[MrMSB]

Hey. This is really really long and kinda complicated, but I’d rather be comprehensive than miss something out. It’s something that’s bothered me enough to ask about in a relationship advice forum, so here goes.

I’m coming up on the first anniversary of my marriage to someone who started off as a long distance (as in, I started out in the UK, and she in the US) friendship united by several nerdy quirks we shared, nine years ago. I hate to sound cheesey, but her personality instantly struck me as “the one” and I decided that at the very worst, we’d be friends for a long time if I had anything to do with it. We both bounced around different relationships during that time, nothing much serious, almost getting off the ground with each other a few times and then falling down, moving on, coming back, etc. It started when she was 19 & I was 17, so we really had a lot of growing up to do first, but in the end we threw our beliefs and backs into it and committed. Things are as close to perfect as could be, I’ve settled into living in America the last year since I made the permanent move here, and despite all the years it’s been and months we’ve spent together on holidays previously, we’re still mistaken for boyfriend & girlfriend goofing, giggling, flirting & having fun with one another as opposed to your standard humdrum couple. Life is good, and that’s the history of it 🙂

I holidayed in the States a good deal during these years, and made a fair few other long-distance friends, kept in touch by social networking sites, games, and of course passing through XYZ town on holiday again another year. One of these friends of mine is a guy I’ve also known for a good long time. He’s not that far away (we drove to his wedding reception a few months ago) and we had plans for getting together and hanging out a good deal more. The wife moved to where we are from her old state a few years ago, I’m obviously new on the block, so we were looking to meet and make some more (nerdy) friends. So I introduced this friend of mine to my wife towards the end of last summer. This pretty much I regard as the biggest mistake I made last year 😐

He’s in an open relationship despite getting married, and more power to the two of them if they are successful with that, but a good deal of his complaining to me around that time was that things weren’t going so well. He wasn’t feeling loved or given much attention, his girlfriend/wife was withdrawn & became upset when he tried to bring anything up, and so he’d adopted a defeatist attitude despite being advised otherwise. He then starts flirting remotely with my wife- and the problem immediately is, I knew anything from her is the standard “oh baby 😉 ” jokes back & forth and plainly about that serious, but he on the other hand had freely admitted doing it to get the attention he felt like he needed. Only, it was from my wife, and we are most certainly not in an open relationship.

Talking through this problem together, like reasonable adults, we all agreed that this should be toned down a bit, and in following conversations or commentary to one another, we were still all able to chuckle together over who the hypothetical third wheel in bed would be, and generally make light of the whole thing. Call me old-fashioned in some sense or too well mannered, but the moment this male friend of mine began to crack jokes to me, and in front of others, about what he was doing with my wife behind my back, I immediately called him on this and told him I didn’t find it acceptable, and why. He agreed and apologised, the first of many.

Over the following three months he pulled this crap a further five times, each aggravating me more, each met by my wife’s confusion as to why I was getting so wound up. Events culminated a few days before both us couples were to meet for a weekend break in the city, and his wife suddenly not being able to make it led to me calling him on it and cancelling the trip: repeat #6 was yet another “I f**ked your wife last night” in front of others again the day before, so I told him we wouldn’t be coming because I couldn’t trust him to be decent without his partner in tow. Plus I’d rather avoid someone who appeared to be specifically trying to goad me into action or violence of some sort. He would always seem confused with the distinction between humour at my expense, and joining in collective humour, but the man runs a successful business so I just can’t believe he’d be that stupid six times in a row.

I told my wife I’d be ok if she wanted to be friends with this guy, just not to encourage any flirting, but after the many years of knowing him that I had, I was calling it quits if this was how he was going to choose to act. She understood how disrespectful it was for me to have been treated by this guy as I had been, but decided to remain friends, albeit all further plans for hanging out together were shelved. Especially since this guy’s wife blew up at me for not trusting & giving her hubby sh*t because he was being so flirty and pulling this on me: I guess she didn’t like me calling attention to how her boy wonder was acting.

Now, if someone I knew had treated my wife, like this guy had treated me? I’d be furious with them for being so disrespectful over our relationship and our persons in general. I can barely stand the thought of the sleazeball thesedays, but since he’s a friend of hers he keeps getting brought up now & then one way or another, I’m losing social time with her to him via social networking and games still, and my wife doesn’t seem to care that this bothers me. It bothers me because I don’t understand how she thinks he’s a nice and ok guy really to be friendly and hang out with, [b][u]and I recently find she’s been telling others this whilst demeaning my stance on it[/b][/u]. After the way he treated me, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I’ve known him for seven years, his attitudes -have- been getting worse, but my opinion carries less weight than a few months worth of experience it would seem. It’s undermined my confidence: what if someone really tries some homewrecker tactics someday? Will she have my back or will she make friends with the guy? Can I trust her judgement in people if she thinks someone going around saying he’s f**king her behind my back, being so blatantly disrespectful to her husband, is acceptable conduct? If I try talking to her about this, she basically replies wishing I wasn’t “so silly”.

I see someone who can’t manage his own relationship successfully trying to butt into or leech off mine via means of gleaning attention of my wife whilst attempting to insinuate between us, I’ve two seperate entirely-unrelated female friends who upon talking to the guy later told me they thought he was a real creeper. And despite how ridiculously annoying the whole thing is to me, I -cannot- bring myself to be the controlling a-hole of a husband who says “honey, you can’t be friends with X anymore”. But if I just keep trying to ignore it, where will it end up and what damage could it cause? How should I approach this? I trust her fidelity entirely, but not her personal judgement on this, and that feels almost as bad. Help? 😳

nb. I’m possessive in so much as “I love her and she’s min”, but please don’t assume I’m the jealous type either, we’re all close friends together with the smattering of Ex’s we both have that we keep in touch with, for starters

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Your best friend is unhappy in his life and he is acting out his personal anger and aggression on you and your marriage because he can’t get the results he wants by acting out on his own wife. Your instincts are right that your marriage is not safe with him in the picture — even as your wife’s platonic friend because he does not have her best interests at heart or yours. He’s not a true friend to her, but she doesn’t see that for some reason. There is something in her life that is allowing her to accept and foster whatever it is she gets from him, whether it’s saving someone who’s hurt, getting attention for herself, or something else.

Your marriage has bumbled along without incident and you’ve sort of fallen into it — YOU being the one to make the move and the adjustment to a new country. Now, the dynamic needs to change. This is grown up stuff.

My advice is that you tell your wife that your marriage is being compromised and that her friendship with your soon to be ex-best friend is going to be come a deal breaker. Explain to her that while she thinks this you’re being silly, you’d rather not debate that. Instead, you’d like empathy and loyalty within your marriage. You want to be a united front, which is what a marriage is at it’s best, and that this friendship she’s forged with your friend is driving a wedge in the marriage and it’s hurting you. It’s time to get him out of both of your lives until a time when he’s emotionally healthy. Right now, he’s not. But don’t make this too much about him. It’s about you and your wife.

Marriage and relationships require sacrifice. As a single person (which is how your friend is functioning in his open marriage) you can be selfish and do what YOU want to do at pretty much all times. When you’re in a committed relationship — whether it’s a marriage or parent/child relationship, you have to do what is right for the relationship and often, the other person. If your wife doesn’t understand this, she doesn’t have the maturity and wisdom to see this marriage through.

If her friendship is more important than your marriage, then you have to understand she’s choosing him over you and your marriage is on it’s way to the finish line. 😳

Get in there and talk to her and fight for what is yours — your marriage — and if it’s no longer yours, let it go. She has to see how serious you are about this. If you are a doormat, prepared to be walked on. This is a turning point in the relationship for you.

I wish you good luck.

See you @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url].

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