How Can I Handle My Best Friend’s Lies About Her Affair With a Married Man?

Reader’s Question

I am a 27 year old female that comes from a family where my parents were married for 20 plus years, ending in my dad leaving my mom for a younger woman. My father has been diagnosed as a sex addict and has had many sexual affairs while being married to my mother. My parents went to years of counseling to try to work through his addiction, but as dad’s “midlife crisis” surfaced he chose to leave my mother, and us 4 children. We were all almost adults at the time, I was 18 and my youngest sibling was 17. My father left my mother enough financial support so she would not have to worry about money for the rest of her life, left each child with a trust fund for us to do what we wanted with once graduating high school, urging a college education. He also bought everyone very nice cars a month before he left. It felt as if he was covering all his bases and wrapping things up with his current family in order to begin his sickening love affair. Prior to meeting this new woman, my father would try to sell her to us, showering her with compliments and telling us, “she was on the cover of Vogue magazine, a singer, actress, brilliant… blah, blah”. When we met this women it was strange. No one felt her to be as talented and beautiful as the picture painted, and an unauthentic behavior was portrayed. The day she met us, we were told how much she loved all of us and has since the moment she met our father, because we are a part of him. This INFURIATED me…this women didn’t even know me… As you could have guessed, this relationship ended in divorce.

On to the current situation, my closest friend has been involved with a married man 17 years her senior, for the past 2 years and he is now leaving his wife and 4 children for her. My girlfriend as well had been with her boyfriend of 8 years, on the verge of engagement, and living together. The affair has been kept secret all this time and I accidentally found out, confronted her, and she came clean. I am the only person that knows, so she talks a lot about it and says very similar things like…well he is leaving his family with a lifetime of financial support, his wife is crazy, he has been in a loveless marriage for years, how much love she already has for his 4 children… I’ve expressed to her that I love her and care about her, but all the lies and bad energy surrounding her new relationship are uncomfortable for me. Ultimately her response was “Well, it’s US now”. I have judgements and convictions with her current relationship, but she is my best friend and I spend a lot of time with her. I am saddened by close people in my life acting in such ways. As I see it now, I have the choice to continue to have her in my life and welcome her new lover because that is what friends do, right? She has told me I don’t have to bear the burden of their lies, but when it comes down to it, I watch her lie to her ex boyfriend, all her friends, her parents and it is difficult. How do I detach from the deceit and lies I know about while simultaneously welcoming this “new” relationship (they are telling people they just met a few weeks ago) as any friend would do?

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

If we think about it, everyone we know has a type of “credit rating” with us. The higher the credit rating — that sense of trust, closeness, mutual respect, etc. — the closer we feel and the more we support that person. Those with high credit rating are also given our personal information, feelings, hopes/dreams, and honest feelings. Other people in our environment receive various credit ratings and we tell some personal information but not others, invite some to our home and not others, etc. Like the bank, the credit rating we give someone must depend upon their behavior.

The best approach in your situation is to lower her credit rating. To do this, you detach yourself from her misbehavior and reduce her from “close friend” to friend. If she tries to involve you in her affair or lies/deceptions, remind her that you want nothing to do with that, but you’re still her friend if she wants to go to a movie or dinner. From your side, reduce the personal information you provide her and begin exploring other friendships. It’s like recognizing that your close friend is a drug/alcohol abuser and you inform him/her that all contacts with them will not be related to drugs or alcohol. If they want to chat, it will be without the presence of drugs/alcohol.

At another level, your close friend has activated many Emotional Memories (see article on this website) you have of your father and his behavior, as well as his new-yet-brief bride. When Emotional Memories are active, you will be reliving the hurt you experienced during the divorce of your parents all over again. The Emotional Memory article may help manage those memories.

From a clinical standpoint — who are these people to report tremendous love for us, yet have never met us? In the situations you describe, they are Personality Disorders, individuals with long-standing personality characteristics that include self-dramatizing, shallow emotions, exaggerated emotional display, and behavioral theatrics. I’ve described their pattern in a new article called Personality Disorders: The Controllers, Abusers, Manipulators, and Users in Relationships. As a normal, healthy individual, their behavior and self-justifications are very difficult to understand. As these behaviors are part of their personality, it’s self-protective to reduce their personal credit rating and keep them at a safe distance.