst thing you can do is force your husband to choose between you, either way it'll end badly. Either he'll leave you and choose to look after his "brother", or he'll abandon him and resent you for it.

I am a friend · 02-11-2011 2:58am

Ah come on People - she / they as a family are entitled to a couple of days per week to be a family. It would drive me spare to have an 'add on' 7 days a week. They should be able to spend time alone at home and with their kid without the friend constantly being there ffs

beks101 · 02-11-2011 3:56am

I highly doubt many of the naysayers here would be willing to put up with the same situation that the OP is dealing with in their own marriage/relationship. Very easy to judge when you're on the outside. The fact is that as it stands, this is a marriage-of-three and the OP has the most minor role.

My best friend is one of the most important people in my life, I'd think of her as more of a sister than a friend, she's family at this stage. She's pulled me through some of the roughest times in my life, family illnesses, bereavements, eating disorders, break-ups etc as I have done for her, but I'd simply lose my mind if I was spending the amount of time with her as the OP's husband is with his friend. There's work, then there's evenings after work, weekends, holidays, social nights out...the friend is omni-present in the OP's marriage and home, and 'issues' or no issues, it's just not normal. That's not a friendship - it's a relationship, it really doesn't matter if sex is in the equation or not. The emotional dependency is already there.

OP - I really do think you should take on the advice that has been given to you here about your sex life with your husband, because it's not normal or fair to deprive him of a physical relationship and without fixing this you can't really expect him to make compromises for you. You are equally responsible for this marriage.

However, I'm glad you had a conversation with your husband and he has agreed to work with you on this. Don't 'wait' for his friend to mess things up again - your husband has made a commitment to work on your marriage by doing this for you; now it's time for you to do your bit.

ibarelycare · 02-11-2011 4:53am

The OP seems to have ignored all the advice given that didn't suit her, or else she's refusing to address the whole sex life issue. I think this is going to push the husband either further away. Sorry to be harsh but I just think the marriage is doomed, I don't know why two people would want to stay together in such an unhappy situation.

Taltos · 02-11-2011 1:56pm

OP - as you have come to a resolution with your husband on this issue we are closing this thread. As the forum is for issues, updates are not necessary.

Taltos

Husband loves best friend more than me?

Comments