What should I do about my partner’s inappropriate ‘friend’?

The question

My partner of four years and I moved out of the city to the countryside last year for a fresh start to our life. He is a recovering alcoholic and our relationship started as an affair on our marriages. When we first started living together we would visit his "friend." She is married but her marriage is very "loose." Her husband turns a blind eye to her behaviour. My partner and she would both drink a lot and would paw at each other in front of everyone. I told him that was unacceptable and I won't put up with it. He claims they're just friends and that he'd never cheat on me. Since moving from the city, he has quit drinking and our relationship has become strong. But recently this "friend" has popped into our lives again and now, she and her husband are looking to move near us. I am mortified. I don't trust him around her. When he was drinking heavily, I found messages between them and nude pictures my partner sent her. I confronted him and he swore it would never happen again. I feel I can never trust him around her. I am at a complete loss as to what to do.

The answer

I think you're right, first of all, to sense danger.

Sounds like a storm's brewing on the horizon of your bucolic countrified existence, and you're going to have to get the (metaphorical) cows in the barn and batten down the hatches pronto.

Man. There's a lot of moral murkiness here. It's a veritable morass of marital and moral murk.

(Try saying that five times fast.)

I'm not saying that from on high. At the outset of my dating life, I had my own issue with, uh, relationship overlap.

But by around my mid-20s, I quit. I was causing pain, and by then I'd seen (mostly among friends' parents) all the havoc and suffering it could cause. Families torn apart, friendships ended, lawyers called, bank accounts gutted, even health destroyed by what is so cavalierly referred to as "fooling around."

Also, all my have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too skulking was starting to strike me as unmanly (boyish as opposed to manly, not as opposed to womanly) and un-mensch-like, so I decided to set aside this childish thing, saying to myself: "Any woman who does me the honour of tolerating me for any length of time, I will repay with complete and utter fidelity."

Well, how I actually put it to myself is: "I'm going to be a stand-up guy."

Your partner is not acting like a stand-up guy.

Maybe you both need to take a hard look in the mirror. You mention casually your relationship began when you were both having "an affair on our marriages." I've always thought this was a fraught and dangerous way to begin a relationship because you know from the outset the other person is capable of cheating on whomever he/she's with.

And he doesn't sound like he's done much to mend his ways since. He sounds like his inner dog is still whimpering, thumping its tail and hoping for a nice, juicy treat.

So how can you trust him? I think for you two to have any hope, a lot of things have to happen, and kind of all at once.

He needs to decide you are the only one for him, and commit to you immediately and emphatically.

(Might sound counterintuitive under the circumstances but maybe some sort of ceremony, presided over by a religious or nautical figure, in front of witnesses, might help him discover his inner mensch.)

And then to convince you he can be trusted henceforward. That might take some time, and depends more on actions than words.

I think he needs to make a real show, to be ostentatiously, flamboyantly faithful for a while. To pull a bit of a Pence.

(I mentioned this previously, but Vice-President Mike Pence will not dine alone with any woman other than his wife.)

Might seem a bit extreme – but I think extreme measures are called for here, after all the nude-selfie-sending and drunken public groping.

Speaking of alcohol, definitely continue to keep it out of the equation. Keep him far away from his beloved bottle – and even farther from this so-called "friend" with the loose marriage and blind-eye-turning husband.

That person is no "friend." I do not send my friends nude pictures of myself (and can only assume they're grateful for that). I do not get drunk and make out publicly with them (they're probably even more grateful for that).

With friends like that, who needs enemies? And if your partner can't agree to all of these conditions, I'd pack a bag and get the hell out of that town. Because it will end in tears.

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