WW in EA, NC w/OM(?), W's BFF interfering, part 7

[hoosjim]

So, here is the moment Sandi2 said would come:

W wants to go off to have "dinner and sleepover" with her wayward bff and another GF. This would be "at bff's house", which is about an hour south of our hometown. The trip necessarily takes her past OM's neck of the woods, and, if you are new to this sitch, trips to see bff, whether overnight or not, were routinely used as cover for W to see OM at various points. Everything from brief meetups for drinks with a large group to dinner and drinks to breakfast at a Denny's halfway between here and bff's town, to one night somehow ending up spending the night together in a hotel (where sex, believe it or not and I am confident of this based on my intel, somehow did not occur.)

The level of BFF's "active" involvement in all of this is open to debate, although she certainly: a) routinely contacted OM at the request of and on my wife's behalf; b) was present at most to nearly all of the social interactions between W and OM; c) actively lied to me (who she had previously considered a friend) to cover up my W's A; d) Allowed W to use her (bff's) address as a return address for packages and letters sent to OM; and e) most recently, about four weeks ago, called W from OM's favorite bar and tried to entice her to come out (W said "No.") W does not know that I know about the hotel room and about the call from bff from the bar, but knows I know the rest. Bff has tried to argue to W (overheard convo) that "Well, I wasn't actively setting up hook-ups between the two of you or anything" (though I would argue she actually kind of did, but, whatever) and W has told me that "I'm a big girl and I can take responsibility for all the times I saw OM... bff did not actively encourage me... she just wants me to be happy and if she thinks I can be happy in the MR then she will support that." Of course, I know quite well bff's stance currently on me and my MR to my W, which is that she is not in favor of either.

I quite simply cannot and do not consider bff a friend of my marriage. Further, WON she was an ACTIVE encourager of the A with the OM is somewhat irrelevant-- she is clearly not a friend of the MR and I am still not sure, even as trust in my W increases, that I can trust my W in that scenario. I pretty much have no way to monitor or check up on her and anything she could do (call, text, whatever) could easily be just window dressing if she decides to get together with OM.

Not sure where to go with this. She kind of sprung it on my this past Sunday, out of the blue, asking if "it was okay" if she did this. I was completely taken unawares and said: "Ummm, well... I guess it would." To which she said "Well what does that mean?" and then we were interrupted by a call from S18 (who recently got arrested down at school-- whole nuther story... " She mentioned it today on a brief call from work, but more in the context of "I am going to be away on Saturday, so..." I feel like I missed on opportunity to force some sort of discussion on bff, an issue which we have never fully resolved. She went to meet up with bff once several weeks ago and I reacted badly, and it sparked a very good and in depth conversation about a lot of things... but didn't ultimately resolve the issue of her relationship with bff. To hear her tell it, bff is "her only real female friend". Now, this is not strictly true... bff is her oldest and closest friend, but she has others... just not others she trusts/likes as much. Bff has a very strong and outgoing personality, and is VERY wayward in her own behavior (having, ICYMI, run around on my OWN bff with another one of our friends and pretty much running roughshod over my bff who wouldn't stand up for himself.)

My own personal take is that bff engaged/participated in an attack on my marriage. She is demonstrably, at this point, not my friend and, to most appearances, is not a friend of my MR, although she sent wife a handful of softer-sounding texts in recent weeks inviting W AND me down for a couple of festivals events in her town. I don't think W is any more comfortable with that idea than I am (and than bff probably is). I just don't know if I can trust bff and, honestly, if I can YET trust my W in that dynamic.

Our sitch still seems kind of delicate. Until just about 2-3 weeks ago, wife was still periodically driving by or nearly driving by OM's old haunts. We (W and I) had a very encourageing couple of weeks with a lot of fun and talk and her taking the initiative on some of the counseling homework but... We've kind of hit a rut, here. My son's arrest and my younger son's (the one with Tourett'es) college application process have impinged on our time, so we haven't been able to focus as much on us and the MR. No counseling sessions for either us IC or MC for going on three weeks, and been almost two weeks since we worked on the self-exploration exercises MC assigned. W has also seemed a bit more distant/withdrawn, didn't handle well seeing the "All-star" list for football which listed OM's son three nights back (she was quiet and mopey most of the rest of the night), though she did ask that I order an extra copy for her of one of the books recommended by MC, and she was open to the idea of me scheduling a MC session in the next week or two. She has NOT, as she indicated she was going to, scheduled any IC for herself.

In terms of intimacy, we are still... challenged. She has been more open to touch, but still sometimes pulls away. It is confusing and frustrating. She kept dropping hints a couple of nights ago about her aching feet and let me give her a foot massage, and sat leaning up against me later when watching TV, but then last night when I sat down next to her she quickly pulled away from me.

I am aware of the dynamic involved with getting over an A... and we are not even 3 months removed from what I think was the start of true "NC" with OM, but... man this is hard and confusing. And this thing with the bff is really driving me nuts. I don't feel like it would be unreasonable under the circumstances for me to have a boundary of "If we are working on our relationship I can't have you hanging out with people who are so obviously NOT friends of the MR"... but in some ways it seems like that genie is already out of the bottle.

Maybe this is the time I just need to see if I can trust her?