Dear Roe,
A close friend has been involved with a married man for two years. I was deeply uncomfortable with it from the start – my sister’s marriage ended due to infidelity, so I know the damage it can cause. But I tried to support my friend, hoping this was a rare, genuine connection and that he would leave his wife respectfully. Two years on, nothing has changed. He always has reasons to delay. My friend no longer discusses it and avoids deeper conversations altogether. Our once-close friendship now feels distant and superficial. Some mutual friends know; others don’t. The secrecy and tension are exhausting. I’m getting married this year, and as I addressed her invitation – including a plus-one I know won’t be used – it really struck me how much this situation has isolated her. It made me feel both sad and frustrated: I want her there, but I also can’t ignore the emotional distance that’s opened up between us. I feel torn. I miss our friendship, but I’m also struggling with my own values. Am I enabling something I believe is wrong? Can I be a good friend while feeling increasingly judgmental? Saying anything might destroy the friendship, but staying silent feels dishonest. I don’t know what’s fair – to her, to myself, or even to the wife who has no idea. How do I navigate this?
Navigating a situation like this, especially when it intertwines love, loyalty, personal values and long-held friendship, is one of the more painful and complex emotional crossroads we can encounter. Your heartache is understandable, not just because you’re watching someone you care about shrink themselves for a relationship that brings them more secrecy than joy, but also because your own inner compass is being stretched between empathy and integrity.
You are grieving a friendship that once thrived in openness and trust, and now exists behind a veil of avoidance, half-truths and unspoken things. You’re allowed to want more, and to want to do more. Contrary to some current popular beliefs, being a good friend does not mean unconditional support for everything a person does, or silently watching someone self-destruct, or endorsing choices that go against your deepest values. Sometimes being a good friend is telling someone that you value them so much that you need to ask, “With love, what the hell are you doing?”
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I know you’re scared to speak honestly to her, particularly because she has already pulled away. But remember that it’s unlikely she has gone silent out of apathy for you, but due to shame. She probably fears what you’ll say and the mirror you’ll hold up to her. But friendship can’t thrive in silence. You’re right to name what this silence has started to cost you, and her, too.
Ask for a conversation. A real one, not performative or polite, where you both show up with humility and courage, assuming each other’s good intentions, and willing, as best you can, not to be defensive but to truly listen. You can’t control how she’ll receive honesty, but you can offer it with care. When you speak to her, begin with love. Tell her that you miss her. That you’ve noticed the distance, that you feel it, and that it hurts not because you’re judging her from some high horse, but because she matters to you and you feel like you’re losing her in slow motion. Tell her that talking honestly about this has felt dangerous, like you’re risking your friendship – but that you believe your friendship deserves that risk.
Tell her you’re worried about her. About the life she’s been living, hidden and small, about the way her relationship seems defined by loneliness and isolation, about the way it has slowly eroded her friendships, her openness, even the possibility of showing up in your life fully, like at your wedding, where she cannot even bring the person she’s in love with. Tell her gently, but honestly, that it saddens you to see her world shrink this way.
And if it feels right, you can tell her that you struggle with the fact that there’s another woman, a wife, who has no idea her life is being altered behind her back, and that because you care about all women, that feels hard to carry. You could tell her that if the roles were reversed, if she were the one married and being lied to, you know you would be outraged on her behalf. Tell her that as you prepare to get married, you would hope she would be outraged and devastated for you if you were ever betrayed in your relationship. Tell her that part of what’s painful here is realising that the same sense of care and outrage seems absent when it comes to another woman. Say this without blame, but with the quiet honesty of someone who still believes their friend can rise into something truer and stronger than this.
You can express compassion for how difficult it must be to love someone who is already in a relationship; you can tell her you empathise with what she must have gone through the past two years being treated like a secret by the man she loves and that fearing judgment on top of that must feel hard. You can empathise with her and be generous – but you can also treat her like an adult who is capable of understanding that there are consequences to her actions, and that when she has an affair, that is going to create a big value divide between her and a lot of people. It’s then her decision to stay with this man or to choose something different.
She may need to walk through this entire chapter alone, for as long as it takes, before the lesson settles deep in her bones
Invite her to ask herself some real questions – not rhetorical, not angry, but sincere. Is this enough? What does she want love to look like in her life? What kind of friendships does she want? Ask her if this man, not in his promises but in his actual actions, is helping her live the kind of life she wants. Ask her how long she’s willing to keep sacrificing her joy, her openness, her community, for a love that keeps her hidden, and promises of a hypothetical future that never seems to arrive.
You can, if it’s true for you, end by telling her that while you don’t understand her choices right now, you do still love her, and that if she ever chooses to walk away from this relationship, whether tomorrow or a year from now, you’ll be right there, without judgment, with a bouquet of roses and arms wide open, ready to remind her of her strength and her worth.
But also remind yourself: she is an adult. She may need to walk through this entire chapter alone, for as long as it takes, before the lesson settles deep in her bones. One day she will hopefully realise that she both deserves better and needs to do better, and she will walk away – and you want that moment to be completely hers, so that she feels more wise and empowered, so that she can believe that she saved herself, so that she can truly absorb the lesson and integrate it into her life. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is not rescue, not condemn, but to speak our truth, set our boundaries, and let the other person choose their path, knowing we’ll be there with grace, not shame, if and when they return to themselves.
Speak to her. Speak with love, with honesty, with hope. Then, allow her the dignity of choosing what kind of life she wants to live, knowing that you chose to be honest in yours. Good luck.
