About a year ago, my wife confessed that she gave a guy oral sex on a night out. We have looser boundaries than most couples, but this clearly crossed them. There’s a small chance her drink was spiked, but we don’t know for sure.
We went to marriage therapy, and I decided to stay for the sake of our family. I don’t feel like I can forgive it, though, because that would make it feel like it was okay.
Last night, she came home from a night out and told me that the same guy was there and that she spoke to him, even though we had agreed she wouldn’t. To her credit, she told me right away. Our mutual friend was there and apparently kept an eye on things the whole time.
When we’ve been out together, we’ve run into him before, and it’s always triggering and uncomfortable for me.
Now she wants to introduce me to him so things “aren’t so awkward.”
My gut reaction is anger. But part of me wonders if meeting him might give me some kind of closure. At the same time, I’m worried it could just reopen everything.
I don’t know what to do. Should I meet him or not?
No. Don’t meet him.
You’re trying to solve a wound in your marriage by involving the guy who helped create it. That’s backwards.
Closure is not going to come from shaking hands with him. It’s going to come from what happens between you and your wife. Right now, that’s still shaky.
Let’s call it what it is.
She crossed a boundary. Then she agreed not to engage with him again. Then she did it anyway.
Yes, she told you. That matters. But she still broke the agreement.
So the issue isn’t that things feel awkward socially. The issue is that trust is still not rebuilt.
Meeting him doesn’t rebuild trust. It distracts from the real problem.
And if you’re honest, you don’t actually want to meet him for peace. You want to size him up, maybe reclaim some control, maybe prove something to yourself. That won’t heal you. It’ll just stir everything up again.
Your job is not to make social situations less awkward.
Your job is to decide what you need in order to feel safe and respected in your own marriage.
If that means she leaves places when he shows up, then that’s the boundary.
If that means no contact at all, then that’s the boundary.
If that means revisiting therapy because this clearly isn’t settled, then do that.
But don’t let this turn into managing his presence in your life. He shouldn’t have a place in it at all.
You don’t need closure from him.
You need consistency, honesty, and changed behavior from her.
Until that’s solid, everything else is noise.