Nothing like a scandal to bring me back to writing. Well kids I don't know if anyone is reading this anymore but here goes.
A few days ago I found a friend on Tinder. As in a married and (as far as I know) not in an open relationship type of friend. Days later to say it still consumes my thoughts for the majority of the day would be a gross understatement.
Let me start from the beginning... the naughty life with The Hubs has been great but also highly monogamous for a while. For whatever reason we have hit a streak of guys who flake, women who are fake and a whole bunch of not even looking anymore. After a recent no show we decided it was time to try Tinder.
This brings me to this past weekend. There I am swiping through the guys when suddenly my brain registered a face that I knew. A face I knew very well.
I froze.
It felt like someone punched me in the heart. I think if you could measure my heart rate during this you would surely see that my heart stopped. I swear it is true, the absolute shock to see this particular face smiling back at me was a full on assault to my mental capacity to comprehend.
When I was finally able to breath I said to The Hubs "OMG.... I just found The BFFs Hubs on Tinder".
He walked around the corner and the look on his face told me he was also shocked. He walked over to me and looked at my phone as if he had to prove it to himself.
I did what every wife would do and looked him straight in the face and asked
"ok no bullshit did you know about this?"
"Not at all" he replied and I knew he was being honest.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
This is one of our very best friends. Who is married to one of our other very best friends. To my knowledge there is no agreement for an open relationship yet here we were and how the actual fuck do I process this information?
It has been a wide range of emotions since.
Shock: this is the one guy who you would be sure would never cheat. The Hubs says no one is 100% perfect all the time but this one rocked my sense of trust. Hell days later and I am still shocked.
Amusement: I couldn't help but laugh at when in March I found him on snapchat and wondered why. Twitter people and The Hubs said I was being crazy there were tons of explanations. Well who is crazy now??!
Understanding: they do not have a good or even bad sex life it is a horrible sex life. I know this from conversations with both of them over many, many years. They have many factors into it but sexually they just are not compatible. So I do understand that everyone has needs and everyone has a breaking point.
Anger: fuck yea I am mad at him. He is lying and cheating on someone I love. And it makes me so mad that he could/would do this to their family.
Fear: our lives are highly intertwined. A secret of this magnitude will have widespread ripples of consequences. Many of my secrets, The Friend's secrets and who knows what else could come out. Sometimes it just takes one needle on the bottom of the stack to be pulled and you end up with a disaster.
Curiosity: how much does he do this? What kind of women does he like? Did he see my profile and did he recognize me? Did he swipe right or left? What about that amazingly huge cock you have always heard about? What would he be like in bed? All of these and more have been swirling in my head.
Guilt: hello, I am wondering about what the cock is like on my BFF's husband.
And then repeat. All of it. All day long.
And the one big question is; what do I do with this information?
I am not going to go into the many reasons both pro and con of sharing it with her and or him. I pondered what would I want her to do. What would I do if it was her cheating on him. And what I would want him to do if he recognized me. And in the end I have decided I am going to do exactly what he would do/is doing with it: absolutely nothing.
I am not going to be the one to blow up multiple lives. I am going to stay out of it and mind my own business. I am not going to tell her and I am also not going to tell him that I know.
That is my plan.
Now I just have to learn to live with it.
The Wife
Wow. This really caught my eye. You wrote "To my knowledge there is no agreement for an open relationship..."
ReplyDeleteI'd say you are making the correct choice by not saying a word to her. I'm a huge fan of The Savage Lovecast and this question comes in every two to three episodes. Without knowing the circumstances, you never know if the wife, your BFF is aware. Now I would think that if your BFF knew about your arrangement with your hubby, then she might have opened up about it.
Another thing to consider is this. Perhaps this man is one of the many people on sites like Tinder who use it as a way to get off without any intention of ever meeting someone in person. Sure, it may be a little sneaky and crappy if that is against the rules of the marriage, but it also may be the release this guy needs in order to stay faithful to his marriage.
Something that you might consider (although I agree with your course of action to do nothing) is to perhaps go to the man and say, hey dumbass, we saw your face on Tinder. None of our business what you do, but if we saw it, how many other friends or family may come across it? Of course, then you have to explain why you, a married person were on Tinder.
I encourage you to check out Dan Savage's podcast. It might relieve the pain this sudden discovery caused you. He has an often repeated thing about how sometimes, people cheat not to destroy the marriage, but in order to save the marriage. It's a real thing.
Seems like you are doing the right thing beautiful id wait and see how things go it may have been a curiously thing
ReplyDeleteFyi I think you are awesome