Who the cheater hangs around really does matter. Although you may have disagreed with your parents that your friends don’t influence you, the reality is they do.
Your spouse will be influenced by their friends. The morals and behaviors of those friends makes a difference.
If all your spouse’s friends are having affairs, sleeping around or have a cavalier attitude toward marriage, it’ll rub off on your spouse. Yes, they may be long term friends, but that does not override the danger they present to your marriage.
Actually long term friends pose the greater threat since they have greater sway over your spouse’s thinking and behavior.
A ‘true’ friend strives doing what’s right, and support your marriage. When there is a threat of an affair, they are the ones who should alert you or attempt steering the cheater away from any temptation.
Bad friends, on the other hand become a “cheater support network”. That network hides, lies and deceives in protecting the cheater from negative consequences.
Some bad friends even go so far as to put common interest ahead of your marriage. One ‘tolerant’ feminist encourages others to divorce their spouse is their political beliefs are not in line with hers.She also claims you shouldn’t blame women for sending nude photos of themselves to others.
When friends make politics a higher priority than your marriage commitment, you’ve got a bad friend. When they don’t want you confronting provocative behavior like sending nude photos to others, it’s definitely not a healthy influence for your marriage.
When an affair happens, you’ll have to deal with the lover and whatever friends supported the affair either directly or indirectly. Those friends may have planted the seeds that led to the affair.
It may have been through jokes, their attitude or through their corrupting influence.
This also means that removing the lover only starts the clean-up. Removing the corrupting influence of friends also needs to happen. Removing the influence of those friends may be tougher than removing the lover.
Friends do have an influence.
It your relapse prevention plan doesn’t address friends, you’re missing an important part. In the video, “Preventing Affair Relapse” this and other topics are covered. Those items missing from your plan may be the areas where your marriage is most vulnerable.
Best Regards,
Jeff
2 Responses
This hits home and timely for me. Cheating wife was enabled by long-time friend to meet affair partner. I was told she was visiting her friend at her brothers house. At least part of that was rendezvous with affair partner, where the affair became physical. A year later when suspecting I tried to contact friend, who refused to talk, lied and said nothing happened, and berated me for even trying to talk to her behind my wife’s back. I was gracious, apologized for bothering her and thanked her for her time. Nine months later I find the truth and call her on it, where she lied again. Now I’m the bad guy for involving her? Bad guy for raising concern about them getting together again? Our counselor isn’t even supporting me. Frustrating.
Dear Frustrating,
Thank you for sharing your story. My stomach knotted up on reading what happened. It felt like I was hitting a wall that had no windows or doors. When you are the one seeking the truth there is often resistance to you finding it. It often times comes across as if you are the enemy for wanting to find ‘the truth’ and address it. It certainly would be frustrating for the enabler, the cheater and even the counselor not supporting or allowing you to talk about things.