A “Best Friend’s” Ultimate Betrayal

So, I never considered that people would send ME their problems wanting my answers or input, because I’m NOT dear Abbey…but I’ll do my best. I mean, yes I get feedback and comments through this blog and plenty on Facebook but this is the first time someone has specifically asked me for advice. 

So, I’m going to share her email with you, as well as my reply. She was told about my process and is good with it – as long as I don’t share any of her personal information. I also told her to expect comments from you, and she said “that’s even better” until I told her that my readers don’t hold back, but she feels “safe” seeing that no one will know who it’s from. 

Here is her email to me:

Hi Letisha. I came across your blog on my feed and it was the interview you did with the woman you called “the problem,” that caught my eye. I read it and it really struck a chord in me. You’ll find out in a minute.

You might find this kind of odd when you read everything. I actually totally agree with you! I think the way women treat each other is vile! I think we treat each other just as bad as men can and sometimes worse! I’m so glad someone has had the guts to say it out loud because women definitely get bullied by other women any time we dare speak up on the subject. I can’t wait for your book to come out, I am a fan.

All that said, I hope you’re ready for the contradiction to what I just said. It’s just as hard to write as it is to say out loud. Here it goes. See I am “the problem,” you wrote about.  Letisha I slept with the husband of my best friend of over 40 years. I even admit that I think I’d be better for him than her. I don’t think he’s perfect by any means but some of his distance from her (which was happening before he and I hooked up) is because she emasculates him constantly, and takes no pleasure in treating him like a wife should. She even told me she hoped he’d cheat on her so she would have a real reason to leave him. I’m not excusing what we’ve done but you do seem to see things from both sides, so I just wanted you to know everything. We’ve hooked up twice now, but we talk about being together all the time. I want to be with him, and I think I should be the one to break the news, he thinks he should.

What do you think about this? Should I tell her, or should he? I’m prepared for the backlash…I think.

Thank you for what you’re doing for women. I really do think you are going to change our dynamic with each other.

Here is my reply:

Dear Anonymous “Best Friend”

As I told you in our private email conversation, I’m not one for tickling ears, or watering down the truth or my feelings on this topic, and I hope you really can take what people may say to you and about you, but let’s start with me.

First, you can relieve yourself by no longer calling yourself her friend. The moment you began telling yourself you’d be better for her husband than her, you over-stepped and broke that bond even though she doesn’t know yet. When you meditate on thoughts, good or bad, and you don’t actively and constantly push those thoughts out, they are bound to become actions, as proven by your “hook ups.” Speaking of that, you “hook up” with dates, maybe someone you have no intentions of seeing beyond a tryst. What you and her husband are doing is committing adultery by having an affair. You will not be able to be completely honest with her if you can’t be honest with yourself.

A genuine friend would have gone to her friend and maybe said: “hey, I really love you and I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you, so I want to tell you that I need to back away from our friendship for a while, or maybe for good, because I’m having inappropriate thoughts and feelings for your husband.” Maybe not those exact words, but something within that realm because she was definitely going to ask why. You could have even taken the cowards way and wrote her a letter. ANYTHING would have been better than now having to tear her heart out by telling her you crossed a line you can’t go backwards on. How after a 40+ year SISTERHOOD did you not think of what you were going to do to her mind, her heart, her very being when she finds out? She didn’t share her thoughts and even her weaknesses within her marriage for you to use them against her! She certainly would never expect you to be the woman on the other side of her husband’s affair. You were going to be her safe place in that dark time. Yes…dark time. She may have thought her husband having an affair was her out, but trust me, it was going to hurt her deeper than she could have ever imagined, and you were who she was going to need to help her through it. Now she has to deal with the double blow of betrayal by you both. I want to keep asking what you were thinking, but you’ve told me…you were thinking you were better. You were utterly selfish!

I will never understand how you “other women” don’t see the writing on the wall. Yes, my ex was one of FEW husbands who went on to marry their mistress, but make no mistake, he made it clear he only did it because he thought I had moved on with someone else. But whatever the reason, the chances of this man actually wanting to leave his wife once he’s faced with what he’s done and the reality of losing her, you will become a mouthful of expletives and an easy cast off to him. Even if they split, and he comes to you, you now have a man who has proven his propensity to cheat and lie, and somehow women like you think you’re getting a prize! Even YOU deserve a man whose true hearts intentions is to be faithful to only you and he has already shown you he cannot do that right now. You are inviting a world of hurt on yourself, and the sister you devastated, for a loser will and your ex-friend will no longer be YOUR safe place. Do you see how this all works? It’s not rocket science.

The dynamic from woman to woman has to change. There has to be loyalty to our sisterhood, to “Girl Code,” and you definitely were supposed to be loyal to your life-long friend. Are you really going to pour salt on her gaping wound by shacking up with her husband if she kicks him out? Are you really that low? Do you really not love her more than him? Do you truly not value yourself more than that? Come on! Do better! Be able to walk away with a little bit to be proud of. Can you do that? Or are you going to keep living in your fantasy that this “man” is going to change overnight just for lil ol’ you??

Further, what do you think is going to happen to the circle of friends you share with your soon to be ex friend? Do you think they’re going to hug you and say they understand why you betrayed their sister? Ummm…NO! Unless they too are someone’s mistress and have no conscience, you will not garner any sympathy, and they will distance themselves from you because you can no longer be trusted BY ANY WOMAN! That’s what you’ve done to your friend, to them, to our sisterhood…you broke a sacred trust.

We need each other in this bond of sisterhood and one day you will need the very sisterhood you betrayed. You will need it much sooner than you think if you decide being with him is more important than your own self-respect.

Just a little bit more advice.

Do NOT even think of offering her a half-hearted apology, which is what it will be if you plan on being with him. In that case don’t even bother because that will be a stab in her heart and in her back. Only apologize if you mean it, which means you will be leaving him in your rear view mirror. Let her say whatever she feels she needs to say. Allow her to vent, you have it coming. I’m not saying let yourself be berated into the ground, you are still a person with feelings, but short of that, allow her those feelings because you have NO idea what you’ve done to her, and her anger will be her searching for how to express the indescribable pain you’ve helped bring on her. So take it, apologize if she’ll allow you, then leave. Give her space. She may look back on your reaction after some time and see that you were truly remorseful, that you didn’t interrupt her with sorry excuses and justifications, and maybe begin to miss you. It happens. It happens because we women are special that way, and if she finds it in her heart to forgive you…DON’T YOU EVER FORGET IT!

There’s not much more I can say. You messed up big time. I have no sympathy for you. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I just have no sympathy for the consequences you are due for what you’ve done to her… what you’ve done to yourself.

While you are alone with your thoughts, PLEASE do some introspection and find out why and how you could risk a 40-year friendship, a sister, over ANY man, especially HER man. Take the time to get to know yourself better. I’m sure you didn’t wake up one day and say “I think I’ll betray my sister in the worse way possible today.” So, find out where this serious lapse came from. Maybe you’ll discover you didn’t like her as much as you thought. Maybe you’ll discover you were always a bit of a vixen. I don’t know, that’s the purpose of this time for you. 

I do want to thank you for sharing. Not sure if “thank you” is appropriate after all I’ve said but I do mean it because you have given an opportunity for someone else out there to decide who THEY are or who they want to be if they are facing a similar situation. They may be seeing a little of themselves in you and decide NOT to cross that line.

I hope you and she both heal…whether that includes your friendship, only time will tell.

LeTisha

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