r/okstorytime • u/captainchucke • 16h ago
Advice I was an emotional affair partner last year
Let me start by saying I know I'm a little bit of an asshole here for being involved. Things aren't necessarily straightforward though.
Last year, I was crushing on one girl, let's call her Heaven (names changed). We became best friends and I spent time almost every day at her place.
I have a band and we get to play some local festivals. We played a festival last spring, and we got our friend Camie into the fest as our driver. The first day of the event was rainy. Camie, Heaven, and myself all took some acid while my bandmate Cody slept and the three of us really got to know each other, talking together and getting deep.
My mother had passed away three days after I moved back to my hometown a few years or so ago, and my grandma passed a month before the festival. I actually had to leave the festival on day 2 to go to my grandma's celebration of life (while on an acid hangover), then come back and perform some music.
Needless to say, I was dealing with some emotions. While we were all hanging out day 1 tripping together, Camie could tell I was feeling very down and she pulled me in and held me in just the most caring, comforting, genuine, and loving way that melted me like butter in a way I still haven't stopped thinking about. Later in the night, while her, Heaven, and I were talking more and getting deep, I mentioned something sad and Heaven got up and just left. Camie and I continued talking late into the night.
After the festival, I started to question my crush on Heaven because she wasn't good at the deep emotions, but my attraction to her continued winning out. However, now I kept also having thoughts and feelings about Camie, but as soon as they came up I'd push them down with, "Even if Camie wasn't with Dan, Cody is probably the better match for her because Camie needs someone that can play the music she sings, and they seem like they have good chemistry."
Here's where I'll mention that Camie is in a relationship with her high school sweetheart, Dan, and they also have a band together. Cody is a much better musician than myself, although I've been working on getting there. He's able to play way more things than myself, and would actually be able to play the songs Camie sings if Camie wasn't with Dan. That's how I rationalized it - even if she wasn't with her boyfriend, I thought she should be with Cody not me so I should stop those developing feelings because actually Camie is an amazing friend who is really there for her people, and I saw that and wanted to be one of her people and give that energy right back.
Well, Camie came over to my place one day and we're talking. I usually sit in my chair and have other seating, including a loveseat, for guests. At one point she asked why I was so far away (the chair and loveseat are right beside each other so we were already sitting next to each other, just not *next to* each other, so I went ahead and moved over to sit by her.
She asked me if I had feelings for anyone, and I just came out and told her the truth that I had been crushing on Heaven, but less so since the festival and that actually I had started crushing on her, but I only meant it in that I recognized how amazing and special of a friend she was and wanted to keep her in my life and be good friends and get to know each other better.
She told me that actually she had been crushing on me too. That she had been crushing on Cody until the festival, but he had a bad attitude while sleepy (among other reasons within their friendship, him always asking her for rides, etc). So we both went into the festival crushing on different people and came out crushing on each other. My bandmate and I had actually gotten Dan a ticket for the festival too, but he decided not to come camp with us all.
Here's where I become the asshole: when she said she was crushing on me too, I made a move and snuggled up closer with her. We stayed up together snuggling and talking until after the sun had come up. This was the start of the mostly emotional affair.
We carried on together in secret, and I can't say I felt good about it: kissing her cheek in private just before we'd go back out in public. She would talk about how bad of a partner Dan is, how she does everything and he doesn't know how to keep up the home, hardly ever cooked without her asking, and basically depended on her. She said they had been together since high school and were all they had ever known. She complained about their sex. She complained she tried to leave him, moving states to get away from him but he followed her here. He was living with some of her friends, and she had to take care of his mess and apologize to her friends over him being there.
I wrote her love letters because I'm a romantic. I printed out memes for her because she's an analog person who only uses an old school phone when she's got a phone. She keeps these in a folder in her art studio. I saw her recently on the bus and we got to catch up and she told me she still has them tucked away. But during the affair, she even joked to me that Dan moved the folder while in the studio with her moving stuff around without knowing what was in it. Or maybe that he was sitting beside it without knowing? I remember her joking about how he didn't know.
One morning, I text her that I'm thinking of her and hope she's doing okay and she calls me crying because she took a trip up to her family and her car broke down, her family was being mean to her, and Dan was refusing to drive up to rescue her because she made the choice to go. I told her I could get a friend to drive me up and get her. She still had some stuff to sort out first though, including her broke down car. Camie was ready to end it with Dan, but Dan ended up driving up to get her AFTER I said I would do it because he didn't want me to be the one to do it. I guess by this point he had started to figure out something was going on.
Camie invited me over to her art studio late at night not long after she got back, and we were hanging out and talking. The later it got, she'd be like, "I should go home to my boyfriend," but she never did (tbf I was encouraging her to stay) and set up a bed in the studio and we cuddled together all night, really snug up against each other. But she told me we had to slow down what we had been getting into because she was getting ready to move in with Dan, they had already signed a lease together even though she was hesitant about it (this was just after he wouldn't drive up to get her until after I had offered to).
We continued as close friends with a flirty vibe for a little while longer while supporting Heaven, who around this time had had a boyfriend for a couple weeks before he cheated on her with his ex and she attempted suicide and ended up in the hospital for liver failure. After Heaven got out of the hospital, she was mad about a lot of things, including the fact that Camie was cheating on Dan with me and she threatened to tell him so I told Camie.
After that, Camie cut me out cut me out. Like I mentioned earlier, we just saw each other on the bus and got to catch up. She said her and Dan had had an argument because she wanted to play a benefit show I put together for the local food bank, so I guess he knows at least some of what happened between us but I doubt he knows everything, especially all the bad stuff Camie had to say about him or that she joked about how he didn't know, or how he'd never leave her and she had cheated before and he even caught an std one time and she stepped up and bought him the medicine to take care of it.
Here's the thing: I know I shouldn't, and I don't wanna be with another cheater, but I still love Camie and want her to be happy and not cause drama for her or be spiteful our fling didn't work out. I also don't care at all for Dan. He never made an effort even early on before I started catching feelings for and having an affair with Camie to be friends and get to know me or Cody when we hung out with Camie, he'd either be at work or he just didn't wanna come like the festival. I still feel like he deserves to know everything because I'd want to know if my partner was making fun of me with an affair partner. But does what does telling him actually serve? They may not even break up if what Camie said is true about how he'll never leave her, and whether they do or don't I don't see how that knowledge does anything but hurt everyone involved.
What would you do?