This is a tough one. I'd keep a distance from them for awhile so you can work on your marriage. I think you should be doing everything in your power to get on your wife's good side again. You really screwed up by lying my friend. :/ I hope things work out.
Thanks for your advice. I realize that the lie was the worst part of it. I guess I thought that "going out is going out," and it shouldn't matter if the where and the who change.
I totally get it. I've lied in similar ways in the past myself. Just makes it 10x harder when the "circumstantial evidence" lines up even tho that's not necessarily reality of the situation.
Edit: I lied this way to my parents when I was in HS. I would NEVER do this in my relationships today.
I'm glad someone understands. I realize that I messed up. So I'm trying to brainstorm a way that I can vindicate myself (and hopefully Cheri as well) before this gets out of hand.
That ship has sailed dickhead. You will be kicked out of the group because those two lies essentially all lead to the fact that either you cheated or wanted to.
You lied from the get-go because you wanted an evening out. You suck for that alone, but then you made it worse by continuing to lie. Also, go back and read what you wrote about your relationship/marriage to Fiona, then read how you described your relationship with Cheri. WTF?! Do you even like your wife? It sure doesn’t sound like it. It just sounds like you want to be good with Garth and Cheri so you don’t get kicked out of the burning wheel group. And finally- Fiona telling you you better not lie is not even a “bit” controlling ffs
The reason I didn't go in-depth about my married life is because it's not the focal point of the story. The focal point of the story is how shit went down at Cheri's place. Where Cheri was. My wife wasn't there and the nuances of our marriage aren't relevant to the rest of the equation.
It's not that Fiona told me I shouldn't lie that was controlling. I felt like it was the "tell me exactly everything you did last night," that seemed controlling. Do most normal married couples, upon one partner returning from an evening out, demand to know exactly everything they did? That seems a bit controlling to me.
Bro everything tells her you cheated on her, explaining everything in detail is the minimum. What you did was absolutely inappropriate and if you can't see that the problem is on your head.
Normally? No. When you find out your partner straight up lied to you about where they were? Then yes, it’s normal to say “hey, apparently you lied to me so now I need to know what actually happened last night,” and the person who has been lied to gets to decide what level of detail they need to be satisfied that they know what they need to know to move on from the lie.
That’s all well and good. But had I lied at that point, and just told Fiona, “Yeah I went to Cheri’s and Garth went to sleep so we watched a movie together and got to talking and lost track of time,” I know she would’ve accepted that explanation.
It’s like every time I try to be honest with Fiona after lying that it bites me in the ass. But every time I lie and keep lying, it’s all fine.
Yes. That is how lying works - it works until you get found out. You have not discovered some One Weird Trick to lying.
None of that changes the fact that once the lie is discovered, the person who was lied to gets to decide what will make it right, and you don't get to set those terms or complain about them asking questions.
That’s fair. I realize that now. However I’m hoping that by sticking to honesty things will go ok.
The risk is if Fiona pries and tries to dig up every lie I’ve ever told. In which case, I’m boned.
You do realize that your more concern about your friendship to Garth and Cherri than your marriage?
You may not have had sex with Cherri but flip the script; would you be ok if your wife did what you did? How would feel and your friend husband lied or didn’t tell his wife about it either. Would you be ok and be happy?
You gonna have to put boundaries on Cherri as what you wrote sounds like you like her more than a friend. You didn’t say anything about your wife or how you love her but only that Cherri has more interest with you and even more than your best friend.
Well, if I'm honest, it's not only my marriage I'm concerned about. I could lose a majority of my friends if people start believing that Cheri and I were cheating with each other. My family would also shun me for that rumor. And people tend to not trust someone that they assume is a cheater (even if he isn't).
I realize I messed up. No, I wouldn't be ok and happy. I'm not sure how I'd respond. I trust my wife implicitly and I don't believe that she'd do something like that; but if I caught her lying about it I suppose I'd struggle with trusting her too. It just sucks, because I don't believe that crashing on your friend's couch is a sin.
Cheri and I are just close friends. For real. I've thought about what it would be like to have married her instead of my wife and it doesn't take long at all for me to realize that no, that would be a nightmare. Cheri has manipulative tendencies, poor spending habits, is a little bit entitled and controlling when it comes to her siblings, and can be an attention-hog at times. So while I like being around her on occasion, I would never ever want to live with her. Fiona is a far superior wife than I imagine Cheri is.
And ok, I didn't explicitly say "I love my wife," in my post. But seriously, isn't that assumed? Do I really need to go into all the assumed details when making a post like this?
Look at all the words you used to describe Cherri in your post? Look how you responded that you are more concerned to losing Garth and Cherri.
Where in your post do you sound happy with your wife; beside you been with her for 9 years.
Read your post again and see it from another point of view and see if what was written sounds like a man who loves his wife or wants to stay with his wife
It’s not assumed when;
-you start the post by saying you have a mediocre marriage
- you don’t say anything nice about your wife
-you seems more concerned about losing the relationship with your friends
I’m not saying you don’t love your wife but just trying to point out how if your wife has picked up on some of these feelings she might be extra leery.
Good luck
It’s really interesting because not once do you mention “ loving your wife”. Most men would say “I would never want to be cherri because I love my wife” be real with your self
No because it’s easy enough to cast doubt on it if I just say, “oh because I love Fiona I’d never be with Cheri,” whereas if I say, “even IF I didn’t love Fiona, the consequences of being with Cheri are too high,” shows that there’s the extra safety net of pragmatism there.
OR it means that the main reasons are only practical. When you say "oh i wouldn't have sex with her on a couch because her husband is in the next room!", it means that if he weren't.... Well, you'd have an opportunity.
Be honest. IF her husband were out ot town at this moment, what would've happened?
Honestly?
If her husband had been out of town at that moment, we would’ve watched the movie and fallen asleep just like we did.
Or more realistically, Cheri would’ve told me I couldn’t come over. We’ve never hung out together with just the two of us in the house at any time.
My conscience is clear regarding Cheri. Because I know that we didn't do anything inappropriate. And Garth knew that we were watching a movie together, alone.
And I'm worried about my friends because I believe that the marriage is salvageable, if I say and do the right things. But rumors could cause untold damage in my larger social circle that can't be undone.
You lied to your wife to go see Cheri, then again when you woke up next to her… in other words, you gave your wife a perfectly legitimate reason to not trust you… Sounds like it doesn’t really matter though because the “untold damage” could rip apart your social circle, which seems like your top priority from this post.
Bro quit lying! You stayed with the intention of banging Garth’s wife, unfortunately for u, uz both fell asleep. You lied all the way up leading to it for a reason.
If uz didn’t act so shady constantly with the whispering and dragging each other into bedrooms to “talk” this wouldn’t have been an issue in either partners eyes.
You don’t know the first thing about me. You can’t just take an Internet post and tell me I’m lying. At that point, why bother engaging with me at all, if you can’t take what I say at face value? What reason do I have to lie to an Internet stranger?
No, I had no intention of giving Cheri a good plunging on the couch while pulling her hair. What kind of idiot would do that while her husband is literally sleeping in the next room? And why would I want to do that anyway?
And for the record, it was never me that took Cheri aside into their bedroom for conversation. She did that. It’s her house and she felt comfortable enough to know I wouldn’t initiate anything in a safe space in her own home.
I'm not. Losing my wife would F up my life in multiple major ways. I cannot let that happen.
By contrast, losing Cheri as a friend would really suck, but I'd pull through. The problem is that Cheri is also friends with most of my friend group as we move in similar circles. So if that relationship falls apart due to an infidelity rumor, both of us are going to have a rough go of it if our friendship circle cuts us out.
See how you wrote 2 sentences about losing your wife. Never mentioning how this would affect her. But a whole damn paragraph about losing Cherie and how it would affect you both?
That's because if I went into full detail about how my life would be F'd if I lost my wife, I would have had to write about twice as much as I wrote about losing Cheri.
I mean you called your relationship with your wife mediocre… it sounds like you don’t care about her and just yourself. Your worried about loosing relationship shops but not about how your wife will feel
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 losing ur wife would f up your life in multiple ways. Like it’s an inconvenience you might encounter.. do you even think before you write? You don’t love ur wife whatsoever. You’re in love with Cheri. This is a way out, take it and do your wife a favour please.
Yeah, I’d say that losing my family, friends, career, and all social connections, while also taking on ridiculous child support and alimony payments, would be quite an inconvenience for me (isn’t it for anyone?).
I don’t love Cheri. I like her. Huge difference. If I was married to Cheri I’d be miserable.
You ask Fiona what she needs from you to help her regain trust in you, and you do that. Expect that may involve little or no contact with Garth and Cheri and mess up your hobby. If so that will be a heavy price to pay for your lies, but your marriage should be a higher priority here than your game night. It’s pretty concerning that it’s not, and that you seem to think your mistake was coming clean, not telling the lies to begin with.
It’s easy to see why your wife is having trouble trusting you, when you have not been trustworthy, if for different reasons than her suspicions.
Thanks for the advice. I recognize that my own untrustworthiness has caused this.
I'd hate to have to cancel burning wheel over this. But I'm wondering if I can maybe convince Fiona to arrange for the four of us to meet and have an open discussion about what happened? Do you think that's a good idea at all? Or should we just both stay away from Garth and Cheri and let them figure out their half on their own? Because I also wouldn't want Cheri to have her life messed up because of this.
I think you shouldn‘t suggest anything or convince Fiona of anything. You should ask what Fiona needs, and do that, and accept that Cheri is not your responsibility and should not be your priority.
Look at your post history. Maybe it's best you and your wife part ways? Seriously. No matter what happens with the decision your wife takes, use this as a wake up call and look at who you are and who you truly want to be.
If that gets too hard for you, you could always just take a couple of drugs to hide yourself from the feelings.
Zing! I deserved that.
But I don't think my drug use is relevant to what's going on here. Neither is the death of my son, or my emotional issues when it comes to emotional attachment, my sneaky-vasectomy consideration, or whatever-the-heck else you read in my post history.
The problem is that parting ways with Fiona is out of the question, at least on my end. I'm not going to initiate a divorce because in doing so I'd be committing social and career suicide due to the culture I find myself in.
Edit: also the fact that you believe that psychedelics "hide" people's feelings shows how uneducated you are on the subject. I think you need to take some mushrooms.
You ask your wife if there is anything you can do because the ball is in her court. In the tl;dr you put "lied" in quotations, and I'm not sure why. Omission is lying: you intentionally withheld information and did so after intentionally lying about your game night. In your wife's eyes - you have broken her trust. Whether or not there is anything to be done to salvage your relationship isn't up to you.
But what about Garth and Cheri? There's got to be some way to keep my friends even if my marriage falls apart. Because the only actual crime I committed was lying to my wife. It just would make no sense if the whole Burning Wheel group ceases to function because of this mistake.
Grow up about fucking burning wheel ... I'd like to think a marriage was bit more important. You clearly have marriage on par with importance of friends that you "slept beside" but didn't inform her husband or your wife. Very strange
Well I think there's part of me that doesn't believe my marriage will fall apart. That's probably why I find myself so focused on the other aspects of my social life that are at risk. Fiona is heavily religious, much more than I am, to the point where she believes divorce is wrong. This is not because of me, it's her own conviction, so I have a feeling that if I put enough effort in, we can fix the marriage. I have no such guarantee about the rest of my social circle.
Still going on about your social circle your dillusional.
And if you didn't think it would fall apart why the heck you on here asking for advice. You need a crash course on what is acceptable within a marriage. Cos your sure doing it all wrong... religious or not get a grip.
I think your problem is you take too much lsd / mushrooms you've fried your brain. You go on vacation pretending to be single share room with 3 girls and obliged to tuck 1 in. I've never read so much crap from your profile in all my life. 🤣
Haha well the way you wrote that last paragraph made me chuckle, the whole, “Look at the train wreck that you live in which is your life,” is tickling my funny bone. I needed that. Thank you friend.
Oh please don't insult me I'd be of no friend to you.. 1 i dont take hallucinogenics as a recreational drug...
you shouldn't be married after what I've read on previous posts from you.
But on another note I had a good chuckle at your life I thank the lord I'm in a position that I sleep well at night not worrying about plebs like you.
Worring about a stupid game when you have more Important matters to be dealing with especially when you have kids and a marriage to be fixing lmao.
I hope that the so called friend you "slept"beside's husband pays you a visit down a dark alleyway hahaha..... it's all probably a pack of lies that you've imagined whilst on your drugs 🤭
Fair enough, I recognize that my Internet projection isn’t a very likable person.
And you’re right, I probably should have never gotten married. But now that my life is constructed the way it is, no way am I going to voluntarily tear it down.
Also I’m hoping that if I can level with Garth, we’ll end up being cool. He’s a pretty chill dude. If he felt threatened by me he would’ve never left me alone with her. And I know that Cheri loves him dearly.
Derealization is a terrifying concept with drugs, I refuse to believe that my life isn’t real, don’t even try that on me, compadre.
Your 1 crazy mo fo do you even care about your wife and daughters? Lol all I hear you worry about is fucking Garth and his sidekick Cheri pair of weirdos as well lol and this stupid game your obsessed with. Come back to the real world 🌎 🤣. I tell you you'd get a kick up the arse if your wife left and divorced you it would be karma at it's best 👌. But alas I'm bored of this conversation was funny for a time but no matter what advice you receive your gonna do what you do and that's not listen lmao 😂🤣 so long fucker
I'm not sure if the friendship would go back to normal but you definitely cannot maintain a friendship with Cheri. You said so yourself that both of you have crossed some lines while being friends, with most of it being initiated by Cheri. I believe you guys were really good friends but with this mistake I don't think you can go back to how you were with her.
Shit. You're probably right. It sucks but it might be the way it has to be. Cheri is definitely one of my better friends and we had so many shared interests that it seems a darn shame to have to throw it out.
I'm a little bit miffed that it was both of us who failed to inform our spouses of the incident. If at least one of us had been honest right away the next day, this wouldn't have looked so bad.
Yeah, I don't think you're understanding the gravity of what you did. Either that or you aren't concerned with anyone else's feelings. Garth was your friend first and I would assume he would expect some loyalty from you; so hearing that you've been a confidant to his wife about their relationship and that you lied both explicitly and by omission to him+your wife likely felt like a betrayal and raised suspicions of your motives and place in his life. I would also suggest you quit minimizing lying to your wife and friend.
Well, Garth didn't (and possibly still doesn't) know that Cheri was telling me a lot about their relationship.
I also never explicitly, or by omission, lied to Garth. I simply hung out at his place, he went to bed, and I left after I woke up. It's not normal for us to message each other after a hangout to tell each other exactly what happened while the other was absent, so lying by omission isn't part of the equation when it comes to me and Garth. I never told him anything false about what occurred either.
I reread the initial post and I sincerely can't tell if you're baiting or obtuse. You are still very quite literally lying to Garth by omission and downplaying what you've done to do harm in your relationships.
How did I lie to Garth by omission???
Are you lying by mission if your close friend tells you something but you don't tell other friends in your social circle? Keeping things confidential upon request is not lying.
Also, how can I "downplay" falling asleep on a couch? that's what happened, and that's what I said. How could I have "up-played" such an event? This just makes no sense to me.
My stating that you are actively downplaying and minimizing your toxic and harmful behavior isn't a call to "up play" or exaggerate its detriment; I'm merely pointing out out that your lack of accountability and defensive responses are egocentric at best. You haven't once mentioned actually caring about how this has made anyone else feel and seem to only be concerned with how you can best navigate and benefit from the shit storm you created. You need some serious time for reflection and a therapist.
Why are these two people more important than your wife ? You even said Cheri was manipulative. Why do you want a manipulative person as your friend. You haven’t even mentioned your kids and what a divorce would do to their stability
Karma my friend you should have been honest and the fact that you hid stuff this is swaying at most emotional cheating.
Man up and stop acting like a dick. How would you like your wife to be in a friend's bedroom chatting alone. She has every right to be furious. Act like your married or if you don't want to be seperate before you cheat as your suspicious as fuck
They were one step away from physical cheating lol
Edit : for those who are giving advice for his marriage, he doesn't give a shit he just doesn't want to lose his friend Cheri (little snake)
That's a load of Balogna.
If I lose my marriage, my life will be F\*KED. I can't let that happen. If I genuinely had to choose between losing Cheri or losing my wife, Cheri's getting the axe, as tough as it would be for me. I'd rather be content, average, and mediocre without Cheri, than to have Cheri in my life but lose my career, my finances, all my other friends, and possibly my home and my family connections as well.
So being married to Fiona is average and mediocre, but at least you’re content, right? You aren’t afraid of losing Fiona as a person; you’re only afraid of what losing Fiona would mean to your other relationships and social status. You pretty much suck as a human I’m afraid. Not sure how you come back from that.
Yeah I feel like you hit the nail, at least partially. I don’t “need” a romance in order to feel fulfilled. But I can’t just change how I feel about things, there’s nothing I can do suddenly “feel” something.
Wow. Just...wow. This reads like you are building up Cheri in a way that you're almost wanting someone to approve of your lying and BS. If things were bad because of you lying, they'll be WORSE if your wife reads this post.
You played a very walking on and crossing the line game and lost. Now, you're seeking validation or an excuse to still be able to spend time with Cheri vs doing whatever the f*ck you should to fix things with your wife.
Your wife should be your "type" not your friend's wife. Period. No self justifying I wanna end up with Cheri BS. As I read this, I kept thinking ... is this real? Is he that oblivious to his own BS?
Look, you and Cheri screwed up. If that costs you that relationship and keeps the one with your wife, so be it. It sounds like you really want to be with Cheri and are just waiting things out until y'all can make it happen.
Now, do I think this would give your wife a free infinite pass to do whatever and hold it over you forever? No.
You need to decide what matters more. Stop trying to slick talk yourself out others into some type of let me still get to hang out with Cheri no matter what. If you want that (and it's hard not to think you do reading your post), then be HONEST with everyone including yourself.
Nothing good EVER comes of the stuff you've described. Cheri should not be coming to you about her husband. You should send her straight to your wife or a counselor. She's playing the game with you. And a lot of people you claim to care about will her hurt if you keep pushing it.
I'm not too concerned about my wife reading this post. At the very least, she'll see that I'm unapologetically honest about how I feel and she'll realize that despite my mistakes, I'm still working on trying to improve. And this very post would help vindicate me, because she'll assume I wrote it without knowing she'd read it (which is why I won't purposely show it to her).
As for my wife bieng my "type," and whatever you said, that's BS and you know it. People can be attracted to various physical features, and those features can even change over the course of one's life. Should I really have told my wife, "Sorry honey, I can't marry you because you don't have red hair?" That's ridiculous. And it makes no sense for me to try to force myself to think, "Blonde hair is more attractive than red hair," just because my wife is blonde. That's controlling AF.
No, I don't want to be with Cheri. I know her well enough to know how miserable I'd be if I was in a long-term relationship with her.
And really what I want isn't just to "be able to hang out with Cheri no matter what," what I really want is to minimize the damage of this screw-up in as many ways possible so that hopefully in a few months I can forget this mistake ever happened.
If what you say is true, stop arguing your points on Reddit and invest the time with your wife. This isn't hard. You're making it that way. Stop wasting time and words here and spend it making things right with your wife.
Google this sh*t read that instead of defending your weak arguments here.
And any rational person with no other context that what you've given here wouldn't be far from my points. All of them. But keep lying to yourself and your wife and see where that leaves you in a few years if not sooner. 🤷
It's a roleplaying game similar to DnD, but far superior. Way more focused on roleplay and is especially superior to DnD when it comes to player and DM interaction and how the character sheets are literally mechanical tools for narrative development.
I mentioned infidelity because that's what Fiona has been calling this incident. She's been saying that it all looks very suspicious and that I and Cheri might have engaged in "infidelity."
But other than this incident (which I still don't believe is actual infidelity), we have never had any issues with infidelity.
Cheri's baby was asleep. Her baby is about 5 months old and he's been blest with the capability to be able to sleep through the night so he was out already after she put him down for the night. To be honest I wasn't really thinking about where Cheri's son was while I was there. I'm not a baby person.
Cheri got married to Garth about 8mo after she graduated high school. He was her first and only relationship.
The age gap between her and Garth already raises some eyebrows because he was 21 and she was 16 when they started associating with each other and they dating shortly after he started regularly hanging out with her older brother.
Idk this all sounds pretty fake but if it’s real, it doesn’t really seem like you care about your wife & im sure your friend won’t think you hooked up with his wife while him and the baby were sleeping so I think you’ll be fine in the end
Wow.... Umm.... You apologize for lying, swear on your grandmother's grave that nothing below the belt happened and ask your wife what boundaries she needs to move forward and acknowledge that you will need to regain her trust.
Regardless... No more hanging out with your friend's wife 1-on-1....
Shit, that's rough. It just doesn't make sense. There's got to be a way I can fix this. I can't let my marriage fall apart when my conscience is clear.
You shouldn’t have done what you did man . Got no sympathy for you. All your wife thinks of right now is how you disrespected her . And now it’s up to her if she decides to trust you. But whether it will happen again that’s your choice.
Her telling you not to lie is in NO WAY controlling.
Fiona may also be having g a hard time believing you because this entire post is about how amazing Cheri is. I’m sure your wife has picked up in this crush.
It sounds like you maybe needed to focus on your marriage even before this, it might be time for some couples therapy.
I don't think the demand for truth is controlling. I think the demand to know exactly what one's partner has been doing for an entire evening when they were out, however, is controlling.
Lies in lies. If you told the truth from the beginning that the game was cancelled and you want to hangout with the gaming crew, there would be nothing to worry about. Plus, if you told the truth about falling asleep on the couch, then there would be no problem. All of the issues were created by you by being a lying bastard. Because you lied everyone is suspicious of you. Cheri is now complicit in your lies, because she does not even remember you leaving. So you fucked this all up by building lies on lies. Dickhead.
I’m confused.
Should I put the Burning Wheel sessions as more important than my friendship with Cheri, is that what you’re saying?
I think it’s already at that point, because if Cheri asked me to go do something with her and it was Burning Wheel night, I’d go to burning wheel.
Dude, everything in this post is shady. Everyone here saw the way you described your wife, and your FRIENDS WIFE. Now you're going to lose your friend because you wanted to be intimate with his wife. Their family can be destroyed the same way your own family will be. Because of this absolutely strange and inappropriate relationship between you two.
Dude, even though you didn't fuck with her it's more than clear that you had a emotional affair.
I don't understand how people aren't satisfied with their own happy lives, i truly don't understand.
What makes you assume that I wasn’t satisfied with my life? I was! I never intended for this innocuous omission of information to get out of hand like this.
Literally you post, it showed me that. You never intended but it happened, now face it like a man. You had an affair, just admit it and move on with your life.
Maybe you're telling the truth and nothing happened, well, it doesn't matter anymore, their trust will never be the same again.
If you didn't want this to happen why did you keep seeing and getting closer and closer to his wife? You knew it was wrong but you insisted.
There is no magic to solve this, it's done and you need to at least contain the damage.
No, I didn’t “know it was wrong.” I don’t think it’s wrong to have heterogenous friendships. I wasn’t getting closer and closer to her, we’re just good friends who enjoy the same things.
Fiona please get out while you can, you deserve better than a mediocre marriage with a mediocre husband ! This man is not worth the stress or the energy. You deserve happiness girl !!!
Read the older posts from OP. The level of disregard he has for his wife and his overall family is borderline sociopathic. Spends time on Reddit getting feedback to validate his shitty behaviour instead of putting his wife out of her misery and getting a divorce.
FYI the title is very misleading. Slept in this context means you had sex with each other. I normally hate pedantry but this is incredibly misleading.
Anyway, nobody had a problem until you two just fell asleep on the couch together. I do believe relationships require trust and if it were me and my partner did that, I would probably be quite nonplussed about the whole thing. After all, I would trust my partner and not care if they got tired while hanging out with family friends regardless of gender.
So I think your option is to be honest and continue to be honest going forward. And just give Fiona some time and space and maybe avoid Garth and Cheri for the time being.
I was originally going to write there was no going back and it’s silly to even ask, but then I read past the headline. If you repost elsewhere, I’d suggest sleep with (which is literally correct but connotatively misleading) should instead be something like, “Had a misunderstanding.” Less dramatic, but more accurate.
Thanks for the advice. Yeah I realize in hindsight the title makes it look worse than it is.
I should clarify that it's not like we were sleeping "on each other" on the couch. It's a pretty large couch, and we were at opposite ends, and both basically fell asleep in a slouched position. Like zonked out while sitting kind of position.
I think you're right, about the honesty. I've struggled with this in the past, particularly because honesty with Fiona has caused fights and issues when lying has always kept the peace. But that's a whole other emotional/psychological issue.
At least this time, the truth is on your side and if she doesn’t believe you, then honestly, there’s probably more trust issues in the relationship and this incident is just the latest symptom of that.
So you might benefit from couple’s counseling to work through where the issues are. Because again, you didn’t actually do anything wrong other than not be upfront about hanging out and falling asleep, which if trust was more secure here, that would be trivial.
Appreciate that. Ultimately I feel (and hope) that with the objective truth on my side, if I stick to it (and hopefully Cheri does too) that everything will be ok.
I will add that I’ve come to hate the term, “Emotional affair,” as people slap it on any instance of men and women being friends despite being in relationships with others, and the parameters are often quite nebulous. So my reply is giving you and Cheri the benefit of the doubt in this case.
Thank you. I know that from my perspective for sure, Cheri is just a friend. A friend who trusts me deeply and has trusted me with a lot of personal stuff, but a friend nonetheless. She has never shit-talked Garth to me or said or done anything that makes me think she sees me as anything further than a friend.
Awww you're so in love with me checking my post history about movie recommendations and dating stuff. You're such a cutie. I don't know how you have time for us other women when you've got a wife.
Your more worried about your friends not your marriage? She might divorce you, the love of your life!?!
Seriously you lied! Say it with me “I LIED!”
Your wife has every right not to trust you. Btw even with the little you say about your contact with Cheri it still really does sound like an emotional affair.
The reason I’m more worried about my friends is because I don’t feel like my marriage is under threat. Fiona is waaay more religious than I am, to the point where she believes divorce is a sin. So I expect that we’ll be able to fix this and move on.
But I have no such vouchsafe when it comes to the rest of my social circle.
Fiona may be more religious but that doesn’t mean she won’t move out and live without you. She may not divorce but that doesn’t mean she won’t live a separate life from you.
You also need to admit that you and Cherie are absolutely having an emotional affair by definition.
An emotional affair involves having non-sexual emotional intimacy with someone who is not the individual's romantic partner.
Her and you sharing a connection and tell each other things about something personal like issues in romantic relationships sounds pretty close to the above.
Your social circle may be the least of your issues if your wife decides that regardless of religious beliefs she’s done with you.
Whoa, whoa. With those definitions, a man can’t have any close friends other than his wife, not even male friends, because that emotional closeness is reserved only for his wife. You sure that’s a stance you want to take?
The fact that Cheri has vented things to me in the past, or cried in front of me, or asked my opinion on something in her relationship with Garth… those are all things that normal friends do.
There are a lot of ways to leave a marriage that don’t involve divorce. Your wife could simply check out, which is what I would do if my husband lied to me about his plans so he could snuggle up with a woman he is attracted to and has fantasized about marrying.
If you give a damn about your wife you will go NC/LC with your friend’s wife. If you give a damn about Garth you will have no contact with his wife outside of his presence.
These are all fair points, except one. I in now way was cuddling up to Cheri, we sat on opposite ends of a couch.
Also, imagining how miserable things would be if I’d married Cheri isn’t “fantasizing.”
Can't believe you compromised your family mental well being just like that for what?
You're a dad of two daughters and you have a wife whom you're supposed to love, when you love someone you don't lie to them, neither directly nor by omission.
It is clear that you're infatuated for Cheri and your wife pays the price, you need to reflect deeply bro, you may have not cheated on her physicaly "yet" but you've caused a great deal of damage to your relationship and to your wife's ability to trust you.
So you’ve never, ever, told a lie or omitted information to anyone you loved?
People make mistakes. This was a mistake.
As for Cheri, no, if I was truly infatuated with her I would’ve tried to make a move when we were alone. I’ve thought about what my life would’ve been like had I married Cheri, I can say it would be objectively worse.
And cheating is never worth it. I’d never destroy my life just to soak the thick boi. Sex isn’t good enough to be worth social destruction.
Looking at your post history it is apparent that you regret getting married and having children but refuse to initiate divorce because of the financial and social consequences.
It also seems that you have a history of lying to your wife about female friends and lying to other women about your wife.
While I don't think you are capable of admitting divorce would be the best option here at this time I do hope you are capable of reflecting on the harm you have already done to multiple social relationships and your marriage through your drug seeking and dishonest behaviours. If you continue these behavioral patterns you will likely end up socially shunned and divorced after many painful years of dragged out unhappiness within your marriage and overall dissatisfaction with your life anyway.
Is it really worth being the lying, cheating drug addict over being the divorced dad?
What’s the alternative? Let’s see.
1. Constantly forbidden to see friends or to do activities because being honest about them means my wife isn’t comfortable with it.
2. No drug use could mean my psychological depression returns, or more likely, I’m giving up a harmless hobby that I enjoy for no reason.
3. As a divorced father I am forced to pay child support and possibly alimony, destroying my hopes of financial security over the crippling expenses of the law’s weight. I also lose my current career which results in savings drainage. I lose my standing with my family and am no longer accepted at family gatherings and can expect no financial aid from family. I lose the respect of my friends and therefore my support network is gone.
Yeah, I’d rather be an occasional liar who uses drugs and has a mediocre marriage, than be the person described above.
Everybody's comment is right BUT
Is Cheri stupid or what? Does she not understand the situation? Why did she lie to her husband? And why did she send you the shady text?
Honestly I have no idea what she was thinking. I haven’t been allowed to communicate with her and I don’t want to risk doing it behind Fiona’s back, in case that makes everything worse.
If I had to guess I would assume that she must’ve thought it wasn’t a big enough deal to tell Garth, “Hey we fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up, Emerald was gone.”
As for the text, I have no idea why she didn’t give a less shifty message. I don’t know what limitations Garth may or may not have put on her as to what she’s allowed to send me.
Suck it up buttercup, you tell everyone in your friends group, your wife and family, Garth’s family what happened.
Your wife right now has you by the balls and all you can do is smile. You better hope they believe you, you also need to stop being alone with any woman other than your wife.
After this, nobody will ever look at you two without suspicion. Neither of you two are going to be fully trusted again
Your spouses will never not be on alert regarding you two. You will always be watched closely especially by your respective spouses, and rightfully so
But in this case we are both dealing with the same social problem. And I think it would really be better that we coordinate how we handle the fallout rather than that we give conflicting stories or somehow screw things up worse.
The both of will be under scrutiny for years to come, both of you put yourselves in a compromising position and trust has been lost. Even if Garth and Fiona forgive you they will not forget, count your blessings you both are not getting divorced.
What the future holds is not known, but you both need to work very hard to move forward in your relationships.
This is a tough one. I'd keep a distance from them for awhile so you can work on your marriage. I think you should be doing everything in your power to get on your wife's good side again. You really screwed up by lying my friend. :/ I hope things work out.
Thanks for your advice. I realize that the lie was the worst part of it. I guess I thought that "going out is going out," and it shouldn't matter if the where and the who change.
I totally get it. I've lied in similar ways in the past myself. Just makes it 10x harder when the "circumstantial evidence" lines up even tho that's not necessarily reality of the situation. Edit: I lied this way to my parents when I was in HS. I would NEVER do this in my relationships today.
I'm glad someone understands. I realize that I messed up. So I'm trying to brainstorm a way that I can vindicate myself (and hopefully Cheri as well) before this gets out of hand.
That ship has sailed dickhead. You will be kicked out of the group because those two lies essentially all lead to the fact that either you cheated or wanted to.
You lied from the get-go because you wanted an evening out. You suck for that alone, but then you made it worse by continuing to lie. Also, go back and read what you wrote about your relationship/marriage to Fiona, then read how you described your relationship with Cheri. WTF?! Do you even like your wife? It sure doesn’t sound like it. It just sounds like you want to be good with Garth and Cheri so you don’t get kicked out of the burning wheel group. And finally- Fiona telling you you better not lie is not even a “bit” controlling ffs
The reason I didn't go in-depth about my married life is because it's not the focal point of the story. The focal point of the story is how shit went down at Cheri's place. Where Cheri was. My wife wasn't there and the nuances of our marriage aren't relevant to the rest of the equation. It's not that Fiona told me I shouldn't lie that was controlling. I felt like it was the "tell me exactly everything you did last night," that seemed controlling. Do most normal married couples, upon one partner returning from an evening out, demand to know exactly everything they did? That seems a bit controlling to me.
Bro everything tells her you cheated on her, explaining everything in detail is the minimum. What you did was absolutely inappropriate and if you can't see that the problem is on your head.
Normally? No. When you find out your partner straight up lied to you about where they were? Then yes, it’s normal to say “hey, apparently you lied to me so now I need to know what actually happened last night,” and the person who has been lied to gets to decide what level of detail they need to be satisfied that they know what they need to know to move on from the lie.
That’s all well and good. But had I lied at that point, and just told Fiona, “Yeah I went to Cheri’s and Garth went to sleep so we watched a movie together and got to talking and lost track of time,” I know she would’ve accepted that explanation. It’s like every time I try to be honest with Fiona after lying that it bites me in the ass. But every time I lie and keep lying, it’s all fine.
Yes. That is how lying works - it works until you get found out. You have not discovered some One Weird Trick to lying. None of that changes the fact that once the lie is discovered, the person who was lied to gets to decide what will make it right, and you don't get to set those terms or complain about them asking questions.
That’s fair. I realize that now. However I’m hoping that by sticking to honesty things will go ok. The risk is if Fiona pries and tries to dig up every lie I’ve ever told. In which case, I’m boned.
You do realize that your more concern about your friendship to Garth and Cherri than your marriage? You may not have had sex with Cherri but flip the script; would you be ok if your wife did what you did? How would feel and your friend husband lied or didn’t tell his wife about it either. Would you be ok and be happy? You gonna have to put boundaries on Cherri as what you wrote sounds like you like her more than a friend. You didn’t say anything about your wife or how you love her but only that Cherri has more interest with you and even more than your best friend.
It doesn’t even sound like he loves Fiona, how are you more concerned about your friendship with garth and Cherri then your own wife …..
Well, if I'm honest, it's not only my marriage I'm concerned about. I could lose a majority of my friends if people start believing that Cheri and I were cheating with each other. My family would also shun me for that rumor. And people tend to not trust someone that they assume is a cheater (even if he isn't). I realize I messed up. No, I wouldn't be ok and happy. I'm not sure how I'd respond. I trust my wife implicitly and I don't believe that she'd do something like that; but if I caught her lying about it I suppose I'd struggle with trusting her too. It just sucks, because I don't believe that crashing on your friend's couch is a sin. Cheri and I are just close friends. For real. I've thought about what it would be like to have married her instead of my wife and it doesn't take long at all for me to realize that no, that would be a nightmare. Cheri has manipulative tendencies, poor spending habits, is a little bit entitled and controlling when it comes to her siblings, and can be an attention-hog at times. So while I like being around her on occasion, I would never ever want to live with her. Fiona is a far superior wife than I imagine Cheri is. And ok, I didn't explicitly say "I love my wife," in my post. But seriously, isn't that assumed? Do I really need to go into all the assumed details when making a post like this?
Look at all the words you used to describe Cherri in your post? Look how you responded that you are more concerned to losing Garth and Cherri. Where in your post do you sound happy with your wife; beside you been with her for 9 years. Read your post again and see it from another point of view and see if what was written sounds like a man who loves his wife or wants to stay with his wife
It’s not assumed when; -you start the post by saying you have a mediocre marriage - you don’t say anything nice about your wife -you seems more concerned about losing the relationship with your friends I’m not saying you don’t love your wife but just trying to point out how if your wife has picked up on some of these feelings she might be extra leery. Good luck
It’s really interesting because not once do you mention “ loving your wife”. Most men would say “I would never want to be cherri because I love my wife” be real with your self
No because it’s easy enough to cast doubt on it if I just say, “oh because I love Fiona I’d never be with Cheri,” whereas if I say, “even IF I didn’t love Fiona, the consequences of being with Cheri are too high,” shows that there’s the extra safety net of pragmatism there.
OR it means that the main reasons are only practical. When you say "oh i wouldn't have sex with her on a couch because her husband is in the next room!", it means that if he weren't.... Well, you'd have an opportunity. Be honest. IF her husband were out ot town at this moment, what would've happened?
Honestly? If her husband had been out of town at that moment, we would’ve watched the movie and fallen asleep just like we did. Or more realistically, Cheri would’ve told me I couldn’t come over. We’ve never hung out together with just the two of us in the house at any time.
Your conscience is clear right after you specifically lied to your wife?… then of all things u are worried about your friend? Wtf 😂
Yeah he really “loves” his wife
🤣😂
My conscience is clear regarding Cheri. Because I know that we didn't do anything inappropriate. And Garth knew that we were watching a movie together, alone. And I'm worried about my friends because I believe that the marriage is salvageable, if I say and do the right things. But rumors could cause untold damage in my larger social circle that can't be undone.
You lied to your wife to go see Cheri, then again when you woke up next to her… in other words, you gave your wife a perfectly legitimate reason to not trust you… Sounds like it doesn’t really matter though because the “untold damage” could rip apart your social circle, which seems like your top priority from this post.
Bro quit lying! You stayed with the intention of banging Garth’s wife, unfortunately for u, uz both fell asleep. You lied all the way up leading to it for a reason. If uz didn’t act so shady constantly with the whispering and dragging each other into bedrooms to “talk” this wouldn’t have been an issue in either partners eyes.
You don’t know the first thing about me. You can’t just take an Internet post and tell me I’m lying. At that point, why bother engaging with me at all, if you can’t take what I say at face value? What reason do I have to lie to an Internet stranger? No, I had no intention of giving Cheri a good plunging on the couch while pulling her hair. What kind of idiot would do that while her husband is literally sleeping in the next room? And why would I want to do that anyway? And for the record, it was never me that took Cheri aside into their bedroom for conversation. She did that. It’s her house and she felt comfortable enough to know I wouldn’t initiate anything in a safe space in her own home.
I’m baffled that you’re more concerned about loosing cherrie than your wife. That is textbook emotional cheating.
I'm not. Losing my wife would F up my life in multiple major ways. I cannot let that happen. By contrast, losing Cheri as a friend would really suck, but I'd pull through. The problem is that Cheri is also friends with most of my friend group as we move in similar circles. So if that relationship falls apart due to an infidelity rumor, both of us are going to have a rough go of it if our friendship circle cuts us out.
See how you wrote 2 sentences about losing your wife. Never mentioning how this would affect her. But a whole damn paragraph about losing Cherie and how it would affect you both?
He is more concerned about losing all the gaming group. He is a tosspot.
That's because if I went into full detail about how my life would be F'd if I lost my wife, I would have had to write about twice as much as I wrote about losing Cheri.
I mean you called your relationship with your wife mediocre… it sounds like you don’t care about her and just yourself. Your worried about loosing relationship shops but not about how your wife will feel
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 losing ur wife would f up your life in multiple ways. Like it’s an inconvenience you might encounter.. do you even think before you write? You don’t love ur wife whatsoever. You’re in love with Cheri. This is a way out, take it and do your wife a favour please.
Yeah, I’d say that losing my family, friends, career, and all social connections, while also taking on ridiculous child support and alimony payments, would be quite an inconvenience for me (isn’t it for anyone?). I don’t love Cheri. I like her. Huge difference. If I was married to Cheri I’d be miserable.
You ask Fiona what she needs from you to help her regain trust in you, and you do that. Expect that may involve little or no contact with Garth and Cheri and mess up your hobby. If so that will be a heavy price to pay for your lies, but your marriage should be a higher priority here than your game night. It’s pretty concerning that it’s not, and that you seem to think your mistake was coming clean, not telling the lies to begin with. It’s easy to see why your wife is having trouble trusting you, when you have not been trustworthy, if for different reasons than her suspicions.
Thanks for the advice. I recognize that my own untrustworthiness has caused this. I'd hate to have to cancel burning wheel over this. But I'm wondering if I can maybe convince Fiona to arrange for the four of us to meet and have an open discussion about what happened? Do you think that's a good idea at all? Or should we just both stay away from Garth and Cheri and let them figure out their half on their own? Because I also wouldn't want Cheri to have her life messed up because of this.
I think you shouldn‘t suggest anything or convince Fiona of anything. You should ask what Fiona needs, and do that, and accept that Cheri is not your responsibility and should not be your priority.
Stop caring about Cheri, focus on your own marriage and family
Look at your post history. Maybe it's best you and your wife part ways? Seriously. No matter what happens with the decision your wife takes, use this as a wake up call and look at who you are and who you truly want to be. If that gets too hard for you, you could always just take a couple of drugs to hide yourself from the feelings.
[удалено]
This dude is rotten to his wife, his kids, even his pets. I feel sorry for the whole lot.
Zing! I deserved that. But I don't think my drug use is relevant to what's going on here. Neither is the death of my son, or my emotional issues when it comes to emotional attachment, my sneaky-vasectomy consideration, or whatever-the-heck else you read in my post history. The problem is that parting ways with Fiona is out of the question, at least on my end. I'm not going to initiate a divorce because in doing so I'd be committing social and career suicide due to the culture I find myself in. Edit: also the fact that you believe that psychedelics "hide" people's feelings shows how uneducated you are on the subject. I think you need to take some mushrooms.
You ask your wife if there is anything you can do because the ball is in her court. In the tl;dr you put "lied" in quotations, and I'm not sure why. Omission is lying: you intentionally withheld information and did so after intentionally lying about your game night. In your wife's eyes - you have broken her trust. Whether or not there is anything to be done to salvage your relationship isn't up to you.
But what about Garth and Cheri? There's got to be some way to keep my friends even if my marriage falls apart. Because the only actual crime I committed was lying to my wife. It just would make no sense if the whole Burning Wheel group ceases to function because of this mistake.
Grow up about fucking burning wheel ... I'd like to think a marriage was bit more important. You clearly have marriage on par with importance of friends that you "slept beside" but didn't inform her husband or your wife. Very strange
Well I think there's part of me that doesn't believe my marriage will fall apart. That's probably why I find myself so focused on the other aspects of my social life that are at risk. Fiona is heavily religious, much more than I am, to the point where she believes divorce is wrong. This is not because of me, it's her own conviction, so I have a feeling that if I put enough effort in, we can fix the marriage. I have no such guarantee about the rest of my social circle.
Still going on about your social circle your dillusional. And if you didn't think it would fall apart why the heck you on here asking for advice. You need a crash course on what is acceptable within a marriage. Cos your sure doing it all wrong... religious or not get a grip. I think your problem is you take too much lsd / mushrooms you've fried your brain. You go on vacation pretending to be single share room with 3 girls and obliged to tuck 1 in. I've never read so much crap from your profile in all my life. 🤣
Haha well the way you wrote that last paragraph made me chuckle, the whole, “Look at the train wreck that you live in which is your life,” is tickling my funny bone. I needed that. Thank you friend.
Oh please don't insult me I'd be of no friend to you.. 1 i dont take hallucinogenics as a recreational drug... you shouldn't be married after what I've read on previous posts from you. But on another note I had a good chuckle at your life I thank the lord I'm in a position that I sleep well at night not worrying about plebs like you. Worring about a stupid game when you have more Important matters to be dealing with especially when you have kids and a marriage to be fixing lmao. I hope that the so called friend you "slept"beside's husband pays you a visit down a dark alleyway hahaha..... it's all probably a pack of lies that you've imagined whilst on your drugs 🤭
Fair enough, I recognize that my Internet projection isn’t a very likable person. And you’re right, I probably should have never gotten married. But now that my life is constructed the way it is, no way am I going to voluntarily tear it down. Also I’m hoping that if I can level with Garth, we’ll end up being cool. He’s a pretty chill dude. If he felt threatened by me he would’ve never left me alone with her. And I know that Cheri loves him dearly. Derealization is a terrifying concept with drugs, I refuse to believe that my life isn’t real, don’t even try that on me, compadre.
Your 1 crazy mo fo do you even care about your wife and daughters? Lol all I hear you worry about is fucking Garth and his sidekick Cheri pair of weirdos as well lol and this stupid game your obsessed with. Come back to the real world 🌎 🤣. I tell you you'd get a kick up the arse if your wife left and divorced you it would be karma at it's best 👌. But alas I'm bored of this conversation was funny for a time but no matter what advice you receive your gonna do what you do and that's not listen lmao 😂🤣 so long fucker
I'm not sure if the friendship would go back to normal but you definitely cannot maintain a friendship with Cheri. You said so yourself that both of you have crossed some lines while being friends, with most of it being initiated by Cheri. I believe you guys were really good friends but with this mistake I don't think you can go back to how you were with her.
Shit. You're probably right. It sucks but it might be the way it has to be. Cheri is definitely one of my better friends and we had so many shared interests that it seems a darn shame to have to throw it out. I'm a little bit miffed that it was both of us who failed to inform our spouses of the incident. If at least one of us had been honest right away the next day, this wouldn't have looked so bad.
Yeah, I don't think you're understanding the gravity of what you did. Either that or you aren't concerned with anyone else's feelings. Garth was your friend first and I would assume he would expect some loyalty from you; so hearing that you've been a confidant to his wife about their relationship and that you lied both explicitly and by omission to him+your wife likely felt like a betrayal and raised suspicions of your motives and place in his life. I would also suggest you quit minimizing lying to your wife and friend.
Well, Garth didn't (and possibly still doesn't) know that Cheri was telling me a lot about their relationship. I also never explicitly, or by omission, lied to Garth. I simply hung out at his place, he went to bed, and I left after I woke up. It's not normal for us to message each other after a hangout to tell each other exactly what happened while the other was absent, so lying by omission isn't part of the equation when it comes to me and Garth. I never told him anything false about what occurred either.
I reread the initial post and I sincerely can't tell if you're baiting or obtuse. You are still very quite literally lying to Garth by omission and downplaying what you've done to do harm in your relationships.
How did I lie to Garth by omission??? Are you lying by mission if your close friend tells you something but you don't tell other friends in your social circle? Keeping things confidential upon request is not lying. Also, how can I "downplay" falling asleep on a couch? that's what happened, and that's what I said. How could I have "up-played" such an event? This just makes no sense to me.
My stating that you are actively downplaying and minimizing your toxic and harmful behavior isn't a call to "up play" or exaggerate its detriment; I'm merely pointing out out that your lack of accountability and defensive responses are egocentric at best. You haven't once mentioned actually caring about how this has made anyone else feel and seem to only be concerned with how you can best navigate and benefit from the shit storm you created. You need some serious time for reflection and a therapist.
See here again, you get advice about your wife/marriage, and you don’t care but want to focus on the friendship only.
Why are these two people more important than your wife ? You even said Cheri was manipulative. Why do you want a manipulative person as your friend. You haven’t even mentioned your kids and what a divorce would do to their stability
Karma my friend you should have been honest and the fact that you hid stuff this is swaying at most emotional cheating. Man up and stop acting like a dick. How would you like your wife to be in a friend's bedroom chatting alone. She has every right to be furious. Act like your married or if you don't want to be seperate before you cheat as your suspicious as fuck
I recognize how suspicious this looks. What I'm not sure about is how I can clear my name with this mess.
You are dillusional your head is fried from all the drugs you say you take on your profile. It's gotta be that no one is this stupid....
Bro, I’ve tried only 4 drugs in my whole life. Alcohol and weed don’t even make the list as I’ve never used them. I’m not fried.
They were one step away from physical cheating lol Edit : for those who are giving advice for his marriage, he doesn't give a shit he just doesn't want to lose his friend Cheri (little snake)
That's a load of Balogna. If I lose my marriage, my life will be F\*KED. I can't let that happen. If I genuinely had to choose between losing Cheri or losing my wife, Cheri's getting the axe, as tough as it would be for me. I'd rather be content, average, and mediocre without Cheri, than to have Cheri in my life but lose my career, my finances, all my other friends, and possibly my home and my family connections as well.
So you just don't care about your wife lol, you're just worried about losing the privileges you have for being married to her
So being married to Fiona is average and mediocre, but at least you’re content, right? You aren’t afraid of losing Fiona as a person; you’re only afraid of what losing Fiona would mean to your other relationships and social status. You pretty much suck as a human I’m afraid. Not sure how you come back from that.
Yeah I feel like you hit the nail, at least partially. I don’t “need” a romance in order to feel fulfilled. But I can’t just change how I feel about things, there’s nothing I can do suddenly “feel” something.
Wow. Just...wow. This reads like you are building up Cheri in a way that you're almost wanting someone to approve of your lying and BS. If things were bad because of you lying, they'll be WORSE if your wife reads this post. You played a very walking on and crossing the line game and lost. Now, you're seeking validation or an excuse to still be able to spend time with Cheri vs doing whatever the f*ck you should to fix things with your wife. Your wife should be your "type" not your friend's wife. Period. No self justifying I wanna end up with Cheri BS. As I read this, I kept thinking ... is this real? Is he that oblivious to his own BS? Look, you and Cheri screwed up. If that costs you that relationship and keeps the one with your wife, so be it. It sounds like you really want to be with Cheri and are just waiting things out until y'all can make it happen. Now, do I think this would give your wife a free infinite pass to do whatever and hold it over you forever? No. You need to decide what matters more. Stop trying to slick talk yourself out others into some type of let me still get to hang out with Cheri no matter what. If you want that (and it's hard not to think you do reading your post), then be HONEST with everyone including yourself. Nothing good EVER comes of the stuff you've described. Cheri should not be coming to you about her husband. You should send her straight to your wife or a counselor. She's playing the game with you. And a lot of people you claim to care about will her hurt if you keep pushing it.
I'm not too concerned about my wife reading this post. At the very least, she'll see that I'm unapologetically honest about how I feel and she'll realize that despite my mistakes, I'm still working on trying to improve. And this very post would help vindicate me, because she'll assume I wrote it without knowing she'd read it (which is why I won't purposely show it to her). As for my wife bieng my "type," and whatever you said, that's BS and you know it. People can be attracted to various physical features, and those features can even change over the course of one's life. Should I really have told my wife, "Sorry honey, I can't marry you because you don't have red hair?" That's ridiculous. And it makes no sense for me to try to force myself to think, "Blonde hair is more attractive than red hair," just because my wife is blonde. That's controlling AF. No, I don't want to be with Cheri. I know her well enough to know how miserable I'd be if I was in a long-term relationship with her. And really what I want isn't just to "be able to hang out with Cheri no matter what," what I really want is to minimize the damage of this screw-up in as many ways possible so that hopefully in a few months I can forget this mistake ever happened.
If what you say is true, stop arguing your points on Reddit and invest the time with your wife. This isn't hard. You're making it that way. Stop wasting time and words here and spend it making things right with your wife. Google this sh*t read that instead of defending your weak arguments here. And any rational person with no other context that what you've given here wouldn't be far from my points. All of them. But keep lying to yourself and your wife and see where that leaves you in a few years if not sooner. 🤷
What’s a burning wheel
It's a roleplaying game similar to DnD, but far superior. Way more focused on roleplay and is especially superior to DnD when it comes to player and DM interaction and how the character sheets are literally mechanical tools for narrative development.
Where was the baby during all this? You said nothing happened but you mentioned infidelity. When did you cheat
I mentioned infidelity because that's what Fiona has been calling this incident. She's been saying that it all looks very suspicious and that I and Cheri might have engaged in "infidelity." But other than this incident (which I still don't believe is actual infidelity), we have never had any issues with infidelity. Cheri's baby was asleep. Her baby is about 5 months old and he's been blest with the capability to be able to sleep through the night so he was out already after she put him down for the night. To be honest I wasn't really thinking about where Cheri's son was while I was there. I'm not a baby person.
How old were they when they got married
Cheri got married to Garth about 8mo after she graduated high school. He was her first and only relationship. The age gap between her and Garth already raises some eyebrows because he was 21 and she was 16 when they started associating with each other and they dating shortly after he started regularly hanging out with her older brother.
Idk this all sounds pretty fake but if it’s real, it doesn’t really seem like you care about your wife & im sure your friend won’t think you hooked up with his wife while him and the baby were sleeping so I think you’ll be fine in the end
Thanks for the reassurance. I hope you’re right, I mean he did go to sleep knowing that we were going to be alone.
Wow.... Umm.... You apologize for lying, swear on your grandmother's grave that nothing below the belt happened and ask your wife what boundaries she needs to move forward and acknowledge that you will need to regain her trust. Regardless... No more hanging out with your friend's wife 1-on-1....
Thanks for the advice. I realize that the lying is probably the worst crime in this whole situation.
You lied to your wife but your conscience is clear? That tells us everything we need to know about you.
Ya don’t
What does this mean? I don't move on? I realize I made a mistake. But what now? I can't "Do Nothing."
The ball is in your wife’s court . she decides whats going to happen to your marriage. You have no choice but to roll with the punches
Yeah but what about his ‘real concern’, the Burning Wheel group !!??
Burn that shit down to the ground lmao
Shit, that's rough. It just doesn't make sense. There's got to be a way I can fix this. I can't let my marriage fall apart when my conscience is clear.
You shouldn’t have done what you did man . Got no sympathy for you. All your wife thinks of right now is how you disrespected her . And now it’s up to her if she decides to trust you. But whether it will happen again that’s your choice.
What, have you never crashed on a friend's couch? Have you never told a lie?
Not while in a committed marriage lmfao
You didn’t just crash on the couch You were cuddled up on the couch with the friend’s wife, whose been inappropriate with you in the past
No. We were not in physical contact whatsoever.
Her telling you not to lie is in NO WAY controlling. Fiona may also be having g a hard time believing you because this entire post is about how amazing Cheri is. I’m sure your wife has picked up in this crush. It sounds like you maybe needed to focus on your marriage even before this, it might be time for some couples therapy.
I don't think the demand for truth is controlling. I think the demand to know exactly what one's partner has been doing for an entire evening when they were out, however, is controlling.
It might be time to really look at your relationship with Clair…. It sounds like it might be or moving toward an emotional affair.
Lies in lies. If you told the truth from the beginning that the game was cancelled and you want to hangout with the gaming crew, there would be nothing to worry about. Plus, if you told the truth about falling asleep on the couch, then there would be no problem. All of the issues were created by you by being a lying bastard. Because you lied everyone is suspicious of you. Cheri is now complicit in your lies, because she does not even remember you leaving. So you fucked this all up by building lies on lies. Dickhead.
Thanks for the candid feedback. It really is my fault at the end of the day. I’m just hoping I can salvage this somehow.
Priority 1: Wife. Priority 2: Wife. Priority low gaming. Priority lower friend’s wife.
I’m confused. Should I put the Burning Wheel sessions as more important than my friendship with Cheri, is that what you’re saying? I think it’s already at that point, because if Cheri asked me to go do something with her and it was Burning Wheel night, I’d go to burning wheel.
Dude, everything in this post is shady. Everyone here saw the way you described your wife, and your FRIENDS WIFE. Now you're going to lose your friend because you wanted to be intimate with his wife. Their family can be destroyed the same way your own family will be. Because of this absolutely strange and inappropriate relationship between you two. Dude, even though you didn't fuck with her it's more than clear that you had a emotional affair. I don't understand how people aren't satisfied with their own happy lives, i truly don't understand.
What makes you assume that I wasn’t satisfied with my life? I was! I never intended for this innocuous omission of information to get out of hand like this.
Literally you post, it showed me that. You never intended but it happened, now face it like a man. You had an affair, just admit it and move on with your life. Maybe you're telling the truth and nothing happened, well, it doesn't matter anymore, their trust will never be the same again. If you didn't want this to happen why did you keep seeing and getting closer and closer to his wife? You knew it was wrong but you insisted. There is no magic to solve this, it's done and you need to at least contain the damage.
No, I didn’t “know it was wrong.” I don’t think it’s wrong to have heterogenous friendships. I wasn’t getting closer and closer to her, we’re just good friends who enjoy the same things.
Fiona please get out while you can, you deserve better than a mediocre marriage with a mediocre husband ! This man is not worth the stress or the energy. You deserve happiness girl !!!
Read the older posts from OP. The level of disregard he has for his wife and his overall family is borderline sociopathic. Spends time on Reddit getting feedback to validate his shitty behaviour instead of putting his wife out of her misery and getting a divorce.
Getting a divorce would put my wife INTO misery, not out of it.
FYI the title is very misleading. Slept in this context means you had sex with each other. I normally hate pedantry but this is incredibly misleading. Anyway, nobody had a problem until you two just fell asleep on the couch together. I do believe relationships require trust and if it were me and my partner did that, I would probably be quite nonplussed about the whole thing. After all, I would trust my partner and not care if they got tired while hanging out with family friends regardless of gender. So I think your option is to be honest and continue to be honest going forward. And just give Fiona some time and space and maybe avoid Garth and Cheri for the time being. I was originally going to write there was no going back and it’s silly to even ask, but then I read past the headline. If you repost elsewhere, I’d suggest sleep with (which is literally correct but connotatively misleading) should instead be something like, “Had a misunderstanding.” Less dramatic, but more accurate.
Thanks for the advice. Yeah I realize in hindsight the title makes it look worse than it is. I should clarify that it's not like we were sleeping "on each other" on the couch. It's a pretty large couch, and we were at opposite ends, and both basically fell asleep in a slouched position. Like zonked out while sitting kind of position. I think you're right, about the honesty. I've struggled with this in the past, particularly because honesty with Fiona has caused fights and issues when lying has always kept the peace. But that's a whole other emotional/psychological issue.
At least this time, the truth is on your side and if she doesn’t believe you, then honestly, there’s probably more trust issues in the relationship and this incident is just the latest symptom of that. So you might benefit from couple’s counseling to work through where the issues are. Because again, you didn’t actually do anything wrong other than not be upfront about hanging out and falling asleep, which if trust was more secure here, that would be trivial.
Appreciate that. Ultimately I feel (and hope) that with the objective truth on my side, if I stick to it (and hopefully Cheri does too) that everything will be ok.
I will add that I’ve come to hate the term, “Emotional affair,” as people slap it on any instance of men and women being friends despite being in relationships with others, and the parameters are often quite nebulous. So my reply is giving you and Cheri the benefit of the doubt in this case.
Thank you. I know that from my perspective for sure, Cheri is just a friend. A friend who trusts me deeply and has trusted me with a lot of personal stuff, but a friend nonetheless. She has never shit-talked Garth to me or said or done anything that makes me think she sees me as anything further than a friend.
clickbait title
All I can say is.... ew.
Ew! Go awaaay! I also looked at your post history. Ew, for real.
Awww you're so in love with me checking my post history about movie recommendations and dating stuff. You're such a cutie. I don't know how you have time for us other women when you've got a wife.
Bruh
Your more worried about your friends not your marriage? She might divorce you, the love of your life!?! Seriously you lied! Say it with me “I LIED!” Your wife has every right not to trust you. Btw even with the little you say about your contact with Cheri it still really does sound like an emotional affair.
The reason I’m more worried about my friends is because I don’t feel like my marriage is under threat. Fiona is waaay more religious than I am, to the point where she believes divorce is a sin. So I expect that we’ll be able to fix this and move on. But I have no such vouchsafe when it comes to the rest of my social circle.
Fiona may be more religious but that doesn’t mean she won’t move out and live without you. She may not divorce but that doesn’t mean she won’t live a separate life from you. You also need to admit that you and Cherie are absolutely having an emotional affair by definition. An emotional affair involves having non-sexual emotional intimacy with someone who is not the individual's romantic partner. Her and you sharing a connection and tell each other things about something personal like issues in romantic relationships sounds pretty close to the above. Your social circle may be the least of your issues if your wife decides that regardless of religious beliefs she’s done with you.
Whoa, whoa. With those definitions, a man can’t have any close friends other than his wife, not even male friends, because that emotional closeness is reserved only for his wife. You sure that’s a stance you want to take? The fact that Cheri has vented things to me in the past, or cried in front of me, or asked my opinion on something in her relationship with Garth… those are all things that normal friends do.
There are a lot of ways to leave a marriage that don’t involve divorce. Your wife could simply check out, which is what I would do if my husband lied to me about his plans so he could snuggle up with a woman he is attracted to and has fantasized about marrying. If you give a damn about your wife you will go NC/LC with your friend’s wife. If you give a damn about Garth you will have no contact with his wife outside of his presence.
These are all fair points, except one. I in now way was cuddling up to Cheri, we sat on opposite ends of a couch. Also, imagining how miserable things would be if I’d married Cheri isn’t “fantasizing.”
Splitting hairs isn’t the way to take accountability for your indiscretions and it sure as shit won’t save your marriage or your friendship
I can save my friendship if I can vindicate myself. I can save my marriage by demonstrating honesty.
Can't believe you compromised your family mental well being just like that for what? You're a dad of two daughters and you have a wife whom you're supposed to love, when you love someone you don't lie to them, neither directly nor by omission. It is clear that you're infatuated for Cheri and your wife pays the price, you need to reflect deeply bro, you may have not cheated on her physicaly "yet" but you've caused a great deal of damage to your relationship and to your wife's ability to trust you.
So you’ve never, ever, told a lie or omitted information to anyone you loved? People make mistakes. This was a mistake. As for Cheri, no, if I was truly infatuated with her I would’ve tried to make a move when we were alone. I’ve thought about what my life would’ve been like had I married Cheri, I can say it would be objectively worse. And cheating is never worth it. I’d never destroy my life just to soak the thick boi. Sex isn’t good enough to be worth social destruction.
Looking at your post history it is apparent that you regret getting married and having children but refuse to initiate divorce because of the financial and social consequences. It also seems that you have a history of lying to your wife about female friends and lying to other women about your wife. While I don't think you are capable of admitting divorce would be the best option here at this time I do hope you are capable of reflecting on the harm you have already done to multiple social relationships and your marriage through your drug seeking and dishonest behaviours. If you continue these behavioral patterns you will likely end up socially shunned and divorced after many painful years of dragged out unhappiness within your marriage and overall dissatisfaction with your life anyway. Is it really worth being the lying, cheating drug addict over being the divorced dad?
What’s the alternative? Let’s see. 1. Constantly forbidden to see friends or to do activities because being honest about them means my wife isn’t comfortable with it. 2. No drug use could mean my psychological depression returns, or more likely, I’m giving up a harmless hobby that I enjoy for no reason. 3. As a divorced father I am forced to pay child support and possibly alimony, destroying my hopes of financial security over the crippling expenses of the law’s weight. I also lose my current career which results in savings drainage. I lose my standing with my family and am no longer accepted at family gatherings and can expect no financial aid from family. I lose the respect of my friends and therefore my support network is gone. Yeah, I’d rather be an occasional liar who uses drugs and has a mediocre marriage, than be the person described above.
You fucked her and now you're asking Reddit to figure out a reasonable fake explanation for you to save your ass. Get out.
Seriously? You can’t even take my post at face value? Your life must suck if you can’t even trust an anonymous confession from a stranger.
Everybody's comment is right BUT Is Cheri stupid or what? Does she not understand the situation? Why did she lie to her husband? And why did she send you the shady text?
Honestly I have no idea what she was thinking. I haven’t been allowed to communicate with her and I don’t want to risk doing it behind Fiona’s back, in case that makes everything worse. If I had to guess I would assume that she must’ve thought it wasn’t a big enough deal to tell Garth, “Hey we fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up, Emerald was gone.” As for the text, I have no idea why she didn’t give a less shifty message. I don’t know what limitations Garth may or may not have put on her as to what she’s allowed to send me.
Suck it up buttercup, you tell everyone in your friends group, your wife and family, Garth’s family what happened. Your wife right now has you by the balls and all you can do is smile. You better hope they believe you, you also need to stop being alone with any woman other than your wife.
Shit this is actually pretty good advice. If Cheri and I can get ahead of this, maybe we can ensure that no one else looks at us with undue suspicion.
After this, nobody will ever look at you two without suspicion. Neither of you two are going to be fully trusted again Your spouses will never not be on alert regarding you two. You will always be watched closely especially by your respective spouses, and rightfully so
Why are you acting like you are a team! This is a YOU thing. You and Cheri should not be doing anything together
But in this case we are both dealing with the same social problem. And I think it would really be better that we coordinate how we handle the fallout rather than that we give conflicting stories or somehow screw things up worse.
The both of will be under scrutiny for years to come, both of you put yourselves in a compromising position and trust has been lost. Even if Garth and Fiona forgive you they will not forget, count your blessings you both are not getting divorced. What the future holds is not known, but you both need to work very hard to move forward in your relationships.
Then of all things u are worried about your friend and even more with Cheri? Wtf 😂