Yahoo Lifestyle Real Life: "I Fell In Love With My Best Friend's Husband"
Lisa's story
Lisa, 34, had never thought of Tom as anything but Jemma’s husband, until one fateful night.
Sitting in our favourite cafe discussing family problems, my best friend, Jemma, reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “It’s so good having someone I can trust,” she said. I tried to smile back at her, but inside I felt sick. Jemma and I had known each other since we were 12. Our fathers were business colleagues and we hit it off immediately. Our families said we were more like sisters than best friends. Now, looking at Jemma’s smiling face, I hated myself. I still cared about her as much as ever; the trouble was I was in love with her husband, Tom. And – even more unforgivably – I had been sleeping with him for the past six months.
Waves of guilt washed over me as we said goodbye. All I could think about on the way home was what Jemma would do if she knew I was having an affair with her husband. Appalled by my behaviour, I wondered how on earth I could have got myself into this mess. I began to think about how strong our friendship actually was. We didn’t live near each other, but we managed to catch up at least once a week. We were complete opposites: Jemma was quiet with long, dark hair; I was the extrovert with a blonde pixie crop. Jemma was my protector. As a 17 year old, I remember crying in the bathroom over a boy who’d stood me up, while Jemma stroked my hair saying, “you deserve better”.
I can’t remember when Tom first appeared on the scene, only that it was pretty soon after this incident. Tall, thin and stylishly dressed, he was just Jemma’s type. After that, Tom and Jemma were never apart. Where I must have had a dozen or so boyfriends before I met my husband, Nick, Jemma and Tom married at 21. He was always very quiet, and of all the men I knew, he was the only one I never saw flirt with anyone. I liked his gentle humour and intelligence, but as I never saw him without Jemma being there too, we never had the opportunity to talk much.
Then, one night at a party in 2009, Tom, to my surprise, asked me to dance. As he put his arms around me, I realised I was enjoying the feeling of being close to him. When I looked up at him at the end of the song, he bent down and kissed me.
I knew I should have pushed him away, but I didn’t want to. It wasn’t a drunken lunge. Far from it. My immediate reaction was to look around the room and see if Jemma had seen us. Then, feeling incredibly guilty, I went off to find Nick. As we left the party, I looked back to see Tom staring after me.
Over the next two days, I thought about what had happened and wondered if I was exaggerating the significance of the kiss. I hated the idea that I had betrayed Jemma and tried to forget about it. Then came a call from Tom. “We have to talk,” he said.
I fooled myself that I was “doing the right thing” in trying to sort this out before it went any further. We met at a cafe, where Tom told me he had been in love with me for years. “I think about you all the time – from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep at night.”
He said he’d tried to fight the feeling, but it had started to dominate his life. I was stunned – I’d never thought of Tom as anything but Jemma’s husband. But I was also incredibly flattered and excited, perhaps because I was feeling so low about problems Nick and I were having. I told myself if Tom didn’t love Jemma anymore, did it really make any difference if he loved someone else? But of course it did. I was her best friend. I said we shouldn’t meet again, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Tom and the possibility of being with him. It didn’t help that Nick and I had been growing increasingly distant over the past few months, and couldn’t be in a room together for more than 10 minutes without arguing.
A few weeks later, I took my sons, then four and six, to Jemma’s for the afternoon. As I watched her make sandwiches for our children, I wondered how I could even be thinking about sleeping with her husband. I knew I was playing with fire. But when Tom rang me the next day, I agreed to meet him.
From that moment on, our relationship became compulsive. I was addicted to seeing Tom. I couldn’t even believe this was a man I had known, and ignored, for years. I couldn’t explain the change in my feelings because I didn’t understand them myself. By the end of that month, we’d slept together. He promised me he would leave Jemma, although both of us realised how painful that was going to be for everyone.
Tom and I continued to see each other as often as possible. Part of me was happier than I’d ever been before, while the other half kept reminding me what I was doing to my best friend and to my husband. As the intensity of the relationship deepened, my marriage unsurprisingly deteriorated. I’d stopped making any effort to resolve my issues with Nick. After seven months, Tom said he was going to tell Jemma. I begged him not to as I wasn’t ready for the fallout. But at least Tom and I would finally be together.
In the end, my husband found out. After telling Nick I was going to yoga, I returned to find him holding my gym bag and demanding to know where I had been. There was almost a sense of relief as I blurted out Tom’s name. I was prepared for my husband’s anger, but not the pain on his face. Tom and Nick had known each other for nine years – he was his friend, too. I instinctively went to comfort him, but he pushed me away. Looking through the open kitchen door I could see the scared face of our older son staring at us. For the first time, I realised the enormity of what I’d done.
I was longing to tell Tom properly, but instead I panicked and sent him a text saying, “Nick knows. Tell Jemma.” The next morning as we had breakfast, Nick told me he still loved me, and that he was prepared to try again if I gave up Tom. I felt terribly sad, but said I couldn’t do that.
Half an hour after Nick left for work, I got a call from Tom. “Lisa, I’ve told Jemma. She’s gone to pieces...Lisa, I’m sorry, I really love you, but I can’t do this to her. We can’t see each other ever again. Please don’t hate me..."
I stood there holding the phone in total disbelief. And then I heard myself saying, “I understand.” And I did.
I didn’t hate Jemma, or Tom, in that moment. I hated myself. I felt this was my punishment for trying to steal my best friend’s husband.
I’d expected Nick to mock me when he heard what had happened. Instead, he was so kind and sympathetic that I felt even more guilty. But it was too late to mend our marriage.
Of all the people in the world, I would have turned to Jemma for comfort then. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. But how could I? For the first year after the discovery of the affair, Jemma refused to see me. Nick and I sold our house, and the children and I moved into somewhere smaller. The sense of loss – of my home, my marriage, and my closest friend – was overwhelming. Again and again I wrote to Jemma, called her and even asked her family to speak to her on my behalf. For a while they, too, erased me from their lives, unable to believe what I had done to Jemma. It was months before her mother agreed to take my call. Eventually, she promised to speak to Jemma for me.
Finally, Jemma agreed to meet me for lunch. I could hardly look at her as she sat down and asked, “Well, what do you want to say?” But being Jemma, she listened quietly as I said, “I won’t try to make excuses. There are none. I’m just here to ask you to forgive me.”
There was no immediate reconciliation. The hurt went way too deep for that. But slowly Jemma did start to ask me about the affair, details that I didn’t want to disclose, but knew that I had to give her.
“Two years after it all began, Jemma and I still meet up occasionally – but on the condition we don’t talk about what happened. She says she misses our friendship, but we both know it will never be the same now. My betrayal will always be there, unspoken.”
Jemma's story
"I didn’t think anything could hurt as much as hearing Tom admit that he’d been having an affair. But I was wrong.
Discovering that Lisa had also betrayed me was worse. At first, I simply couldn’t believe that the friend I’d known since I was 12, who was also like family to me, could be capable of sleeping with my husband.
My first reaction was to say that I never wanted to see her again, but when I heard that she and Nick were separating, I almost started to feel sorry for her. I missed talking to Lisa, laughing with her, just having her around. Sometimes, I would even go to the phone to call her, only to remember suddenly what had happened and feel the pain all over again.
These ambivalent feelings towards Lisa were very hard to cope with at first. I wanted to forgive her, but every time I thought about what she had done, I’d come back to “how could you?” All my other friends kept telling me I should just cut her off completely and never look back. But I couldn’t do that. Even though she’d betrayed me so ruthlessly, a part of me still cared about her. Lisa had been part of my life since before I’d met Tom. I was angry at what she’d done, but somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to hate her. It’s not in my personality to give up on friends. Everyone deserves a second chance.
Finally, after a year, I decided to accept her offer of reconciliation. Although I promised myself I wouldn’t ask about details of their affair, I found I couldn’t help myself. Tom wouldn’t tell me anything, so talking to Lisa did help, even though there were still moments when I felt complete anger and hatred towards her.
It was just as hard being with Tom. We didn’t have sex for three months. Every time he touched me I imagined him and Lisa together, wondering whether he was fantasising about my friend instead of me. We did talk about seeing a counsellor, but I couldn’t face the humiliation of going through it all again with someone I didn’t know.
Eventually, what made the difference and really helped me move on was realising that Tom had made a choice when he decided not to leave me. He’d chosen me, not Lisa, and that in the end is what really matters. I lost my best friend, but she lost everything.
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