How do you comfort a friend who has just found out his girlfriend of 6 years has been sleeping with his best friend?

That’s an immense betrayal. He needs time to heal.

I’d say just be there for him.

As to the why, that’s for her to answer to him. My guess is that there were signs he missed. He’ll need time to re-examine things for a while.
I’d look on the bright side: At least they weren’t married with kids.

Other than listen, and probably get drunk… I don’t think there’s much you can do.

Maybe help him lynch the two of them?

I listen and help him hear what he’s saying about how he feels. It’s a technique I learned called “evocative empathy”.

Give him a sympathy blowie.

This has actually happened to me. There isn’t anything you can say to make it better. It’s going to hurt and it’s going to take some time to get over. There’s nothing that can change that. Being there is the best thing you can do.. which it sounds as if you’ve been doing. I wish I had had friends that cared as much as you do.

He is experiencing a deep betrayal and loss. He has lost his lover and his best friend all at the same time. It’s like losing your parents in a car crash. He is stunned. He can’t understand what has happened. It makes no sense.

It is an incredible shock when you get news like this, and it just takes time to take it in. He’s trying to figure out what his life will be like. Who will he hang out with? What will he do with his time? What does this mean? How did it happen? What did he do wrong? Can he fix it? Just an overwhelming set of questions.

I think what you’re doing is about right. Hug him. Hold him. Listen to him.

But you don’t have to answer his questions and you don’t have to offer him hope. You don’t have to fix anything. There is no hope, and it doesn’t help to offer him false hope.

He will get past this eventually. It could take years. It’ll take however long it takes. No telling. But it’s best to be there. Keep him from being alone if he wants the company. Feed him if he can’t get it together for himself.

Over time, he will become more operational, but not for a while, I think. The first week is the absolute hardest. The first month the next hardest. After that, it becomes more manageable. There may be times when he wonders how he can go on. That’s when he needs someone near the most.

So hang with him. Listen. Empathize. Reflect his feelings to him, to let him know you hear him and that he is not alone. You’re a good friend.

Just keep being there for him. You can’t fix him, and, in the short run, you can’t really make him feel better.

Don’t let him hermit up. Keep him going out, doing things, meeting people.

Remind him that he has you and a lot of other friends who have not betrayed him.

Tell him he doesn’t really need to know why it happened. Sometimes things just happen.

If you could get him involved in a project especially one that involved working manually that might help. Doing some home improvement for you or with you. Volunteering for habitat for Humanity. It would keep his mind occupied and remind him that not everyone is bad like his girlfriend and best friend were.

There was a user on here who might have some insight into this. I will see if I can get him to answer the question.

This happened to a new close friend of mine who was married and did have children. It was devastating. All I can suggest which echoes what others have said is what a colleague of mine said to his son once, “I don’t know exactly what you are feeling but I want to stand next to you.”

Listening to him is a huge help. Paraphrasing his thoughts, showing you understand is good.

I never can answer those why questions so I get why you feel perplexed about what to say. My girlfriend keeps asking why we got in a terrible accident, and for me it is very clear why, but for her the why question is some big philosophical question.

This betrayal, cheating with a friend, is just horrible. Check on him often. If you know a few of his friends, take turns being with him and talking to him. Having the support of friends and family will get him through. When I went through a devastating break up I felt horrible not only emotionally, but physically too. It helped me a lot to talk to people who had been through bad break ups, because they gave me a realistic estimate of how long I might feel horrible. Not the first day it happened, but when I felt like shit for a few weeks, I started to feel like I would never get better. Knowing it sometimes takes months was comforting, I needed to know I was not completely out of control, that I was in a normal grieving process. My dad wanted me to just feel better, the guy was a jerk anyway, how could I waste my emotions on him, and that made me feel worse, the atitude I should just snap out of it was dismissive and upsetting to me.

Unfortunately he is moving across the country in a week for a summer internship. He is graduating college next week. He won’t know anyone! I think that scares me!

@deni Sounds like the perfect scenario to me…. he can get away from the dbags and start over… He’ll probably even meet loads of nice women.

No, no, no, no, no! That’s what happened to me. I graduated from college and my girlfriend broke up with me. I was on my own and I didn’t have a job. It was pretty hellish. No friends. No job. No girlfriend.

He’ll do what he has to, I’m sure. He’ll survive. But it will be harder.

Luckily it is easy to stay in touch now. Phone, text, skype, facebook. It is most likely going to really suck for him though.

Take him to the local strip club and get him drunk and disorderly. Buy him a private lap dance or two.

Can he Fluther?

It’s maybe more difficult to comfort a friend than distracting him so he won’t end up focusing all his energy thinking about this awful situation. How do you create a distraction? Maybe force him to do volunteer work with you. One that might ignite new and worthwhile interest for him. Who knows, huh-?

Tell him from one who was there 40 years ago: It gets better. It takes awhile, but it does get better.

And he dodged a bullet. He wasn’t married to her, and he found out that he deserves better than each of them. It’s hard to learn – especially when you had no idea in the first place – that “you’ve got a very unhealthy relationship”. But now he can start the recovery.

My sympathies to him in the short run, though. I wanted to kill when my wife did that to me years ago. Fortunately a good friend – a mutual friend, as a matter of fact, who had nothing to do with her “in that way” – took a lot of long walks with me and didn’t have to say a word. It got better.

My ex-wife did that to me. I was really pissed for about 3 weeks, and then I got over it. There is not much you can do but be a good listener.

A better question might be how do I get over the concept of just how shitty your friend’s girlfriend and former best friend are. This week there was a murder suicide in my city and I can’t help but wonder if it was a scenario like this at the catalyst for the husband’s murderous/sucidial rage.. I have no idea of course and I’m not saying it’s morally justified, but wow it upsets me so much just to hear your friend’s story I can’t imagine what your friend must be going through.

Tell him the truth, that this really sucks and that he is going to feel betrayed for quite some time. But also tell him he is lucky to have found out now that his friend and girlfriend weren’t who he thought they were. Tell him that in time he will feel better, that he can use his internship to start fresh. Everything happens for a reason, he ssssmay not know what that reason is, at that very moment, but someday he will better understand this. Until he does, there is a lot of life to live.

This happened to me one or two lifetimes ago. In my case it was worse; we all lived together. After we broke up, she didn’t just move out, she moved next door. I still lived in the old apartment with the friend who slept with her. There was a fourth person involved in the whole mess, and we all rode the insane rollercoaster together, until finally our individual dramas as individuals and within the individual and group friendships played out and it all fell apart.

At the time, I got through it by doing two things: finding support (both in person and online; this was back when Usenet and BBS were in their heyday (and yes, I feel a wee bit old typing that…)), and staying the hell out of the way in the most awkward ways I could.

My means of resolving the turmoil I experienced involves the same actions most of the previous answers emphasize: offer support to your friend, and remove him as much as possible from the physical and social sphere of the two asses that screwed him over.

If your friend is indeed graduating and heading out to a different city/state, that will help with the physical distance he needs (which will allow him the ability to be a bit more objective, over time, over what happened), but as @wundayatta points out, being completely alone is going to be a wee bit too isolating. I’d make sure you and others he still trusts stay in contact with him as much as you can through this transition period, at least til he gets his bearings. After that, as the cliché goes, time will heal.

Marina, thanks for pulling me out of hibernation to respond here.

Yes, something similar happened to me with the love of my life and my best friend about 5 years ago now. The advice most of you gave is the only thing that helped me survive that time – I had community that just loved me, cared for me, empathized. Nothing they said made any difference, and what I appreciated most was the sympathy and empathy. That’s it. Don’t say anything – you have no idea.

What I don’t believe any of us has addressed is you, Deni. How much compassion can you find within yourself? Can you truly imagine what it’s like to be your friend? Have you experienced anything like this in your life, from either side? What makes a difference in something this devastating is human connection – not advice. If you can find it in yourself to truly relate to what it’s like for him, then you are a bridge to the world for him, when all else is bleak. If you’re just trying to give advice, trying to make him (and you!) feel better, I’m afraid you won’t truly reach him, truly support him. This is hard shit to deal with – for you too, not just him. Get support yourself. I love that you’re asking us. Has it been helpful to you?

Just for your perspective – and don’t tell him this, it won’t help – I’m almost grateful for the whole experience. It was the worst time of my life by far. But the whole incident broke my attachment to the girl, which had ruined relationships for 10 years. And it took years, but my best friend and I eventually healed things. Later on, when he and my ex broke up, he got severely depressed, almost killed himself. I saved his life, listened to him for many many hours, helped get him out of poverty and into a job with the company I work with, which is how he met his future wife. I was just talking with him a couple hours tonight – his friendship is a lifesaver for me too. My life would be much much poorer without him in it.

I think I’m the exception in terms of the grace that allowed us to restore our friendship. But it’s possible. Who knows what’s possible for your friend. By the way, if anyone would have told me any of that at the time, I would have told them to go fuck themselves. All I knew was that I could relate to a desire to murder for the first time in my life. Advice and hope disgusted me. I just wanted love and comfort.

You asked us for advice. My advice is do NOT try to fix this with him. Everything is fucked in his world. Join him there, as much as you can find it in yourself to do.

Pain is a big part of life. If one is betrayed it indicates that their boundaries aren’t fully developed. We live and learn when it comes to boundaries. I concur with many of the answers posted here:

Nothing can be said to help at first. Making time to listen and be available is essential to recovery and healing. When it is time to talk then no matter what the hurting one expresses the listener should be positive and encouraging or simply silent.

@deni Perhaps you should show your friend this thread.

Listen to @Trustinglife about just being there, but not offering advice. Resist the urge to try and tell him this is for the best. He is not feeling lucky and won’t appreciate it if you tell him so. He’ll pull away from you. Things may or may not happen for a reason, but it is not helpful to tell him that. Right now, it’s about the pain and the hopelessness and he can’t see beyond that. Your desire, if you have it, to try to make him better is because of the pain you feel at his pain. It doesn’t help to try to make someone better. That is something only they can do. We need to respect their process and not try to make them hurry along. It can be really hard just to be with someone else’s pain, and yet, trust that that is the best thing to do.

@Trustinglife No, I’ve never been in this situation, not even remotely close, so that’s why I asked here….I have no idea what this even feels like aside from the fact that I know it must be really, really, really, really, terrible. 5 months ago I broke up with my ex…we lived together, for years, and it was the most serious relationship of my life, and it ended in the most positive way possible. I was still sad for weeks. So I can’t even begin to relate here. And I told him, that when he was super drunk, he kept asking me “why” and I felt weird because I didn’t know how to answer him. And he said, that’s okay, there is no answer. And I said I’m glad that you at least realize that. Beyond that though, I can understand but not know what he feels like…I think that still helps though. He’s been really appreciative.

@CWOTUS I’ve tried telling him…it’s only going to get better from here. The past 2 days were maybe the 2 worst days of your life. There is nowhere to go but up, and you have so many people that love you and care about you. And while I think it’s a good thing that he is literally getting far away from the situation by moving many states away, he won’t have anyone physically there, and while he can still call any of us or skype, or text, whatever, whenever, it’s not the same as a physical presence. Ya know. He has essentially just been drunk for 3 days, which I think is an okay way to deal with this, and surrounded by friends at the same time.

Ayiyiyi.

@deni It might not go up so fast. I hope it does for him, but it might really really be awful for weeks. It really is like losing a limb for some people, a piece of their body, it is so hard to describe the intense feeling of physical loss and pain along with emotional. I had dry heaves every morning for a week, and I am not generally a stomach upset girl. I would begin to tremble for no reason during the day. Bouts of crying of course. I had no appetite. I lost 10 pounds in a week. It was very bad for me. the anxiety was the worst part; the depression was secondary, I barely noticed it. For some the depression is crippling, which can be very scary, you don’t think he is suicidal do you?

A doctor, who was very nice, told me for him it manifested as not being able to sleep. Nights were awful for him, and of course that affected his days.

Oh, I didn’t say “it will only get better”. Because that might be a lie. He will have self-doubt, aching loneliness, real feelings of worthlessness, abandonment (by his girlfriend and best friend? – that’s goddamn awful!); he’s going to have a bitch of a time making new friends… and finding another girlfriend that he doesn’t project all of this shit onto, and can trust. He’s got a tough row to hoe.

No, it won’t “only get better”. (It might get even worse. She and his friend may, to preserve their own social standing, spread lies about him: their word against his. She or he may have taken money or other valuables from him that he hasn’t discovered yet. Lots of “more bad” can happen.) And he’s got to get through the immediate apathy, grief and anger; he’s got to get over the drunk. He might even feel suicidal and/or murderous. What he’s going through now can’t be mollified or downplayed; it just has to be gotten through.

But… it will get better eventually.

@JLeslie No, thankfully I do not think he’s suicidal. I think he’s going to be fine, just shocked, for a long time, as you’d expect. He said yesterday he’s glad that his moving will put a ton of actual distance between him and both the ex girl and the ex friend, but he wished they were leaving and he was staying here. I wish so too. I would be a mess if I had to move far away alone at a time like this. I might not be able to handle it.

Jesus christ this still bugs me.. me and my best friend had a chat about it. It went like this:
me: “Dude, I read this super heart breaking story online about a dude who was cheated on by his best friend”
friend: “shit, that’s the worst..” looks me in the eye.. “I would kill you.”
me, looking him in the eye: “Likewise. You’d be dead.”
then we terrorist-fist-bumped on it.

…

dear god.. @deni, how long was he being cheated on?

@deni I actually think being away will be good. I was at a distance and it made things better for me I think. I moved back for two months a year after the break up when I had been doing fine again, and reverted back to being a horrible mess. At about the two month mark I moved to FL and it was like a new chapter in my life started, the weight of the world and the break up left me around the state of Georgia on the Auto Train from VA to FL.

@JLeslie That’s great to hear it worked out like that for you. Apparently it wasn’t often, but it wasn’t isolated to one time either. I hope it’s the same for him!!

@ninjacolin Somewhere between 6 months and a year. I know. Shitty beyond shitty!

@ninjacolin My best friend and I had had an agreement before my situation went down… “If you fuck her, I kill you.” I would playfully say that sometimes as I confided in him again and again when she and I were together. I guess I was somehow nervous about them, even though they had never met. Ha, foreshadowing.

When it all went down, I definitely wanted to kill him. But I’m glad I didn’t – after many years, and lots of healing, he’s my best friend again.