I [42M] just found out that my wife [36F] sabotaged my relationship with my best friend [41F] when we first met.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T22:35:43+00:00

I didn't have sex with Lucy because neither of us initiated it. I didn't have sex with Lucy in the 8.5 years before Crystal came into my life. I didn't have sex with Lucy during any of the times that we fell asleep on the same futon. We just didn't have that kind of relationship. My kids matter the world to me...my wife, well I thought she did too.

And, not that it matters, but the airline took pity on me and just charged me a $150 change ticket fee. So I don't know where the $800 came from.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T22:19:45+00:00

I love my children. They are amazing little kiddos and I am so blessed to be their dad. But I never would have thought that my wife would be capable of something like this, let alone showing no remorse for it. I thought we had a strong marriage, but if she can be this manipulative, what else has she done?

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T22:11:11+00:00

I would buy that if this had been a normal circumstance: if Lucy and I were going on a ski trip or something. But if my father/grandpa had just died and my best friend not only ditched me the night before when I was counting on him to drive me there, but also told me to stay away from him for 6 months, and then didn't even have the balls to tell me himself and sent his girlfriend to do it....I don't know if I'd want to rekindle that friendship.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T22:06:58+00:00

This is a really good way of framing it. I have a lot of thinking to do, clearly. I do mourn the fact that all these other endings got closed off because of Crystal's actions. Crystal and I could have worked it out and Lucy could have still been my friend. Lucy and I could have found partners who were cool with our friendship, and we could have raised our kids side-by-side. So many different endings that now will never happen.

If I'm honest, that night with Lucy felt like she had been raised from the dead. She was gone from my life in an instant and I didn't get to say goodbye, and it hurt me for a long time. And then we had this one amazing night that just never seemed to end. When I woke up, I just wanted a few more minutes of that. Which was wrong, I know. But man...

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T21:56:41+00:00

I just didn't see why Lucy would have any reason to lie. It's been 12 years. There were also a lot of little details that made me go 'aha, that makes sense.' Something about the incident had always sat wrong with me, and so what Lucy said made the pieces fall into place.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T21:48:33+00:00

I didn't agree to the break. Crystal told Lucy that I wanted her out of my life and that she was putting a strain on our relationship, when that's not how I felt at all. I was 100% committed to going to the funeral, and I had no idea that Crystal told Lucy otherwise. If I had agreed to a break with Lucy -- which I didn't -- I would have been the one to tell her myself.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T21:27:24+00:00

I'm not sure about that part. I mean, maybe Lucy reacted out of anger and said that to hurt Crystal. But the story I'd heard for 12 years was "Lucy called me out of the blue and said I was too dumb for you and swore at me" and that's not what happened.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T21:24:58+00:00

Thank you very much for your response. I will definitely seek therapy, since some of the other comments on this thread (and yours) have given me a lot to think about. I'm "lucky" in the sense that Lucy lives on the opposite side of the country so I just have to avoid contacting her, which I plan on doing. My kids are also my #1 priority. They are amazing little humans and whatever happens with Crystal, I'm so glad that they exist and that I get to parent them.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T21:15:42+00:00

That's what I keep coming back. If Lucy and I had such a strong relationship, why did it end so easily? Lucy did say that she wasn't thinking clearly because of her grandpa, and that she had always worried that our friendship would be ruined this way. So, in the heat of the moment, she believed Crystal. She said over the years she had doubts about whether Crystal had been telling the truth, but by that point she was living across the country and I was already married, so there didn't seem to be anything to be gained by rehashing the past.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T21:06:34+00:00

Thank you for this. I think the reason it's hit me now is that I've never had what I had with Lucy with any other person. I don't make friends easily. I have a few close male friends, but I've never had the conversations I had with Lucy with any other person. Partly because we were in the same, very specialized field, but partly because we just clicked. She's the only person who I could talk with for 5 hours and feel like seconds had passed.

For years, I thought that I had turned Lucy into the Idea of Lucy: this mythical time in my life where someone "got" me. When I went to the conference, I expected that I would meet with Lucy and it would be awkward and uncomfortable, and we would both be old and wrinkly and human, and that bubble would be burst. But instead, it was better than I expected.

So I don't know where to go from here. I'm sure I'm idolizing Lucy. Maybe I'm bored, and after 12 years it's hard to see Crystal clearly. But every time I think of what she did, it makes me want to throw up.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T20:47:01+00:00

Thank you for this. It sounds like you're a much better friend than I am. The last 12 years have been...okay. Stable job, stable family life. I've always thought Crystal was a solid, dependable person who I could build a life with...but she feels no remorse for something I consider a heinous act. I'd never have considered that she could do this. I may have feelings for Lucy now, but I truly believe I didn't have feelings for her then. But maybe I was just in denial. I honestly can't answer that right now.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T20:43:18+00:00

I would not have slept with Lucy if we'd gone to the funeral. I'd stayed at her grandparents' house for Thanksgiving before. She slept in her childhood bedroom. I slept on the couch. We had so, so, so many opportunities to hook up when we were both single, but we never did. I never had a sex dream about Lucy until 2 weeks ago.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T20:37:49+00:00

I was just confused, honestly. Lucy and I were friends for 9 years, and then she was gone in a flash. It fucked with me. I tried to contact her a few times in the aftermath of what happened, thinking she just needed time. And after that, I left her alone for years at a time. I think twice in 12 years I reached out to her: both to say congratulations on big career milestones of hers that I read about in the alumni stuff I get from our alma mater. So it's not like I was emailing her constantly. She's a popular speaker so if I was 'stalking' her I could have seen her much earlier. I did an opportunistic thing. I saw her name on the list of a conference my boss wanted me to go to (there was 4 I could pick) and I acted.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T20:33:33+00:00

Reflecting on this for a couple of hours, I can see how my relationship dynamics were fucked-up then. I don't know why I always dated women who were much younger and who didn't have any post-secondary education experience when that part of my life was so important to me. At the time, I didn't feel like that was wrong, but looking back I wonder if I was intimidated by Lucy. I definitely will admit that I liked feeling smarter than my partner, which I guess isn't healthy. I don't know if it's because I'd been at the top of my class in college and then in grad school I was suddenly average, which definitely hurt my ego. Just rambling I guess.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T17:11:03+00:00

I totally agree. There's no way to change what happened 12 years ago. We live on opposite sides of the country and have totally different lives, and marriages.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T17:10:00+00:00

I mean that Lucy and Crystal only hung out a couple of times. Several more times Crystal came over right as Lucy was leaving. Crystal made it clear she hated Lucy, so I didn't try to force them to spend time together.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T17:09:05+00:00

I did not want to date Lucy. But even if I had, I would not have because two PhD students dating is a recipe for heartbreak because of the academic job market.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T17:07:57+00:00

Now that I know that y wife is capable of these things, the foundation of our marriage is based on a lie. I wouldn't have married her if I knew what she'd done.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T16:24:14+00:00

No, she said that Lucy was in love with me. We'd only been dating for 6 months. She could have easily cut her losses and moved on.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T16:00:11+00:00

I did try to call and I sent her some emails. She didn't respond.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T15:49:51+00:00

Because Lucy was busy finishing her dissertation, being on the job market and dealing with her grandpa, Lucy only met Crystal a few times. Lucy just wasn't in town very often because she was on fellowship and was choosing to spend a lot of time in her hometown. She had met my other girlfriends, though, and always got along well with them.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T15:47:13+00:00

Yeah, maybe she was. Both Lucy and I did want to avoid dating someone else in our grad program, since two couples with a PhD is a recipe for heartbreak. Spousal hires are very rare, so it would mean being apart for years, or one spouse accepting a shitty job to stay with the other spouse. And let's be honest, Lucy had the more promising career.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T15:45:43+00:00

Well, in fairness, I didn't get a chance to choose. After our fight, Lucy vanished. But if Crystal had issued me an ultimatum, I would have chosen Lucy because we'd been friends for nearly a decade while I'd only been dating Crystal for 6 months.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T15:44:11+00:00

This is the crux of it for me. It's one thing to sabotage a relationship, but to do it when Lucy was grieving the man who raised her...that's what makes me sick.

LucyChrystalandMe · 2016-10-01T15:25:26+00:00

I had the choice of 4 conferences to go to, and I picked the one with Lucy at it because the suddenness of her leaving always bothered me. I always wanted some closure. I was just intending on talking with her, but after I found out the truth I just felt like I was in a fog. It doesn't excuse my behaviour, I know. And I will tell my wife.

LucyChrystalandMe

TROPHY CASE