So, I (44F) was on an anniversary trip in September 2025 with my husband. We have had (what I thought was a magical marriage) when we got off the boat and I turned my phone back on. I received several messages from a person I didn’t know that was accusing my husband of having an affair with his wife (yep.. HE’S an A-Hole) I immediately confronted my husband with the text messages and the screenshots that were given to me as proof of the affair.

He admitted that he had had an affair for several months with a coworker. It was about a 4 Hour drive to our house so it was in pretty intense ride. While we were driving home I was pretty distraught and so I contacted my best friend. We will call her Daisy. I let her know what was going on and cried to her. I told her not to come right now. I am fairly private and prickly when I’m trying to process something awful or traumatic.

For context my husband is a military service member and last year his duty station was changed to about 600 miles from my friend and our home state. It came out later that my husband contacted my friend and asked her to come and even though I told her not to she came anyway. I was surprised to find out that I actually was glad she was there. She came for about a week and we spent most of that time trying to figure out what the heck happened and makes sense of some things. I was bedridden with grief for most of that time. Fast forward to the last night of Daisy being here we made plans to take a show with the kids and to get me out of the house. So, we bought tickets. Everybody was really excited to go to the show. A couple of hours before the show. She asked if just she and I go and have a drink. So, we went to a little place around the corner from my house and sat down and had drinks and appetizers. While we were there, I made a joke about getting on Tinder to get revenge for what he had done to me. She reminded me that I needed to stay true to my character and that doing anything outside of that wouldn’t be worth it (we are both therapists and I work as an independent contractor under the banner of her practice. I specialize in marriage and family therapy and trauma work and she’s a licensed social worker) I agreed that I shouldn’t do anything outside of my character and that it wouldn’t be worth it if I did.

When it came time to go pick up the kids to go to the show she asked if she could hang back and make a call to my husband to let him know that while he messed up really bad he’s not an evil man (This is a core tenent of our work and it isn’t strange or it wasn’t strange at the time for her to contact him to give him support because we were all friends. Their friendship was based on my friendship with her) I had just had the conversation that I needed to stay true to my character so I agreed and then I went to pick up the kids for the show. A few minutes later she contact me and told me that she had invited my husband to the restaurant to give him support. I immediately felt sick to my stomach, but couldn’t quite vocalize or verbalize why and as I’ve already said, I just had the conversation about staying true to my character and so I didn’t say anything. She said that we would meet up after the show and catch a drink. so, I went with the kids to the show. It was great. We had a nice time. They were all enthralled and when they left (my kids are all driving age) but when they left, I started back to meet up with Daisy. I sent texts and I made calls and she didn’t answer.

She finally responded “everything is fine honey. We’re having a nice conversation“ I didn’t respond to that text. Instead, I went for a drive. I sat in the parking lot of my gym. I cried. I listened to music and I just sort of tried to regulate myself before going home. By the time I made it back to the house my husband had already dropped her off and for whatever reason they thought that I wasn’t there because I was going to “do something stupid”. So, she got my oldest son to drive and they went looking for me. When I got home, I went straight to my room and closed the door. A little while later, someone knocked (I found out later it was Daisy) and I said “please go away” The next morning, mybest friend was gone without saying goodbye and she has not spoken to me since. A few days later, I got a notification that my access to the practice had been removed and I got a notice that my profile on the business webpage had also been taken down and I was replaced with another therapist. She and I had agreed and understood while she was here was that I needed to take some time off because it wouldn’t be ethical for me to be treating clients and families who were going through something that I was going through while I was so raw, but I never expected to leave the practice altogether.

So, I lost my job without reason or notice. I sent her a text message after finding out that she sent my husband a message saying that “he hadn’t done anything wrong by meeting with her and she hadn’t done anything wrong by trying to be a good friend. And that me “discarding” her in that way was a “soul level wound” She also told him that she “didn’t take off time from work and her children to be treated this way” The message I sent said that every response that I have had since I found out that my husband cheated was a trauma response and while I wouldn’t have that reaction, I understood that she might be hurt, and I explained to her that I felt abandoned by my best friend who was spending the last night here, comforting my “abuser”. I also reminded her that it was my HUSBAND that asked her to come, not me so, I can’t be made responsible for her choice to take off time from work or kids. She has never spoken to me since. She did not give me any notification or notice that she was removing me from the practice and she also lied to clients because they contacted me afterwards to see if why the plan changed (I originally contacted all my clients and told them I was taking a leave of absence and I would be back) Daisy told them that I would not be returning to the practice,all of my clients at the time with telehealth because like I said, I moved with my husband‘s change of duty station. I just want to know if my closing the door and telling her when she was knocking to go away makes me the A-hole. Is that why the friendship ended?