'AITA for never telling my best friend I have a history with his wife?'

"AITA for never telling my best friend I hooked up with his wife?"

I (38m) have a close female friend (38f) who we'll call Anna for this story. We've been close friends since we were 8 or 9 yrs old and were pretty much inseparable growing up.

During senior high school she started dating a guy, we'll call him John for this story. I myself was in a relationship at that time so we'd often go on double dates: Me and my gf together with John and Anna. John was a nice guy and I enjoyed spending time with him. I developed a friendship with him and though it wasn't as close as my friendship with Anna, I can genuinely say I enjoyed hanging out with the guy.

They dated for a few years but eventually broke up at some point during our university years. They said it was a mutual thing. They were each other's first relationships and I guess they felt like they wanted to know what it felt like dating other people. Or something like that.

Point is, they broke up and it was fairly amicable. I was still close friends with Anna so would continue to hang out with Anna, but after they stopped dating I lost track of John for a bit outside of random meetings in school campus (yes, we all went to the same university).

Anyway, at this point in my life I myself had just gotten dumped by my own gf, and I wasn't taking my breakup quite as amicably. Anna was there to comfort me through it and, well we were both single, we were comfortable with each other, and one thing led to another.

We ended up sleeping together a few times. We would have been around 20 at that point. We eventually stopped doing it because, well, it just felt plain weird. We've known each other for so long that it kinda felt like sleeping with your sister. I feel like we slept with each other more out of curiosity rather than actual desire.

Anyway, we both agreed that it wasn't what we wanted and decided that we'd completely forget about it. Seriously, we agreed to never talk about it again and that we'd treat it as if it never happened. And that's exactly what we did. We went back to being pure platonic friends and acted like nothing ever happened between us.

Anyway, a few years later after we've graduated and we working as young professionals, I get a call from John. Apparently the company he was working for had a job opening that he felt I'd be a good fit for. I took him up on the offer and ended up working for the same company. We started hanging out everyday in the office, during breaks and whatnot, and we became quite close.

I was still friends with Anna at this point and because both of them hung out with me, they started hanging out with each other again and eventually rekindled their relationship.

Me and John eventually left the company but we retained our friendship. As the years passed, I developed a closer friendship with John than with Anna. We just had more stuff in common, our humor aligned better, etc. So when they got married 8 yrs ago, I was John's best man. When I in turn got married 2 years later, I also made John my best man.

Now we're in our late 30's and I consider John my best friend... but every now and then the thought crosses my mind that I actually slept with his wife at some point in the past. As far as I know, Anna has never told John. Or if she did then I certainly never noticed any difference in how John acted towards me. Maybe Anna did exactly what we agreed to and completely forgot about the incident.

I try to forget it as well, but sometimes I still feel guilt in never telling John about it. I also never told my wife. Not because I still have feelings for Anna or anything but mostly I just don't want to rock the boat. Me and Anna have gotten way over it years ago, and I feel like if I say anything it will be made to look like a bigger thing than it really is, by both John and my wife. So I keep my mouth shut.

But I'm curious, AITAH for just keeping quiet about this?

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

ed_lv said:

I'm not sure if you an AH or not, but if you were going to tell him you should've done it as soon as you reconnected. At this point, just forget that it ever happened and don't think about it. I'd definitely not say anything now.

bluecollardaaddy said:

I think the only reasonable thing to do now is hook up with John and then tell Anna. But that’s just me.

Necessary_Dark_6720 said:

You should've told John when you first reconnected. You DEFINITELY should've told your wife long ago. At this point there's no way to say it without things blowing up. It looks shady as hell that you two hid this for so long and there's gonna lots of questions of why would you tell people now?

You will likely get cheating accusations. You will definitely cause both people to trust you far less. I'd take it to my grave if I were you.

ImAnNPCsoWhat said:

Dude NAH. Just drop it. Neither of you did anything wrong, but bringing it up at this point might make other people uncomfortable. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Particular_Jump5187 said:

Does anyone else find it hard to believe that the topic of past partners never came up prior to marrying someone? It should have been approached then, on both people's parts. You're the AH to your spouse (notice I'm not mentioning John) if the topic of past partners was even briefly mentioned at all, ever.

Personally, I'd have had a convo with Anna to say it's best to tell your respective partners before marrying them. Out of respect for them and the likelihood of interacting in the future. Spouse comes before any kind of bf or bro code, imo.

OP shared this edit in response to the comments:

Based on the comments I'm reading, I feel like I have to clarify a few things. First, I absolutely have no plans of telling John or my wife. Or at least not at the moment. I mean, yes I feel guilt over it and who knows what the future will bring, but as of right now I have no plans to say anything to anyone. Thus why my question is "AITAH for just keeping quiet about this?"

Second, a lot of people are asking why I'm writing this now. Fair question, and I don't have a solid answer. Maybe it's because I'm curious what other folk would do if they were in my situation. Maybe I'm looking for reassurance that I'm doing the right thing. I don't know. I do plan to delete this in a bit.

Lastly, I should mention that after me and Anna ended our "experiment" back in our 20's, we've spent lots of times hanging out together, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes when we were flat out drunk even.... especially back when we were both still single.

At no point did it ever progress to anything physical ever again. So when I say our relationship is completely platonic, I mean it. None of the guilt I feel has anything to do with hidden "feelings" between myself or Anna.