I’m the reason my friend’s marriage is falling apart. The guilt is killing me, but I have no one to share it with. I had an affair with his wife, and he found out. It’s not altogether my fault, but a huge chunk of the blame has to fall on me because I should have known better. I should have prevented this from happening, but I listened to the urgings of my flesh, and now here we are.

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My friend is Eric. His wife is Jessica. They met through me. Jessica was a friend of my ex-girlfriend, and one day I went out with Eric to meet my ex, who was then my girlfriend, and Jessica came along. I didn’t know Jessica that well, but Eric used me to get Jessica, and because of that we all formed a close friendship where we could go out and have fun.

My relationship fell apart. Her father didn’t like my tribe, and at a point we saw no reason to pursue what didn’t have a future, so we broke up. But Eric and Jessica went on strong, though they had a series of fights. When they fought, I was the one who settled their fights for them—not once or twice. At one point they nearly lost it all. It took my effort and that of my ex to restore them.

At their wedding they couldn’t stop mentioning my name. They said they owed their love story to me and dedicated how far they had gotten to me and my ex. It was very beautiful, I must say. I missed my ex. That was our dream too, but her father wouldn’t allow us to flourish. I was jealous of them in a very healthy way for having what I prayed to have.

Just a few months after marriage, they started having trouble again. Eric would run to me first, and Jessica would follow. While Eric spoke of regrets, Jessica sang a song of hopelessness. “I’m tired of this whole thing. Who even sent me to marry this insensitive man?”

They had problems with their finances—who should spend what and who should pay for what. They couldn’t settle on who was the stingiest among them, so they came to tell me to choose who was. I must confess, Eric found another girl. He told me about it, and I advised him not to go that far. He said he wanted peace from the trouble Jessica was causing. A man can’t snitch, so I kept it a secret from Jessica until she herself found out.

She ran to me one late evening crying. “He’s cheating,” she said. “He’s doing all that because there’s another woman involved.”

I tried to calm her down, but it didn’t work. She said she was leaving the marriage. The marriage was still new—two years, I think. She said she had suffered enough and that should be the last straw.

She left home. I was part of the delegation that went to meet her at her parents’ house to beg her to return to her matrimonial home. Later, sense prevailed and she returned, but their marriage wasn’t the same again. It was fractured beyond repair. Jessica spoke to me more than she spoke to her husband. Her husband spoke to me more than he spoke to his wife. I carried their burdens peacefully like I wasn’t tired of hearing about their fights every day.

So one afternoon Jessica came around because Eric had traveled and she was bored. We had plans to go out later in the evening, but she came early. We were eating and talking and vibing when the chips started to fall. We got closer than we were supposed to. We touched when we should have stayed apart. We kissed. We took off what covered us.

It happened.

I regretted it when she asked what had just happened. We went our separate ways and didn’t go out again that day.

We chatted about it later. That was our mistake. I deleted our chat because there wasn’t anything glorious about it. I asked her to do the same, but for some reason she didn’t. Long after we had moved on and stopped talking about it, Eric found out. He went through the messages. The only clever thing Jessica did was save my name in a way Eric wouldn’t know it was me she was chatting with.

Eric burst up, and guess who he ran to complain to—me.

I was devastated, thinking Jessica had done it with another man after me. I tried to calm him down, but he wouldn’t calm down. I said, “Maybe she’s trying to pay you back because of what you did.”

He answered, “Then she got it all wrong because I’m leaving her, and no one will convince me to take her back.”

I asked him to give me time to talk about it with Jessica, but he said there was no need because to him the marriage was over.

When he left, I realized Jessica had texted. She said, “He found out, but he doesn’t know it’s you.”

I replied, “So why are you texting me about it? Delete it now!”

When we met, she told me, “I have no regret. The only regret would have been if he found out it was you, but he didn’t. It’s fine. He can burn the sea.”

I asked, “You don’t care that the world will know you cheated?”

She answered, “But who cheated first? Mine was only once. I know no one cares about how many times, but it’s once.”

As I write this, she has packed out of the house for the second time. Eric is drinking with me with his heart broken but doesn’t know I’m behind the trigger. I feel like the devil. I feel like the worst person on earth, though I’m the one giving him encouragement. I’m trying to get him through what I put him through.

Jessica has regret, but she’s handling it very well, I guess. She tells me she has peace, but me and Eric, there’s no peace.

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

The way he’s behaving, it wouldn’t surprise me if he goes back to her. Not knowing it was me makes the pain less, I guess. But them coming together again will be the worst fear for me because I don’t know what may come up someday for him to finally realize I was the one who pulled the trigger for their near divorce.

I wish I could turn back the hands of time to unmake this mistake.

—Nick

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