My Husband Is Cheating on Me, but He Doesn’t Even See It

When spouses have close friends of opposite gender, to many people it may become a problem. There’s a belief that there’s no such thing as a real friendship of a man and a woman, and it will sooner or later turn into a romance. Our today’s heroine was afraid of the same thing, and she wrote us a letter about her husband’s very weird relationship with his female friend. She recently sent us a letter with her story update, too, and let’s see if this friendship brought anything good or bad to their family.

There was not a single problem from the start.

A woman named Rachel, 30, wrote us a letter where she told us a story about her non-typical «love triangle» in the family.

Rachel began her story, saying, «My husband, Josh, and I have been together almost 9 years. He’s definitely cheating on me, but he doesn’t see it.»

She then told us a little backstory, saying that her husband has a very good friend, Lisa.

She wrote, «This woman is, you know, a stereotypical lady that your partner tells you not to worry about. Her name’s Lisa. My husband and she have been very good friends since close to the beginning of our romantic relationship. We used to be all coworkers some time ago, so I knew this woman too.»

The first red flag was ignored by Rachel.

Rachel continues her story, saying, that there wasn’t anything in her husband’s relationship with Lisa that would make her really worried. But once, she encountered a non-typical thing from the side of her ex-colleague.

The woman revealed, «The first time Josh and I had an issue was a couple of months into our relationship. Lisa then told him, out of the blue, that she loved him. I found out about it from Josh, he came home and told me about this. He also said that he immediately turned her down, but they continued their friendship, and she moved to another city.»

Rachel confessed that the very fact that Josh told her about this incident, made her comfortable with the whole situation. She imagined that if he was really cheating or something of a kind, he would never have told his wife that another woman loved him and told him about it. So, she was more or less relaxed about this behavior of Lisa and almost forgot about it when another red flag showed up on their horizon.

Another pity incident made Rachel less comfortable with the whole situation.

Rachel goes on, saying, that a couple of months ago, she went on a road trip with her friend, and Josh decided to take one with Lisa and her mom. In their family, it was completely acceptable to spend some time separately, with their friends, and they used to trust each other, as well as considered it absolutely fine to give each other some rest from the family routine.

So, Rachel went her way and Josh went hiking with Lisa and her mother. Rachel wrote, «They stopped near where Lisa was now living, went hiking for the daytime, and three of them shared the hotel room for the night so Lisa and her mom didn’t have to drive back tired.»

Rachel goes on, saying, «Mind you, the hotel room had two queen beds. Lisa’s mom didn’t want to share the bed, and both her and Lisa convinced Josh that I wouldn’t mind if they slept in the same bed. I am absolutely sure that they didn’t ask me, otherwise I would ultimately have said no.»

Things were becoming even more unhealthy after the “hotel incident.”

Rachel goes on, saying, that there were even more and more red flags appearing that she just couldn’t ignore anymore.

She wrote, «Lisa moved back to our city for 3 months after that, and they met each other occasionally. A month later, she asked Josh to help her move back to her permanent residence city again. Lisa needed help moving all her stuff.
My husband asked me if I would mind if he helped her with transporting the stuff, which meant he would take a 3-day car trip together with Lisa, I said I’m not okay with that. I really didn’t want him to go, and believed it was just inappropriate. He got furious, but respected my wish.»

Another incident was the last straw for Rachel. She said, «Once, we went to a gym and Lisa joined us. She started flirting with Josh and touching him. I immediately talked to my husband about how uncomfortable it all made me feel, and I mentioned I would like him to set boundaries with Lisa.»

Rachel confessed that she didn’t want Josh to cut Lisa off completely, mostly because she didn’t want to seem toxic to him. But this touching and flirting didn’t stop and worsened, and she learned later that he had never talked to her about those boundaries.

Rachel sent us an update about her story recently, and the things went too far for all participants.

Rachel wrote us a second letter recently. She said, «Well, we broke up because he didn’t want to confess that his relationship with Lisa was quite unhealthy. I found out later that Lisa is his girlfriend now. Josh is taking her to all of the places we went together with him, and he is literally replacing my existence with her.»

She finished her letter, saying, «But here’s the best part. His neglect and toxic attitude put me in the right place at the right time. I found the most amazing, loving, caring man. He treats me absolutely perfect.
I want to tell anyone who’s stuck in a toxic or unhealthy relationship thinking they can’t do better, you can. I did. And I am happy.
Mom always told me, „with the right person, you just know“, and now I know, and I’m so grateful for him. I’m grateful for the experience that has led me to the man of my dream. Everything happens for a reason, I absolutely believe in that.»

And here’s yet another family story, from a woman who used a tampon to check on her boyfriend’s infidelity.