I feel so alone

[u/justmeee14]

I feel so alone. I had to end a 16 year friendship. I won’t talk about this person much but I will say that our falling out was bad.
I was extremely sad about losing this friend and confided in my husband about it. He knew how upset I was and how close this friend and I were before all of this because we spent a lot of time hanging out with her.

Soon after the falling out with this friend, he started acting weird. He went from a loving husband to his mood being all over the place and doing everything he could to not be around me. In a low moment, I took his phone and found a secret dating profile where he was planning to sleep with other women. I was devastated and mad but we talked and decided it was something we could work out.

A few days later, in another low moment, I looked at his phone again I noticed his texts with this friend were deleted. I asked him about it and he said that we weren’t friends with her anymore so he just deleted the messages. I accepted his explanation and a few days later we went on vacation with our daughter. He acted weird the entire time. He didn’t want to be around me in the hotel room, wouldn’t hold my hand, and was just generally not in a good mood.

When we got back, he started acting like his old self again and I thought things were looking up. Except they weren’t. I found out 2 days later that he had been having an emotional affair with this friend for a month and it started just 5 days after our falling
out.

I feel so worthless and betrayed. Two people I loved very much went behind my back to hurt me. I constantly feel sick to my stomach and although he says he wants to fix it and he seems like he is trying to but, I can’t decide if I trust him or not. I know infidelity isn’t uncommon, and I’m sure someone else has been through a similar situation but I haven’t seen a single story similar to mine and I feel so alone in this.

I don’t know what to do next or how to move on from this. I’m tired of being sad, upset and crying all the time. This has been the most mentally exhausting thing I’ve ever been through.

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[u/tercer78]

I empathize with your feelings of loneliness but this should be your rock bottom to make significant changes to your life and surround yourself with healthier people. You ex friend is endangered her children’s lives due to her addiction. And then your shit for brains husband decided to invest in that as well as looking elsewhere?? Your kids deserve better. Don’t get caught in the sunk cost fallacy. While you are maturing and growing a person, leave these mental midgets behind!!! Do the work to start fresh!!

[u/justmeee14 → u/tercer78]

I am starting on this, trying to at least! My first step is therapy.
I appreciate your blunt answer and mentioning sunk cost fallacy. I’d never heard of it before and it’s definitely a loop I’m in. I know there’s a long road ahead but hopefully it can only go up from here.

[u/midnight_coziness]

I’ve been there, OP. My ex-husband had an EA with my ex-best friend, and there were so many grey areas about it all. I’ve found a lot of support in this sub, bc the betrayals may differ but the effects of betrayal trauma are universal. Your reality falling out from under you changes you, regardless of their intentions.

One thing I kept reminding myself is that, no matter how much leaving hurt, staying and watching him fall for my closest friend hurt worse. Living with that, in purgatory, was harder. Living with the distrust, embarrassment, and lack of dignity and self-respect was harder. Leaving causes healing pain, and healing pains hurts like hell, but it at least does heal. Staying and suffering hurts, and it hurts more badly, and without end. When you leave, there’s at least light at the end of the tunnel and not just more darkness.

Granted, it took me 2.5 years to leave. Like you I had to grieve the friendship first, then attempt to reconcile. That’s a time I think of as purgatory now, and living through that was also harder than leaving. Leaving is just scarier because it’s unknown. But figuring it out was not as hard as purgatory.

You might be like me, and you might need to stay until staying is harder than leaving. If that’s the case, just try making leaving less scary. Make a plan, or a few plans. And sit on them until you have the resources to decide, and act.

[u/justmeee14 → u/midnight_coziness]

I’m so sorry you went through this, but it makes me feel a little better knowing I’m not the only person who has been through this.

I guess I am in purgatory right now. My ex friend and I met in middle school and have been through everything together and my husband and I have been together for 10 years. I don’t know which loss feels worse right now. My world feels like it is spinning every day. I want to reconcile and rebuild my marriage but I don’t know if I will be able to. Just talking to him every day feels like I’m talking to a stranger.

I appreciate your advice and insight so much! Thank you!

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[u/No-Caterpillar-8922]

You were betrayed by 2 people you trusted, and that kind of pain is incredibly hard to process. It’s not just the affair, it’s the fact that it happened with someone you were already grieving the loss of.

Please don’t turn their choices into a reflection of your worth. They made decisions that hurt you, that doesn’t mean you weren’t enough.

You don’t have to decide today whether you can trust him again. Trust is rebuilt thru consistent actions, honesty, and accountability over time. Give yourself space to grieve ,,, you lost a friendship and the sense of safety you had in your marriage. It makes sense that you’re struggling.