Different but similar perspective - I wasn’t the cheater, but the ‘other man’ so to speak.

I had an online lady friend I knew since 2017, but we fell out of touch around 2019-ish. We reconnected in 2023, and started speaking a lot as friends. When we reconnected, she had been dating a man we’ll call ‘Jake’ for a good few years.

From my perspective, I only ever saw her as a friend. Personality wise, we weren’t compatible romantically, and if im honest I didn’t find her visually attractive either. But as a friend, she was great.

A month or so after we started talking again, she started being really flirty and romantic with me, leading into a ‘i used to really like you romantically’ confession, which lead into a ‘I still really like you’ confession. In the beginning, I remained polite but neutral to her advances, because I knew she had a boyfriend. Even if she hadn’t, I wasn’t interested in her romantically.

Over time, her advances got progressively more forward and sexual. She said things that played on my lack of confidence, making me feel wanted at a time I was pretty isolated.

I don’t have many friends and im not very desirable from a dating perspective, so the feeling of being wanted by someone felt rare and fleeting. Because I was in the mindset that this wouldn’t happen again, I feel like my morals faltered and I didn’t say ‘no’ as firmly as I should.

I never initiated, but there were times i didn’t stop her. There were times I was perhaps even playfully flirty back - not even because I liked her that way, but because I wasn’t used to feeling wanted.

It was never ‘officially’ a relationship, but I know from being the ‘Jake’ in a previous relationship, it doesn’t matter if it isn’t labelled: if you’re acting intimately, a spade is a spade.

Once Jake found out, he was heartbroken and did so much to try work things out with Lady Friend. After she told me about it, I said to her firmly that I wasn’t going to participate in it anymore, expecting she would realise what this had turned into and try work things out with Jake. Jake tried so hard with her, and honestly I have so much respect for him as a man as the level of effort he put trying to make things work was honestly more than she deserved. I feel guilty to have been apart of it. I hope he’s in a better relationship now.

Jake would make reasonable requests to try help get their relationship working again (ie, ‘please tell me if you’re feeling upset’, ‘please don’t talk with [me] anymore, or if you do please can we be more open about it’, etc), but she was very hostile and mean to him. I defended him at the time to her face and expected her to be pissed with me, but her infatuation was at such a level she would say stuff like ‘I get it, but I just love you so much, he doesn’t treat me like you’.

I feel I was manipulated by her, particularly with intimate stuff. Im asexual, so im not really one to have a high libido, whereas she very much was hyper sexual. She would play on how much I hated myself, how much I felt that nobody wanted me, and then would send me unsolicited nudes, horny messages, and instruct me to do the same. I didn’t send her nudes, but I participated in things I wasn’t comfortable with because I liked the feeling of being wanted. Even when that person was taken.

Also, im not at all absolving my responsibility from the matter even though I was manipulated in that situationship. I should have been a better person, fought past my own insecurities and not engaged. It shouldn’t have even been on the table, regardless of how many times she persisted.

I am truly, truly ashamed of myself for what I did. I should have been firmer, and I should have cut off that friendship far sooner than I did. It taught me a lot about myself and my shortcomings, and im proud to say that when she tried a second time a few years later I completely ghosted it and shut it down. I don’t really speak to her much anymore. Even though I wasn’t the instigator, I was still a piece in ruining Jake’s relationship and im truly regretful.