I FEEL GUILTY KEEPING HER AFFAIR A SECRET

A good friend of mine who is in her 40s has just told me that she is having an affair. I want to be supportive and I know that her 11-year marriage has its problems, but I very much like her husband and I am not OK with what she is doing. I feel she has offloaded her guilty secret on to me and I don’t know how to react. Now whenever I see her I feel tense and uncomfortable. She has also asked me not to

Qtell my own husband, who is a friend of her partner.

To be made a reluctant keeper of secrets must feel very difficult. Of course, affairs don’t usually happen in happy marriages but they cause immense pain if discovered. There may be more going on in your friend’s relationship that she hasn’t told you, so try to suspend judgment and talk to her. Encourage her to

Alook for a better way to sort out the problems in her marriage. Explain gently how affairs rarely end well and ask if she has thought about the long term. Even if her husband doesn’t know or suspect, the affair will still weaken her marriage further because her emotional energy will be focused on the other man and not on her husband. Sadly, I suspect she won’t listen but I hope she will. As for her offloading her secret, you could explain how awkward it makes you feel, but it might be better to keep lines of communication open. While it is unreasonable to ask you not to tell your partner, he would almost certainly tell her husband. I do understand that loyalty, but it might not actually be in the latter’s best interests. Especially if the wife were to end the affair and her husband never knew. So think carefully about this.