My Husband’s Girl Best Friend Told Me He’s Only With Me Because She Was Married

I scrolled through them and watched the tone shift from concerned friend to something desperate and possessive. The first few messages asked if he was okay and if our marriage was having problems.

Then they got more intense. She said she could tell something was different in how he was acting toward her and she deserved to know what changed.

The most recent ones from this morning said she knew I was behind this and she wouldn’t let me destroy their friendship. I handed his phone back and asked him if he thought that sounded like normal friend behavior.

He stared at the screen for a long moment before admitting it looked really bad when you read them altogether like this. Jamar started scrolling through the messages again with fresh eyes.

I could see him recognizing the obsession in Lily’s words instead of dismissing them as concerned friendship. His phone buzzed with a new text while we were sitting there, and when he looked at it, his face went pale.

Lily had sent another message saying she knew something was wrong and she deserved to know what was happening because they were too close for secrets. I watched Jar read it and asked him if he understood now that this wasn’t normal.

Friends don’t monitor each other’s communication patterns this closely or demand explanations for slight changes in behavior. He nodded slowly and said he wanted to cut off contact with Lily completely.

But then he added that he thought he should do it gradually to let her down easy because he was worried about how she’d react to a sudden cutoff. I felt my anger spike at his suggestion.

I told him that gradual was exactly the kind of thinking that had enabled Lily’s obsession for eight years. I explained that people like Lily don’t understand hints or gentle letdowns.

They interpret any continued contact as hope that things can go back to normal. I said the only way to deal with someone who can’t respect boundaries is a clean break with no room for negotiation or future contact.

Jamar looked uncomfortable but said he didn’t want to be cruel to someone who’d been his friend for so long, even if that friendship was built on her obsession. I pointed out that staying in contact with her was being cruel to me, his actual wife.

He needed to choose which relationship he wanted to protect. We spent another twenty minutes going back and forth before reaching a compromise.

Jamar would send one clear message telling Lily their friendship needed to end. He would say he’d realized her feelings weren’t platonic and he needed to prioritize his marriage.

He pulled up a new text and started typing while I watched over his shoulder. His first draft was full of apologetic language and explanations that left room for her to argue or negotiate.

I made him delete the parts where he said he was sorry and he hoped she understood. I made him delete the phrases that implied this was a mutual decision they could discuss.

I told him to make it clear this wasn’t up for debate and that the friendship was over effective immediately. He retyped the message three times before I approved it and then he stared at his phone for another minute before finally hitting send.

Lily’s response came within two minutes. Jamar’s phone lit up with a text that filled the entire screen and I watched his face as he read her calling him a liar.

She said I’d poisoned him against her and she knew he didn’t really want this. She threatened to tell everyone the truth about how Jamar had led her on for years while using me as a placeholder until she was available again.

Jar looked shocked and started to respond, but another message came through before he could type anything. Then another.

His phone kept buzzing with new texts, each one longer and more unhinged than the last. I took Jar’s phone from his shaking hands and read through Lily’s messages as they continued to pour in.

She cycled through anger and pleading and threats in the span of five minutes. She said she had proof that Jar encouraged her feelings.

She said he’d told her multiple times that he married me too quickly and regretted it. She said he’d promised they’d be together once she left Bradley.

She claimed she’d saved every text and email where Jar complained about our marriage and said he wished things had been different between them. She said she’d show everyone the evidence and they’d all see that I was the villain keeping Jamar trapped in a loveless marriage.

The Emotional Affair

I looked up from the phone and asked Jamar directly if any of what Lily was claiming was true. He swore immediately that he never said those things, never encouraged her, and never promised her anything.

But I could see guilt on his face about something. When I pressed him harder, he admitted he sometimes complained about our marriage to Lily when we were fighting.

He said he’d vent to her about arguments we had or times when he felt like we weren’t connecting. He guessed she must have interpreted his complaints as him wanting out of our marriage.

I felt something cold settle in my stomach as I realized what he was describing. He’d been using Lily as an emotional affair partner even if it never became physical.

We spent the next hour sitting in that coffee shop going through every conversation Jar could remember having with Lily about our marriage. He told me about the time he complained to her after we fought about his parents visiting.

She’d said he deserved someone who appreciated his family. He mentioned venting about our sex life during a rough patch and Lily had said some people just weren’t compatible in that way.

Every example he gave showed him sharing intimate details of our problems with someone who was actively hoping we’d fail. He was feeding information to someone invested in our breakup.

I realized he’d been giving Lily ammunition to use against our marriage for years. He was showing her exactly where our weak points were so she could position herself as the better option.

Jamar broke down crying right there in the coffee shop. His shoulders were shaking as he said he never meant to betray me.

He insisted he thought Lily was just a supportive friend who understood him. He thought she was someone he could talk to when things got hard.

I felt a weird mix of anger and pity watching him realize he’d been manipulated. But I also knew he’d chosen to confide in her instead of working on our marriage or seeing a real therapist.

He’d picked the easy comfort of someone who told him what he wanted to hear over the hard work of actually fixing our problems. His phone kept buzzing with more messages from Lily, but neither of us looked at them anymore.

We just sat there in silence while Jar cried. I tried to figure out if our marriage was something I even wanted to save after learning he’d been emotionally cheating on me for years with a woman obsessed with destroying us.

We left the coffee shop around 4:00 in the afternoon and drove home separately because I needed space from Jar, even though we were heading to the same place. His phone rang the entire drive home.

I watched in my rearview mirror as he kept declining the calls while gripping his steering wheel. When we pulled into our driveway, his phone had 17 missed calls from Lily.

The voicemails started playing automatically through his car speakers loud enough that I heard them from my own car. Her voice got louder and more frantic with each message.