Woman infuriates stepdaughter, 'Your friend's mom is the reason I'm divorcing your dad.' AITA? AWKWARD UPDATES
When this woman is furious with her husband's ex-affair partner Sophie, she asks the internet:
"AITA for telling my stepdaughter her friend’s mum is the reason her dad and I are divorcing?"
My husband, Jack, has been spending a lot of time with our neighbour, Sophie. It is worth noting that Jack and Sophie had an affair when she was 19 – he was with his ex and she was with an ex-boyfriend at the time.
Sophie is a widow as her husband died in 2021. Jack and I also married in 2021. Jack and Sophie remained friendly after their affair, partly because their daughters were and still are friends – they’ve been best friends since primary school.
Jack and I have been having some issues in our marriage and we have been going to counselling for the past 6 months. I brought up in counselling that his friendship with Sophie makes in uncomfortable because he had previously had an affair with her.
Jack argued that she is just a friend and that neither of them have those feelings anymore, nor is Sophie interested in having a romantic relationship because no one compares to her late husband...
that is apparently something she has said to him after he suggested setting her up on a date with a younger co-worker who had expressed an interest in her.
There’s a lot of cross over between her job and his which is part of the reason they remained close. In our last session, Jack admitted that he had been going to Sophie for her advice. He’s been going to her to get advice on our relationship as well as an issue with his daughter.
The issue with his daughter, I understand because it is something that Sophie has experience with and she had an unique perspective that really did help him. The fact they have been discussing our relationship, I don’t feel comfortable with.
Jack has been really dismissive about it, arguing that its the same as me going to my sister for advice. It’s not the same, he had an affair with this woman!
I recently saw Sophie in the local coffee shop and she was friendly with me, asking how I was doing and if my step daughter was doing better. I asked her if something was going on between her and Jack. She denied that anything was going on between her and Jack.
I asked her to stop giving Jack advice because it’s damaging our relationship. Sophie said that she wasn’t going to stop giving her friend advice, and that it wasn’t her fault that I was insecure in my relationship but that she doesn’t see Jack as anything as a friend despite what I think.
Sophie reiterated several times that she was just friends with Jack and that she isn’t that troubled teenager who had an affair with a married man anymore, and that she didn't want to implode her life again. When I got home, I told Jack that I didn’t want him to see Sophie anymore.
Jack argued with me, saying he wasn’t going to stop seeing Sophie when nothing is going on between them. He offered to show me his texts with Sophie, but I told him that I didn’t trust him not to delete any texts that he knew would upset me.
Jack got frustrated and told me I was being ridiculous by accusing him of being deceitful.
When his daughter came home, she was upset because Sophie had text her daughter after our conversation and told her to come straight home as she didn’t want her daughter to get pulled into whatever is going on between Jack and I like she had been.
His daughter was angry and accused me of ruining her friendship before storming up to her bedroom, so Jack is also angry with me about that.
I’m just not sure what else to do. Is there anything I can do? The fact he is constantly going to a woman he had an affair with for advice is just making me feel uncomfortable and nothing he does feels reassuring.
TLDR: Husband is seeking advice from his ex affair partner and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Both see nothing wrong with it and deny an affair.
Before we give you OP's tragic updates, let's take a look at some of the top responses:
winterfrost7 writes:
I would give him a choice the friendship or marriage.. and if he still says I'm not stopping talking to her then you end the marriage and leave..
How does he think it's ok to have a friendship with a women he has had sex with as well as cheated on his ex partner with.. whether he likes it or not, there both embarrassing that they think they can have an affair ruin people's lives and then remain friends when he has a new partner like there both not deceptive people.
And her bringing the kids into it to corse more problems is disgraceful. Tell Jack he needs to talk to his daughter and say the only one ruining her friendship is Sophie as she shouldn't be involving children in adult issues.
I don't care what going on with me and family or my friends.. if my kids have a relationship with them, they are none the wiser they don't need to know.
But yeah honey tell him he has two choices marriage or friendship. As you can't be friends with a woman who you cheated on your ex with.. and I'm sure he use to vent to her about his ex wife before banging her. Don't back down if he won't throw him out or if it his house leave. Those are your options.
famoustap writes:
YTA. Dang. Honestly you are kinda trying to push those two together really, really hard. It would be best to just let the friendship be or just leave him if you dont trust him. But you could absolutely give her a reason to fall into his arms by doing that.
mysterysalt writes:
NTA. Sounds like he's choosing his friendship with her over your relationship. Neither of them care that their friendship makes you uncomfortable and have told you as much.
The fact is, you can't force him to prioritize you or your needs. You simply have to decide what you're willing to live with. "I find your friendship with your previous affair partner to be disrespectful to our relationship.
If you continue to place more importance on this friendship than our relationship, then I'll be reconsidering whether I want to stay in this relationship."
I'd never place someone ahead of my spouse. We are supposed to be a team and right now it sounds like no one is on your side.
sparklezell writes:
YTA. If the original affair was recent. Then yeah it would absolutely be super suspicious. But we are talking about what people in their mid 30s did in their very early 20s. That is a lot of time for people to grow up, change, and have relationships and dynamics change.
Regardless of the past, just being friends for 15 years as an adult is going to make you close, and someone you go to for advice. And plenty of people who had relationships in the past can have perfectly healthy platonic friendships. Especially when you are talking mid 30s vs early 20s.
And now, OP's first update:
We were meant to go to a counselling session this morning, however Jack had cancelled the session and any further sessions. Jack does not want to continue counselling as he has filed for divorce, he said it was something he had been considering for a while.
Apparently when he had gone to talk to Sophie the first time, it was to get her recommendation for a divorce lawyer but she had tried to convince him that we just needed to work out our issues.
Jack said that he told her that he had lost trust in me and nothing we did was fixing it, the way I've been acting over him and Sophie also cemented that to him.
She gave him the name of a friend who is a divorce lawyer but told him that he was making a mistake. It turns out that when Sophie's daughter didn't come to our house as planned after school, it was because Jack had told Sophie he had planned to tell me about the divorce that evening.
He backed out on telling me after his daughter came home upset, not wanting to rock the boat with her. My conversation with Sophie was just the excuse she used.
If I'm honest I still don't trust that nothing has been going on between them. The whole thing between them is weird. But my marriage is over, so what they do isn't my problem. I'm not going to fight to be with someone who lies to my face and states they don't trust me.
I knew they were friendly before our relationship. I moved into the community just after the affair blew up. To start with they were just people who would be polite to each other in the street but as the girls got older and they started to have to interact more they became friends.
When Jack and I got together, Sophie pulled away from the friendship but after her husband died she reached out to Jack. When she reached out to Jack, I figured it was just Sophie's way of coping with her grief as her world fell apart and she would pull away again.
OP's second update:
I wish I knew why he thinks that she can give some insights to our marriage. Part of me wondered if him going to her for advice is because he wants legal advice but she works in criminal law not family law.
Sophie is able to relate to his daughter because they both have an ED, she was able to help him navigate dealing with his daughter without pushing her away.
If I bring Sophie up during our sessions, he shuts it down because to him Sophie isn't the problem and threatens to stop going to the sessions. I knew they were friendly before our relationship.
To start with they were just people who would be polite to each other in the street but as the girls got older and they started to have to interact more they became friends.
When Jack and I got together, Sophie pulled away from the friendship but after her husband died she reached out to Jack. When she reached out to Jack, I figured it was just Sophie's way of coping with her grief as her world fell apart and she would pull away again.
Jack, and I are getting divorced after 2 years of marriage. Jack has two children, but this concerns his daughter – Ella (15F). The day Jack told me he wanted a divorce, we told the children after school.
Ella was upset when she found out we are divorcing and went to her room. She came down after tea when it was just me and her in the house – Jack and his son had gone out. She asked me why her dad and I were getting divorce and wanted to know if it was because of her.
Ella has struggled with an ED, and while it had caused some strain because we couldn’t agree on how to help Ella it is not the reason. I told Ella that she and her brother are not the reason for the divorce, but that her best friend’s (Imogen 15F) mum (Sophie 34F) is.
Sophie and Jack had an affair when she was 19, when the affair was exposed Sophie’s life basically imploded while Jack’s pretty much remained the same. Just to state, Imogen is not Jack’s daughter.
They are friends now, but after the affair they would just be polite in the street and became friendlier over the years as the girls became close friends at school. I told Ella that Jack’s continued friendship with Sophie and the running to her for advice is why we are getting divorced.
Ella asked if Jack was having an affair with Sophie. I told her that Jack was denying having an affair with Sophie again but I suspected it. She asked what I meant by again, so I told her that Sophie and Jack had an affair when Jack was married to her mum.
Ella has not been speaking to Jack since our conversation. She has also lashed out at Imogen, telling her that her mum is a whore and is the reason her family is falling apart.
They got into a physical fight at school which resulted in both Jack and Sophie getting called in to talk about it. In the meeting, Ella told them everything I had told her the night before and blamed Sophie for ruining her family again. Jack told her that Sophie isn’t the reason.
Jack told Ella the reason for the divorce is because he no longer trusted me because of a mistake I had made which had sent us to therapy. Months of therapy weren’t able to repair his trust in me.
After Jack and Ella came home, she is now not talking to me either. Jack is furious that I said anything to Ella and that I ruined Ella’s friendship with Imogen. Jack snapped that it was not my place to say anything to Ella.
He was angry that I was still stuck on his friendship with Sophie, and continues to maintain nothing is going on. He told me that Imogen told Sophie in the meeting that she wants to move to a new school, where no one knows her mum is a whore and that was my fault.
AITA? Ella asked me for a reason and I told her, I do believe Sophie is the true reason as the relationship between them is weird.
Readers had a LOT of thoughts on this update:
tansandoval writes:
YTA. What did Ella, a 15 year old girl, do to you that you would blow up her relationship with her father AND her best friend during a difficult time in her life? The girl is going through enough with her ED.
Why would you cut off two of her main support lifelines when she's already struggling as it is and likely to need more support in the future?
Your marriage issues are your problems. Keep them to yourself or tell your besties. It's not appropriate to overshare adult drama with a 15 year old child who is not your own over tea. And it wasn't the truth, was it?
You conveniently left out your own "mistake", which is the actual reason for the divorce. So what you did was distort the narrative into a damaging lie, feed it to a child who trusted you, and watch her world burn.
You blew that girl's life up for no reason other than your own bitterness. She got into a fight at school, and now her former best friend wants to leave the school completely.
Those poor girls, both of them. To have their lives torn apart by you because you can't admit that YOU'RE the one who ended your own marriage. You're a real piece of work to go after kids like that.
redcore4 writes:
YTA - you and your husband clearly have some issues with each other and neither of you is prepared to take responsibility for your own part in the breakdown of your (remarkably brief) marriage but there is no cause to drag the kids or anybody else into this or to set the kids to blaming each other and taking sides.
You being insecure about your partner’s friendship with his ex is a good reason not to have married him in the first place but it doesn’t make the ex responsible for your marriage or its failure.
Either way, turning the kids against their father (especially a child who already has very serious problems of her own) is a low blow and needing to “win” against your partner in the “your fault” games does not excuse you from devastating a young girl and destroying some of her very few stable connections just to satisfy your own petty vengeance.
She’s got a whole lifetime to observe her dad’s character and behaviour; she needs reassurance that she isn’t at fault herself and didn’t drive you away, sure, but she does not need that expanded into telling tales on her dad that might very well not even be true.
sparkz writes:
YTA. And it's disturbing that you cannot see that. First off with the divorce. Unless you are leaving out a lot of info. You are leaving after 2 years of marriage, over an affair 15 years ago. Plus whatever else you alluded to that made your husband lose trust in you.
But the really egregious thing is that you told a biased and very detailed telling of the story to a kid, less than 24 hrs after you decided to have a divorce.
15year olds are not equipped to have all of that information just dumped in their lap without a care like that. That goes so far beyond tactless that it feels very malicious. As if you want to hurt your husband through his kids.
The way you exained to your stepdaughter, it sounded more like a boozy brunch, going in on all of the guys that might have done you wrong. Not explaining to a literal child that their whole world is going to be thrown into turmoil.... Again.
Did you even think how a kid might receive the news the way you told it? Or was it part of your plan? Because that shouldn't be discussed with a 15 year old. Let alone just casually like you did.
OP adds another update:
This blew up more than I thought it would. Both Ella and her brother were aware of the kiss. They were there when Jack was told. I referred to it as a mistake as that is what Jack refers to it as, he has said that he didn't consider the kiss to be cheating because I was drunk.
I have moved out of the house since I made this post, and I am now staying with my sister until I find a place of my own. At the weekend, Ella reached out to Imogen and apologised for lashing out at her at school.
They look like they've made up as Ella stayed at Imogen's over the weekend. Before she left, I apologised to Ella and told her that I shouldn't have dragged her into this. Ella told me that she would never forgive me, especially for damaging her friendship with Imogen, and is glad that her dad is divorcing me.
I offered to pay for the girls to do something together but Ella refused saying she didn't want to take my 'dirty money'. I also apologised to Jack who told me that it was Sophie who needed the apology, not him as it was her life I had tried to ruin without a shred of evidence.
I tried telling him that I just didn't believe that he and Sophie weren't having an affair and he snapped telling me that there is nothing going on with Sophie, and she had actually just started seeing someone.
He found out about this because she went to him for advice as he is the only person she knows who has also lost a spouse and dated again. He then told me that he wanted me to move out as Ella had told him that she wasn't going to return home while I was still here.
So yeah. I've destroyed my relationship with Jack and his children because I was insecure. It's my own doing. I am the AH.
Readers continued to weigh in on OP's story. Take a look!
visaf writes:
To be fair while all the adults in this story suck OOP included I think she's taking too much of the blame. Jack had an affair with a 19 year old age 35, then years later starts getting really close to his former affair partner again to the point where OOP feels neglected and insecure and kisses someone else.
Then in couples therapy he refuses to talk about Sophie at all despotism relationship with her being the root cause of all of OOPs insecurities and actions.
Kissing someone else is on OOP as is telling Ella about the affair but I definitely feel like the relationship was doomed from the moment Sophie reached out to Jack for support and he refused to create any reasonable boundaries between them.
He should never have been discussing his relationship with a former affair partner.
whyper writes:
I think OP clearly knew they were in the wrong because they were hiding the kids which is horrible - but with that said, I still don’t think this absolves the husband???
I would also freak out if my partner was those close with someone they had already cheated on their literal spouse with AND asking for advice on our relationship specifically.
Then shutting down her feelings on top of that instead of wanting to talk through it and maybe find a compromise (like going to counseling for the kiss is something OP did bc at least she acknowledges it was wrong).
Not to mention the age different. That’s like a truly awful man and I don’t think cheating is justifiable but a kiss is far less horrible than this imo.
These are 2 not great people who shouldn’t be together anyway.