Cheat on me with my best friend? I'll wreck your career and publicly humiliate both of you
MW = My Wife
FBF = Former Best Friend
FBFW = Former Best Friend's Wife
FBF and FBFW have been like family to MW and I for several years, practically ever since we moved in across the street from them. The four of us were extremely tight. Our kids are the same age as theirs and are all good friends. We were one big family unit. We did dinner together a few times a week. We went on vacations together. I truly saw FBF as a brother, and MW and FBFW were very close too.
Five months ago, I was completely blindsided by the discovery of an affair between MW and FBF. MW had left her email open on our computer, and I saw an email from her to her longtime therapist saying that FBF would be joining her at an upcoming session "again." Uh, WTF? My mind started racing - why in the world would FBF be going to her therapy sessions without my knowledge? I did a search and found some other emails to and from the therapist proving that FBF had been going to sessions together with her for about six weeks.
I checked our mobile phone account and discovered that, since late summer, they had been exchanging hundreds of texts every day, peaking at nearly 500/day by the holidays. Speaking of the holidays, MW and I hosted both of our families (parents, siblings, etc) for both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, and FBF and FBFW joined us either for dinner or after dinner on both holidays. Text records showed that the entire time that they were at our house celebrating with our families, MW and FBF were texting each other across the room. They were doing that pretty much every time the four of us hung out, for months. And, you know, all day every day just in general. But what bothers me the most is that they were doing it with FBFW and I right there.
I confronted MW with the evidence and she admitted that yes, she and FBF had fallen in love. "It just happened! I don't know how! But I love him and I just don't feel anything for you anymore, I'm sorry!" They had gone on a school district trip together, something had happened in her hotel room, and things had moved quickly from there. She explained, as I lay face-down on the couch, unable to look at her, that they had already made plans to move out and divorce me and FBFW, and while they didn't plan to move in together immediately because of the kids, they'd probably do so eventually. The meetings with the therapist were supposedly mostly for the purpose of finding a way to break this to me and FBFW as gently as possible, because they were so very concerned for our well-being. (FBFW and I are fairly certain that they weren't planning on telling us about the affair at all, and were simply going to "discover" their feelings for one another several months down the line, after they'd come up with some other reason to divorce the two of us.)
MW moved out two months ago. I was, and still am, utterly destroyed. I cry every day. I cried writing the first few paragraphs of this story just now. I worry non-stop about the impact on our kids. But I am also not exactly a shrinking violet when I feel that I've been wronged. And in this case I was, objectively, very very wronged.
So, a couple of years ago, FBF ran for a Board of Education seat as a pretty extreme underdog. I helped him with his campaign materials and debate prep, and MW, a well-known school district employee (this becomes important later), got the word out as best she could. Much to our surprise, he actually won in a squeaker, by just a few dozen votes.
Being on the Board became the center of FBF's world. He joined every committee that he could. This turned into the foundation of his affair with MW, as they were constantly going to school events and meetings together on evenings and weekends.
Once I discovered the affair, my thoughts turned pretty quickly to revenge, and it occurred to me that an extramarital affair between a member of the Board of Education and an employee of the school district was at least bad politics and possibly violated district policy. Making things far worse for them was that MW was in the running for an open administrative position, and everyone knew that she was more or less guaranteed the job and the major pay raise that came with it. She had just finished her master's degree in school administration, at the urging of her principal and the superintendent, so that she could be promoted to this specific position.
I had plenty of evidence of the affair - texts from both of them admitting to it, text records showing that they were texting hundreds of times a day, emails to and from the therapist, etc. I considered simply emailing all of the evidence to the Board and the superintendent, but felt like I, as the grieving, betrayed spouse, might not be seen as a credible source. So instead, I invented a fictitious "furious friend" who was planning on showing up to the next Board meeting and publicly shaming the two of them for their affair. I told MW that I'd tried to talk this person down but couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't show up and humiliate them publicly. As I expected, this led FBF to conclude that the only option was for him to preemptively admit the affair to the Board. The superintendent subsequently recommended that FBF resign, which he did. FBFW said that he was utterly humiliated and crushed, and barely got out of bed for a few days afterward.
Once word of the affair and FBF's resignation started getting around, the superintendent (a longtime friend of both MW and FBF) contacted MW and tearfully informed her that it was no longer politically appropriate for her to be promoted to an administrative position within the district. The position that had been lined up for her was later filled by an outside candidate. This sent waves of confusion and rumor throughout the district, as it was pretty well-known that MW was getting the job. The day after she was informed that she wasn't getting the promotion, MW and I, despite our crumbling marriage, took our son out to breakfast together on his birthday, and a parent stopped by our table to congratulate her on her new role. She said thanks, then excused herself to go cry in the bathroom for a while.
I let the dust settle for a couple of weeks, and then, right before MW moved out, let them in on my little secret - there was never a "furious friend" threatening to expose them in the first place. Just me.
Word of all of this has gotten around our fairly small town, which FBF grew up in and MW has worked in for nearly 20 years. MW refuses to talk to me about how things are at work now, but I've heard from some people I know in the district that her formerly spotless reputation has taken a major hit. FBF, formerly a gregarious social presence in our neighborhood and at events and pubs in town, has completely gone underground and barely emerges to mow his lawn. He's moving out soon, to a shitty little townhouse which is all he can afford due to all the child support he's going to have to pay his wife.
MW and FBF claim that they plan on trying to make things work together, despite all the public humiliation. I wish them lots of luck with that. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun to show their faces together in town.
Edit: Here's a log of their texts/calls over the course of a few months before I discovered the affair. Obviously their phone numbers have been stripped out. https://anonymousfiles.io/UdpmGq8h/
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