A skeleton in a dark closet

[Obidiah]

I don't have many skeletons tucked away in my closet but I just recently acquired one... Here is my sordid tale.

 

About five years ago I became friends with a guy that worked for me. A couple of years younger than myself but we became fast friends and he became a part of my very tightly woven social circle of friends. He was in college and playing the dating field wide open. He would bring a different girl to my house to hang out almost every time he came over. I had been dating the same woman (at that time) for some 10 years in an on again off again (more on than off) relationship. A woman I love deeply and will one day marry. (This relationship tale is for another post entirely and I will steer clear of it in this one.) During one of my off again times, my friend tells me that he has a woman he wants me to meet that he is friends with and thinks we will really hit it off. He goes on and on about her and tells me that he is going to bring her over to meet me and see if we click. I say to him well there must be something wrong if you are not going after her yourself, why are you handing this one off to me. He says, she is out of my league and she is your age anyway ( I am a couple of years older than he). He brings her over and she is all he has promised and we do click... but I sense that very first evening that my friend has a thing for her. I step back from it and encourage him to pursue her. Next thing happens is they begin dating.

 

Fast forward 3 months... my friend and this girl have moved in together and are blissfully happy. I have developed a very close friendship with her at this point and I am now on again with my girlfriend of many years.

 

Fast forward another 6 months... my friend and this girl get married. All three of us being from a smaller town with limited career opportunities decide to relocate to a larger metro area. Due to some timing issues with my job and theirs we determine that the best plan is to move at the same time and share the struggle of starting fresh in this new metro city. We all move together splitting the expenses and I move into the guest room as a short term roomate until we can all get on our feet financially in the new town. After about 6 months I move out and leave them with the house and move into a place of my own. I am still maintaining my now long distance relationship with my girlfriend of many years who did not move with us because she was not yet out of college.

 

Two years pass. All the while our friendship has developed and grown over time and shared struggles. After unexpectedly loosing my job and simultaneously having a worthless roomate that skipped town on me. My friend and his wife offer for me to move back into their guest room for as short or as long a time as I wish. The scenario will be mutually financially beneficial for all of us. So I do.

 

Fast forward one and half years... His wife has grown increasingly unhappy with their marriage and my friend is unwilling to change his self centered ways which are driving her further away from him. As her friend, she talks to me quite often about the things that are going wrong with their marriage. Finally, she leaves him and moves out under the premise of separation and they are to attend counselling. After a few months of no improvements through counselling she files for divorce. Throughout all of this time she and I have maintained our friendship. With her gone, my friend and I are now sharing the house together as roomates. He is upset over the divorce and wishes to have her back but she will not reconcile.

 

She moves out of state but her new home will not be ready for another couple of months. In this interim she is staying with her family. Her family lives in the same area from which all three of us originally moved. My family is there as well as my long time girlfriend. Speaking of my long time girlfriend, she graduated from college the month my friends' divorce was finalized. She and I are now talking about marriage ourselves and I may very well be popping the question over the Christmas holidays coming up. I have made the decision to move back to my home area now that I have built a respectable resume in my career and confident of getting a good position in that area. I have decided that I am going to move as soon as I get a good offer or no later than spring of next year.

 

The week before my friend's wife left town to stay with her family and wait for her home to be ready for move in; she calls me on a day that I work from home and asks if I want to hang out. My friend, her now ex-husband is at work so we agree to meet for breakfast and return to hang out at the house for awhile and chat afterwards. Due to my friend's reluctance to have her anywhere around our home she and I agree to just not tell him that we are going to spend the day hanging out.

 

While sitting around the house talking over coffee the subject of how she and I first met and the circumstances surrounding our introduction came up. She admits that during these years that we have lived together as roomates and been close friends, she has had thoughts about me and her being together. But never acted on them because she was married and moreover, married to one of my close friends and I was well on my way to being married too. I admit to having the same feelings. We were both somewhat suprised by the other's admission to having these thoughts and sometimes even fantasies about one another. We both agree that at this point if anything were to happen between us that it could never be anything more than just a no strings sexual relationship that would end whether we wanted it to or not when she moved on to her new home out of state and I returned to my home to be with and soon marry my girlfriend of many years. We also agreed that this would be a betrayal of my friend/her ex-husband to such a degree that if he were to ever find out that he would without a doubt put a bullet in my head and most likely one in her's for our actions. Also, this betrayal would definitely jeoporadize if not end my plans with my future wife and current girlfriend of many years.

 

We agree on all these points... and then proceed to spend the rest of the day screwing each others brains out. The day ends with no specific plans to meet and do this again but also not ruling out that it could happen again.

 

A week later... she moved her stuff out of state and is now staying with her family for a couple of months.

 

This past weekend I had plans to go and spend the weekend with my girlfriend at her house. But on Friday just before leaving my girlfriend calls me to say that she is going to have to go out of town with her family for a funeral and will not be able to see me. Before I make it home from the office I get a call from my friend ex-wife just to check in and say hi and see what I am doing because we haven't spoken since the day we were together. Once she finds that I was but now not going to come in to town... she invites me to come and spend the weekend with her instead. My roomate/her ex... knows that I am going out of town to be with my girlfriend and see my family so he has no suspicion when I tell him that I am leaving town for the weekend.

 

I meet her and we spend the weekend together getting busy at a nice hotel room in that area. She and I still maintain that we have no illusions as to what our relationship is. We are still the same close friends we have been for all this time but we are just screwing each other in addition. At whatever point she leaves to go to her new home it will most likely come to an end and we will revert to just being the friends that we have been only with a shared skeleton in our closet.

 

I am carrying around some guilt with regard to my roomate/her ex about this situation. I know that even now he wants her to come back to him but I also know that there is no chance for them to reconcile. I am not necessarily wrought with guilt as I know what led them to where they are now and that he was the one who brought about the demise of their marriage even after many warnings that she would leave him if he didn't make some changes. I think the guilt I carry is based simply in the fact that I consider him a close friend and what I am doing behind his back flies in the face of that friendship. However, anther factor that seems to minimize the guilt I feel is that since she first left him and we have been roomates... I see many of the things in him that caused her to leave that drive me equally crazy and have discovered a number of instances where he has had shortcomings being my friend. Granted, he isn't sleeping with my girlfriend and lying to my face about it so I recognize the comparison isn't relative but... The greatest guilt I seem to be carrying around is that I know that I am betraying my girlfriend of many years and that is what bothers me the most in this whole situation because she is innocent of all of this deception.

 

So there it is... there is my sordid tale from begining to present day... whew... I feel better just getting it all out. What do you folks think about this tale....

[Jilly10340]

Personally, I think that you are wasting your girlfriends time by continueing to let her go out with a lying, cheating guy when she could be out finding someone who's faithful to her beginning and end.

 

You slept with your friends wife, when you knew he was broken up about it and wanted her back. It happened once, shame on her (the ex-wife) for bringing it up. It happened twice, just shame on you.

[EnigmaXOXO]

What do you folks think about this tale....

 

I liked the story. It was very well written and carefully thought out. Unfortunately, it failed to inspire any sympathy in me because the plot isn't so unlike the many other "tales" we read on this forum.

 

There is one thing, however, I can't figure out and was hoping you could clarify:

 

How is it that you feel "relieved" to unload your anonymous confession to strangers on a forum rather than coming clean with the two most important people in your life? I'm not sure what kind of feedback you're looking for, but I don't think anyone here is able to take this "skeleton" off your hands. Eventually, the guilt you feel will resurface. You crossed that infidelity line not once --- but twice! Which leads me to wonder just what it is that makes you think you are even ready to commit yourself to a marriage, or even a friendship for that matter?!

 

Honesty isn't for cowards, so I can understand why you are afraid to come clean and risk exposing your true nature to your girlfriend and buddy. But if there's even an ounce of compassion and human decency left somewhere inside you, than the kindest thing you could do would be to let that poor woman go. Make up another story - manifest yet another lie if you must to spare her feelings, but whatever you do DON'T trick her into marrying someone who is not the man he pretends to be.

 

If you have to lie and cover up secrets to sell yourself in a relationship, then you are negotiating a crooked deal. Eventually the truth WILL surface, so my personal advice to you would be to start exercising some damage control now rather than being caught unprepared when the sh*t finally hits the fan. Let the girlfriend go, and that might be one less "bullet" you'll have to dodge later.

[JoL]

I hope your girlfriend finds out and dumps your sorry ass before she makes the huge mistake of marrying you.

 

You don't deserve a commited girlfriend. And she doesn't deserve to be treated like a fool- which is exactly what you are doing.

 

Own up to your deception, before she finds out herself- because eventually- she will.

[tokyo]

I can also just agree with the other posters, your post is indeed well thought, but it plainly evokes the image of a selfish dude who cheats and excuses himself with the fact that his friends is such an annoying person. What does this have to do with the fact that you are sleeping with his ex-wife that he wants back? Are you punishing him for being so irritating? By sleeping with his wife?

 

You have assured in your post a couple of time that you love your girlfriend and that she´s the one for you, the one that you want to marry, but you don´t seem to have thought about her at all when you get it on with the other woman. I honestly don´t understand how you can talk about proposing with her and at the same time you´re cheating on her. This looks like it was just about sex as you were clearly able to consider the consequences and possibilities for a relationship with your friend´s ex-wife. She was your fantasy and you were hers. Some people may believe that they owe it to themselves to live out their fantasies, but in your case there´s another person involved and that´s your girlfriend who as you admitted is innocent. What you did was absolutely wrong and you must talk with her about it. You have no right to lure her into a marriage without telling her what you did.

 

To be honest, I don´t know what you expect when you post here, few people will tell you that you did right. You look like an extremely selfish person, I can hardly detect any regrets from your parts, but I may be mistaken otherwise you wouldn´t post here. You should really reconsider carefully what you did and if you are ready for a marriage or not. If you have the feeling that there are still fantasies pending and you can´t restrain yourself from fulfilling them, then don´t marry. That wouldn´t be fair.

[sinkerswim]

You are pretty much making an a$$ out of your current long time girlfriend. Little does she know what her "man" is out there doing. You SHOULD feel guilt for what you are doing.

I feel very sorry for her, that you are screwing around with another woman behind her back.

I would hope you get out of your relationship with her....its not fair. You are wasting her precious time.

By the way...Break up with her the right way and say goodbye. Dont just leave and not say a word. That is being a coward.

 

As with your friend, you are also hurting him. Maybe your friend and your current girlfriend should hook up a few times behind your back. How would it feel? Hey who knows..maybe they did already...wouldnt that suck?

 

The point is....Sooner or later one of them is going to find out anyway, then you will look like even more of a jerk.

[Lucia]

I am not sorry for your friend or your girlfriend, I am sorry for you. You live a lie, and the lie is inside you, your whole life is a lie. You are not a friend, and not a boyfriend. Ask yoursef seriously, what are you? What kind of person are you? What are you full of? Those are important questions. Integrity is important first of all for you, so you could be yourself and be proud of who you are. It's not so good to know that you are a liar and a convenience friend. And you keep saying you want to marry your girlfriend. Think again, do you really love her? If you don't really love her, don't lie to yourself. That wouldn't do any good to you or her.

[DayumQuitPlayin]

Wow, one thing I despise is cheaters.

I love watching the show "Cheaters" because I get to see them fight.. but ofcourse I never enjoy seeing the brokenhearted.

 

Your girlfriend has a right to know what you have done. It will break her heart.. but she has a right to know. If you've cheated on her..with a good friend of yours.. knowing that you have a girlfriend..and knowing that that friend of yours is married to a good friend of yours.. thats just plain stupid. That's something for the Jerry Springer show.

 

I'm not calling you any names.. I'm not calling you a no-good-dog.. or a Cheatin ass.. but what you did is wrong. You even know this. Because of your choices that you've made.. you now must suffer the consequences. You evidentally feel guilty about this.. and the only real way of relieving it..is by confessing to those who are involved. Plus, having making an agreement that you guys would only be 'friends with benefits' is just plain wrong. Help yourself... go tell your girlfriend..and your friend. She may forgive you.. she may not. Whether she does or not.. she has the right to know.. the same for your friend. But if you should choose to tell.. let your female-friend know.. that way she knows that she has something coming for her.. and to show her that you feel guilty for your actions..and that you're going to live up to it.

 

With whatever you choose to do.. despite of what you've done.. I wish you Luck