BM advice (sigh)

If im being honest, if it was me I wouldn't feel as hurt. Friendships are one thing but relationships are another. No one tells their best friends every single thing about their relationships. I don't blame her for not telling you. Especially as you're friends with her partner!! I can see it from her point of view. I think disowning her as a friend & not wanting her to be a bridesmaid is a little harsh. Although i can understand why your H2B may not want to be friends with her as her partner was his friend before she was.

Oh, I don't want to end our friendship at all - that's why I'm not sure whether to bring it up. I also understand her reticence to tell me - I just don't think she should have been looking to us for advice when we didn't know the whole picture. It feels very dishonest, which isn't something you want a BM to be.

I think if you dont want to end your friendship i definetly wouldn't take the bridesmaid role from her. That may end the friendship! However if your h2b is dead againt it, which i can understand, maybe you don't have a choice. Okay she was dishonest about this one thing but she was in a sticky situation. If she has never given you any reason before to not trust her & you've had a great friendship i would't hold it againt her & would move on. Imagine if you were in her position, would you have told her??

A confused time in her life it sounds like, and if she was having feelings for her ex as well as a spark with someone new, embarrassment may have played a part in keeping him a secret. Although you trusted her to tell you everything, what she's hidden doesn't sound particularly treacherous.

There are things I don't speak to my best friend about. And I wouldn't be surprised if there are interesting facts about her that she's not told me. Not to keep secrets, but just to keep each other's respect. After all, no one's an angel, and you don't want to shout about something that could possibly be considered as cheating.

I agree with the other poster though - it's your husband's friend too, so he'll have to have some say in it, but I'd try to continue to be as understanding as you once were for her.

Mrs House

This is a tough one. Your MOH is obviously upset about the split from her new boyfriend but she has put you and your OH in a tricky situation. I think you and your OH have done your best to be good friends to her however your MOH has acted somewhat selfishly. I believe in honesty and trust in friendships so I can understand why you feel somewhat betrayed. If I was in your shoes, I think I would broach the subject and get these things out in the open otherwise it could fester and destroy the friendship.

Removing the role of MOH doesnt necessarily mean the end of the friendship. I think you are being very considerate not to hurt your MOH feeling but you have to remember your OH and you have been hurt too by this drama. It is your wedding day and you both have to be happy and comfortable on the day.

Who knows, you may feel differently once you have had a chance to talk about it.

HTH.

I don't really see the connection between her private life & her role in the wedding,but i could be being dense. Does the fact that she "cheated" oher bf affect how good a BM/MoH she will be. Has she been supportive etc otherwise. At the end of the day it sounds like she made a mistake.

I think you are both understandably miffed that she wasn't completely upfront as it does seem a bit odd thst she would ask your advice but not give the full picture but peole do try to show themselves in the best light. I suppose the question is do you still trust her? I think you may risk losing the friendship if you cut her out of the wedding over an incident that actually has nothing to do with you or your partner.

Thanks AK, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think i'm upset that I feel like i can't be open with her about how her actions have upset us, because of her role in the wedding. It heightens everything and I worry that she won't understand that it's not her actions in seeing a new guy that we're upset by, but by her dishonesty in seeking our "approval" and advice without clueing us in to the whole picture. But I totally understand everyone else's point that it is, after all, her private life and she had good reasons for keeping it from us. i think I need to speak to h2b about whether he will seriously object to her continued presence in the wedding party, and take it from there. I do want to talk to her about it, separate from the wedding party issue, but I think I need to wait until she recovers from the split a bit - she's very emotional at the moment and that won't help any discussion we try to have.

Personally, I don't think this needs to affect her role re the wedding. However, I wouldn't want her to stay at my house again as I feel that if she's been so dishonest there may be other things she would cover up.

This. I'm not sure I understand how you are upset enough to consider that you don't want her as a BM but you will continue to be her friend? Its not like you are marrying HER. BM is one day but you will continue to have her around for the rest of your life? Either you want to continue being her friend or you don't. If you don't then she should no longer be a BM.

I can also completely see her side given how close you were to her ex. She obviously was extremely confused about her relationship with her ex and how she felt about him. If you were honest to yourself - if she had told you there was someone else at the time - would you have told her ex? Would you have told your OH? How would you have felt if you didn't tell them - uncomfortable, deceitful? How would your OH have felt if he knew - would he have felt obliged to tell her ex?

By telling you at the time she would have put you in an awful position and effectively asked you to chose sides. If you knew and didn't say anything and her ex or your OH found out later that you knew then that friendship may be over and your OH would be annoyed at you. If you knew and told her ex then you would have ensured there was no chance of a reconciliation at a point when there was still a chance it might work out. Would you really want to have been in that position? Would your OH really want to be in a position of knowing something he wasn't telling his friend? Would either of you have wanted the power to end the relationship between them for good?

You have to consider the position as a whole and be honest as to whether she could have trusted you at the time with such a secret. In many ways she has been a better friend by considering the impact of telling you not just unburdening herself.

I would be annoyed at her behaviour too, cheating on someone for two years is pretty low and she managed to deceive you and your oh at the same time whilst constantly going to you for support. I would seriously be questioning your friendship with her. Tell her how you feel, if she's generally sorry and you can forgive her then she should continue to be your MOH if not then you'll have to tell her why you and your OH aren't happy for her to be part of the wedding party and risk loosing the friendship.

Not to be rude but why do you think its any of your business... its like the proverb 'not my circus, not my monkeys' it is and should be non of your business what she does in the most private parts of her life not matter how immoral you personally find it

+ it doesn't mean she actually did anything wrong - I also had an on/off thing with 3 men for over 3 years when I was a teenager (ah, crazy teenage love lol) but I was NEVER in more than 1 relationship at a time...

example:

1. with guy A for january/febuary
2. break up
3. get with guy B in april/may/june
4. break up
5. back with guy A in August
6. break up
7. get with guy C december/january/febuary/march
8. break up
9. guy B june/july

so on.... better than dating a dozen strangers and I genuinely cared about all 3 (still friends with 2 of them)

I just had a habit of getting back together with ex's rather than going out drinking and picking up randomers like most the girls my age (better the devil you know afterall) all 3 of them where players (hense the on/off-ness) but who I was with or my friends personal options on them mattered not the tiniest bit as its not their life to have any say in and they where never part of the private moments or pillowtalk

the fact that your considering dumping someone as a bm/friend over something that is absolutely non of your business to begin with is quite sad and I hope your friends never turn on you based on righteousness and unfair judgements

Thanks for the replies everyone. JJCKB, did you actually read my post? I am not making any moral judgements at all, and I certainly don't want to "dump" her as a friend. Whether or not she was seeing both men at the same time doesn't enter into it for me - that's something for her and her ex to work through and no-one else. The BM issue is because I feel uncomfortable having a BM who my h2b is upset with. As I explained, I'm hurt because she consistently came to us for support and advice without giving us the full picture of what she was asking for advice about - which makes us chumps. If she didn't want us to know anything about her private life, then she shouldn't have kept bringing it up. But I take others' points that she probably felt like she was in a catch-22 situation, and maybe I am taking it to heart too much. Just feels like everyone else knew what was going on, except for the 2 people who kept picking her up off the floor, which isn't a nice feeling.

I disagree I couldn't be friends with someone who continually lied, deceived and hurt others. If it was just a one off mistake that's different.

If you want to continue the friendship I wouldn't take away her role as BM. I think that would be the end of your relationship with her.

I get that you're disappointed with her for wanting your advice and not telling you the full story. She would have been in a difficult position (entirely of her own making mind you), so that probably explains why she didn't.

Maybe sit her down and explain how disappointed you are and also that this has put you in a difficult situation with her ex. Does he know about this other guy? do you or OH feel you need to tell him?

I hope it sorts itself out.

She asked for help on the relationship that you were best placed to advise on. It doesn't mean she was under any obligation to reveal every aspect of her life to you and tbh it's none of your business. You ARE making a judgement by calling her dishonest. All she has done is live her life and not tell you every detail. I think you are being really dramatic. Not everything is about you/your wedding.

Also I don't know why you want her as BM as it sounds like you don't actually like her very much.

She didn't 'lie' or 'deceive' though she just kept parts of her privet life privet which is completely different and her right, ever thought she asked for advice about her ex because OP personally knew him and didn't ask about the other guy because the OP didn't and would obviously be biased to their friend...

do you honestly expect everyone you know to give you minute by minute updates of their relationships or accuse them of lying?

also whose to say anyone actually involved in this is hurt in anyway by what she did except to OP is is upset that her friend didn't tell her everything about her privet life... the guys may know or may not care or maybe hurt for the wrong reasons anyway, ends of relationships arent black and white

id also be awfully careful if anyone is thinking of going to the ex's, they may very well know already but are likely to see it as interfering and stick your nose in their business - if people interfere in my life an stir crap that's non of their business the I do drop them as friends... no one needs more drama in their life

Well said foo

None of us know what the friend told OP in their conversations. Perhaps she was being dishonest. That's for the OP to decide and I guess we'll have to go along with what she says.

I'm sure a few of us know people who have fallen out with friends because they were not told by their friend that they were being cheated on and felt betrayed.

Whether this is a case of cheating and whether the ex of OP's friend would react like that or not is something OP needs to decide.

Either way it's not as cut and dry as you're making out. The friend may have put OP in a bit of a sticky situation with her OH and with the ex who is OP's friend. As soon as she told OP she made it OP's business and OP has every right to think about how this affects her life.

Again, thanks to everyone for their replies. I'm not going to defend my friendship or how I feel, because it isn't going to change. I clearly stated in my first post that I was unsure how to proceed as I felt I might be overreacting, and I don't want to jeopardise my friendship. My main concern has been that I don't want to include someone at my wedding my h2b objects to. I asked whether I should act on those feelings, and the clear consensus here has been that I shouldn't, in regards to her position as BM. In terms of letting her know that I am hurt - that I will do at some point, because I am positive that if the roles were reversed, she would be hurt too. We are both highly emotional people and have high expectations of each other as friends - and when you are that close to someone, it is easier to be hurt by something that another friend may not be bothered by at all. And giving someone one side of a story and passing it off as the truth IS dishonest, although I would never classify it as "lying".

So, thanks for all your input, but those of you passing judgement, I can totally do without that. I never said I was going to speak to her ex, and I've repeatedly said that her actions in regards to the relationships are her own private matter, which I am not passing judgement on.

Good luck, I hope it sorts itself out.