The internet has praised the 27-year-old for her actions that one Redditor even dubbed “wholesome.”
After learning that her husband had been in love with his friend for years, the wife befriended the other woman before separating from her husband.
“Love is a modern luxury which is great to have. The point is not whether you love the person you married or didn’t, but that you should respect them and the commitment you made to them,” Melody Chadamoyo, relationship coach, author, and CEO and founder of Heart Passion Institute, told Newsweek. “It is dishonorable to treat another person the way that woman was treated.”
Poster u/ClownChowderPies posted the story on Reddit’s popular r/TrueOffMyChest on November 3 where it has received thousands of upvotes and hundreds of comments.
She explained: “My husband of five years, Steve, had a female best friend long before we met. We’ll call her Amy. I met Amy early on in the relationship and I thought the girl best friend thing was kind of weird but she seemed cool.”
Steve and Amy would see each other often, for movie nights at her house or trips to the park. But the wife felt fairly secure because she knew how nice Amy was.
“The security washed down the drain every time it sprung up though,” she said. “Steve always looked at Amy in a way he never looked at me. He seemed so genuinely happy when she talked, more animated and excited.”
As time went on, it became more clear that Steve was interested in Amy. He would drop plans with his wife to spend time with her and even asked her to change her hair to look more like his friend’s.
“This went on for our whole marriage,” said the poster. “One night Steve and I were drinking at home and I asked him if he ever had feelings for Amy.”
That was when her husband admitted that he did have feelings for his friend.
“[He] said he’d tried to get her to be with him multiple times since middle school and she always rejected him,” explained the woman. “I cried. We fought. I told him to leave. He called Amy and asked her to pick him up.”
When Amy arrived, the Redditor explained that she was drunk and headed outside to accuse her of ruining her marriage. A three-way argument ensued and things escalated.
“Amy ended up taking Steve to his mom’s house and she came back to me sitting in the yard crying,” explained the Redditor.
Commenting on the situation, Chadamoyo said: “The moment you realize that your spouse or your partner is in love with someone else, I think you should talk to them about it. I know it’s scary because, you know, the chances of you being rejected are very high. But at least if you know the truth you know what to do about it.”
When she came back to see her, Amy admitted that she vaguely knew that Steve had feelings for her but thought it was a weird crush that would go away.
“She let him know that she wasn’t and never would be interested in him romantically,” explained the poster.
Before long Steve and the poster were divorced, but she and Amy had become good friends.
“She was and is a great friend to me. Almost worth everything Steve put me through. She’s the sister I never had,” said the Redditor.
Online readers of the post were thrilled to see the outcome. One commenter said: “Not the ending I was expecting, but wholesome!”
“Honestly don’t understand why people marry someone else when they’re in love with not the person they’re marrying. Boggles my brain,” said another commenter on the viral post.
Chadamoyo explained: “Relationships are about love, but they are also about timing. You might fall in love with someone but if it’s not the right time, you might not get to spend the rest of your life with that person.”
“Men marry for different reasons, usually than women. Men marry because it is the right time, they want to build something with someone and they have to find them now, they’re ready to start a family or they feel grown up enough and the person happens to be around, so they get married. They might have loved someone before but if it was the wrong time, they would’ve let them go,” she said.
Another Redditor wrote: “I am so happy for you that you found a good friend in Amy.”
“My advice would be to always love yourself enough to allow yourself to be treated the right way. To be given what you want, to be respected, and to be cherished,” said Chadamoyo. “I think she was right to call him on it. She was right to become friends with this other person but not to fix the man or isolate him.”
“I’m more self-confident now,” said the poster on Reddit. “No real long-term relationships since the divorce, but now I’m invited to every movie night and trivia game and camping trip with Amy so I’m not all that bothered by the lack of a romantic partner.
“If you’re married to a Steve, there are better things out there for you darling!”
Newsweek reached out to u/ClownChowderPies for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.
