This is going to be long, but I'm turning to you guys for some guidance/assurance/shoulder to cry on. 

It's some dirty drama and gossip, worthy of cheesy day time TV, and it sorta landed in my lap today.  No, it's not about me, my life is blessedly drama free, excluding all this, I guess.

Backstory:  I've been friends with this woman Harriet and her family for years.  They live around the corner.  Her kids play with my son, we've been very close, she's always been just a great chick friend, to me.  She's been married for 12 years to John, and I've known her for most of her marriage.  Thing is, she's been unfaithful to her husband since day one, seriously 12 years of marriage, 12 years of screwing around.  It's been sort of a moral burden on me, because I don't approve one bit, never have.  She's always got all this drama, and I'm always like "you gotta stop effing around, and focus on your FAMILY, not your own desires.  Raise your kids, focus on mending your marriage, and gain some self respect."  That's been pretty much my message all the way through.  It's like talking to a potted plant.

Her husband is a good family man, works two jobs, 12-16 hours a day, supports them, but he has a drinking problem.  He's a kind man, small British dude, not a violent drunk, but the kind of drunk that doesn't come home from work and dissapears for two days.  Anyway, they got married because he was on a work visa here from the UK, and he was due to get sent back, so after dating for a few months, they got married so he could stay here.

So, he drinks, she's unfaithful, and they both lie through their teeth, to the kids, trying to keep up "normal" appearances.  It's been going on like this for as long as I've known them.



Here's where we are today...

A year ago, almost exactly, their house burned down.  They've been living in a rental, trying to rebuild, and get a fresh start on things, on life, on everything.   This house is really something, now, that they've rebuilt, it's huge, twice the size of the one that burned. Lots of stress, blood, sweat, tears, went into building this (gorgeous) house.  7 months ago, she got into a pretty heavy relationship with a dude named Arvin.  I really tried talking her out of this one, what with the "fresh start" and all.  We haven't seen much of each other, though, because I'm drawing away, I cannot deal with her drama, and crap.

Today, her husband shows up on my porch, in tears.  I gotta go to her house, he has to go to work, can't take anymore time off, and she's talking suicide.  He wanted me to go sit there with her, make sure she didn't drive anywhere, or do anything rash.  Now, she's clinically depressed, so this isn't something I make light of, I ran down the street to the new house.  She's sitting on the floor in one of the guest rooms with  a six pack, crying her eyes out.  Thank God her kids are vacationing at her sister's house this month, that's all I have to say.

Long story short (well, abbreviated...):  John caught her sending lovey emails to Arvin, then turned around and slept with some bar slag. Harriet kicked him out of the house, but then she felt bad, and paid for a room for him at a motel.   She calls him when he's at the motel to try to talk things over (it's always like this, she kicks him out, he stays in a motel, they make up, wash rinse repeat).  Well THIS time, she goes there, and finds him in the sack with the skank from the bar...  She beat the everlovin CRAP out of both of them.  She broke the girl's nose by smashing her head against a table.  Serious stuff.  THEN, she went home, got a knife, and went back to the place to slash his tires.  Only he'd left, and the skank was on the phone with the cops.  So, what does Harriet do?  Threaten to drive through the window, threatened the girl with the knife...and got arrested!  Two felony counts of aggrivated assault, and assault with a deadly weapon, or something.  All I know is now she's awaiting a court date, and she lost her realtor's license. 

When we were alone together, she was saying how bad she felt about all this, her being unfaithful, but still flipping out and controlling him the way she does, and how she's such a bad person because she gets off on making him squirm.  I was stunned, that she was admitting all this to me, but I thought it was real progress. It was like the veils parted briefly, and she owned up to being a, well, in the interest of this board I'm gonna say "jerk" but I think you all know what I'm thinking...

I'm sitting there, with her, holding her hand, drinking a beer with her, listening to all this chaos, when her boyfriend shows up...ugh. Everything changes. She's all over him, like "ooh, he's my saaaavior, he treats me like a queeeeeen".  He seems like a nice enough dude (well, nice for a sleazo that's sleeping with a married woman, I guess) and like he genuinely cares for her. I was feeling all third wheely, so I gracously took off back home.  I get as far as the corner, and she goes flying up the street, yelling "HE WON'T BRING ME MORE BOOZE, I'M GOING TO KELLER'S" which is a local liquor store, about 9 blocks away.  I put both hands in her car, and gripped her seatbelt and inner door, and did not let go. I'm like "slide over, and let me drive, at least, you're not going anywhere."  We were arguing, when Arvin sped around the corner and took off, she musta pissed him off, too.  I talk her out of driving, and into pulling into my driveway, which was about 20 feet away.  When she came in, I handed her a beer, and took her keys. 

Arvin eventually showed up at MY house, they made up, and were hanging out on my porch.  John calls me, to see how she's doing, says he's coming back home.  She's fine, at this point, happy as hell, still drunk as anything, I told him that part of the truth, at least.  Well, he was already enroute back to the neighborhood so they could try to talk things over. She's sucking face with her boyfriend in the rocking chair on my porch.  I told her and boytoy to scram and took her truck back home.  I called John and told him that I took her home and she's sleeping it off, then I talked him out of going directly home, told him she was angry, drunk, and irrational, and not in any mood to talk.  They dissapear, then John shows up like an hour later, because he needed somewhere to go while he waited for her to sober up.  He's crying to me, telling me how heartbroken he was to see these emails, (he has no idea of anything else, no clue that the guy is still in the picture), it's just the email that hurt him and he reacted out of spite.  He's like weeping to me, he's so regretful, he ruined his life by cheating on her, and how much she's done for him in 12 years, and how he's such a jerk for having a two night stand with some skank.  I'm just about in tears, because SHE'S been screwing around on HIM since day one!  Right this minute in fact!  I still covered for her, but I was gently telling him that maybe it was indeed over, maybe this is what they both needed, maybe he should really earnestly look for his own place, etc. 

Harried and Arvin swung by about a half hour ago, to pick up her keys, and go home for the night.  She's still pretty drunk, and has also taken a few Xanax on top of things, now. She was all laughing and being nasty about it all.  John's been calling her every 5 minutes since he discovered that she wasn't really home, and she's all like "eff you, you don't care where I am, you don't know, go sleep with your whore" and many other colorful things.  She was in my driveway talking to me for a half hour, and he called 5 times, and she was scathingly nasty to him each time.  She had him on speaker, and he's like "do you need help getting home? Are you still drunk? I love you, where are you,  come home, I'm so worried."  She replies by calling him names and hanging up on him.  To me, she's like "you're the best, thank you for covering for me, you're the best friend ever" and her sleazo boyfriend is saying the same stuff. 



I hate lying, have always hated her infidelity and selfishness.  I sincerely hate it.  I can't even express how done I am with the lying.   I'm done covering for her, but I also don't want to the one to tell the guy she's unfaithful.  I feel physically and mentally filthy backing up her BS lies, but on the flip side, if John found out, it would destroy him.  I can't do that to the guy.  I'm having a very hard time playing dumb, though.

I already decided to talk to her tomorrow, seriously, about everything. I drew away from the family for these reasons, and here it's back in spades.  I try to be a good supportive friend, I try to offer her stability, and a cool head, and I get her giggling evilly in my driveway with her boyfriend... I want to throw rocks at Arvin, and lock Harriet up in a mental ward for awhile.  John's no angel, either, but I'm really feeling for the guy here.  It's so messy and screwed up.

I hate involving myself, I hate being involved.  But they dragged me in. If you're still with me after this novel, help, please.  What do I say? What do I do? 

I'm with whtnyte here.  Anyone who's been playing these games for as long as she's been at it is unlikely to change.  And she's bringing the drama into your blessedly drama free life.  Don't enable her to be a drunken sleaze by remaining her friend despite all that you know.

I agree with you guys, I do. In fact, it's been roughly 7 months since we've hung out, because of the beginnings of this.  It was hard enough avoiding her when she was living out of town, but she's going to be my neighbor again, which is why I have to confront her, asap.

It is still *very* hard to turn John away, when he's crying on my doorstep, though.  He and I are friends, not close, or anything, but you know, when you hang out with a married couple for like 7 years everyone becomes friends.  Harriet, after tonight, I would just as soon avoid, and say those exact things that you mentioned Whtnyte.  Then there's our kids, who are very tight.

I think I am going to lay it all out, when I talk to her, one on one.  She has moments when she knows how God-awful and wrong she is, so maybe I can use that.  I -still- don't want to continue the friendship, I know I have to cut the whole mess out of my life, again, but I feel like I have to do it cleanly, and make sure she knows precisely how I feel.  

Thank you muchly for the hugs *weak smile*.  I'm pretty mentally drained by this, but it feels good to vent.

I bet he knows something was up, too.  Probably where his drinking problem stemmed from to begin with.  :/

I have no sympathy whatsoever for Harriet.  She's being selfish to her husband and her children.  If she wants to run around and play, she needs to make a clean cut. 

I think you should just wash your hands of all of it.  I sure don't think I would have covered for her.  I feel very sorry for the kids in this whole mess

I have to agree with knuckles. 

Although it's hard being caught between a rock and a hard place like this, I personally would want her to deal with what she's doing.  I would somehow let him know what she's been doing all these years.  Obviously she doesn't love him if, for the whole marriage even, she's been screwing around behind his back.  Although he loves her, it seems like the relationship is destructive for him, what with his drinking and all.  And she has kids during this whole mess?  Ugh.  Having affairs, popping pills, getting drunk all the time... she's not being much of a mother to them   

They both need SERIOUS help, and I think that starts with the truth.

I agree 100% on that! Who knows what bad lessons/behavior/language she might be passing on to her kids, knowingly or not. And you know how kids are, "monkey see, monkey do"

I'm not sure it's fair to penalize the kids (yours or theirs) for the parents' behavior.  But I would definitely be inclined to make sure the  hanging out is happening at our house and not theirs.  And those kids may need a safe place to hang if the stuff is hitting the fan at home and there's all this drama.

I find it hard to believe he's had no idea all these years, but maybe if it's always been that way, he couldn't tell the difference.  And if she has no guilt over the dalliances, he may not have noticed the lying.

If the kids are friends, I wouldn't want to end that, but I don't think I'd let my child go to their house.  It's just too volatile a situation.

Depending on the age of your kids, I'd really consider sitting them down and asking them if they have any questions about what's going on, and letting them know that you don't condone the behavior of the parents. 

Ditto on what Staci said.

Here's a question to ask yourself?

How can you let "friends" use you like this?