I know how the title sounds but let me explain. We all went to school together and are in our 40’s now.
In school, Jim and Kat dated and broke up several times. He cheated on her in a very school kissed another girl way at least twice that I knew of as a teen. That drama went on for most of freshman and sophomore year. They broke up, I believe and then got back together during university. He cheated again in, that time the excuse was distance as they went to schools in different states. They made up, got engaged and he cheated again after a big fight about his mother’s treatment of her. That time to be fair she had called off the engagement but not apparently the relationship.
A year or two goes by, they get engaged again and that time they got married.
Now, while I like him as a friend I would never have dated him much less married him. In my mind, once a cheat always a cheat. And we all expressed that to her when she asked back then. But it’s her life and she loved him, so if she likes it I love it was my answer after that single conversation about him not knowing how to spell faithful. They had a baby and you guessed it, he cheated again. Marriage counseling, making up, and so on. I don’t know that he ever was completely faithful but at least he stopped getting caught.
Well, their youngest is in poly and his midlife crisis is a 22 year (2 years younger than their oldest) he was mentoring. Kat is distraught and fed up and I have kept my mouth shut because I don’t have anything nice to say. She called me this weekend and wanted sympathy and I just don’t have it.
What he’s doing is wrong, but this isn’t the first time. I don’t think it is even the 5th time. She’s upset because none of us are “rallying around her” but I don’t see the point. More than likely unless he asks for a divorce she’s going to take him back. I said as much and she hung up on me.
Am I the ahole for telling her that he has always been a cheater and at some point she has to own up to her choice to keep taking him back?