My friend (27F) declared she is poly, revealed an affair, and moved out. Her husband (29M) and our friend circle are lost for how to balance holding her accountable while also being prepared to help her address a personal crisis.

M (29 M) & F (27 F) are two of my very best friends. I love them both and they've both been incredibly consistent and supportive figures in my life as a couple and individually for years. I do not know what to do here.

A few days ago, I found out they had separated (they've been together for 9 years and married for 3). I have spoken to both of them separately, and the particulars of the stories are consistent although their perceptions/feelings are quite different. In early December, F came to M and announced that she was poly. She wanted to have sex with other people and this was non-negotiable. She arrived at this conclusion after a couple of months of serious reading on the subject and listening to podcasts. They had casually discussed opening their relationship/having a threesome, but due to the pandemic, nothing had progressed. But now, she was insistent that she needed to open the relationship immediately. She brought up a mutual male friend (S) that she had been discussing polyamory with and wanted to try sleeping with him. M was hesitant but she said she was absolutely certain she needed to do this or she would have no choice but to leave.

She ended up convincing (it is now clear that this meant coercing through threats of divorce) M to have a threesome with this other man. It went poorly, in that M did not enjoy it and did not want to do it again. F was insistent that she now not only wanted to have sex with S, but was also in love with him and needed it to be okay that she nurture a romantic relationship as well. M said no. So, she moved out.

She wants to continue to see S and live separately for a couple of months while she decides whether or not she wants to work on their marriage. M said no, I'm not okay with that, and she's doing it anyway. She told me with great apparent clarity that M is "incapable" of meeting her sexual and emotional needs and that she "know[s] [she] is not going to grow old with him." But she isn't sure she's ready to leave him entirely and wants to "take it slow." She also said a lot of things about M "holding her back," and said she'd always wanted to live all over the world and he was preventing her from doing that--even though the entire time I've known her all she has talked about is buying a house and settling down in our city. Not to mention M supported her while she was in school and until she got her first serious job ~1.5 years ago.

I've spoken with her childhood best friend (BF), who thinks she is having some sort of manic episode. Unfortunately, F is not receptive to discussing mental illness as a factor in this. She does have a psychiatrist, but we are under the impression she is sugar coating the situation to them and they are just validating her. She has also apparently gotten seriously into horoscopes (this is significant because we are all scientists) and other forms of spirituality, whereas before she was a staunch atheist. S is known to be unreliable/flaky by mutual friends and is unemployed and nomadic (living off inheritance), so we are not expecting him to stick around long-term.

F's friends are pretty unanimously of the opinion that she is suffering from some sort of mental illness and that she's also being a total a-hole. I am utterly speechless--this is just not the person I thought I knew. I know she suffered with depression and anxiety during the COVID lockdown, but it seems to me that she used polyamory as something to latch onto and used that as an excuse to nurture an emotional and eventually physical affair. She has not expressed real interest in making it work with M--she is spending all her time with S, and getting into all the same hobbies and spiritual stuff he is into. BF thinks from their conversations that she was having an emotional affair with him well before she "came out" as poly to her husband.

I don't want to dismiss the possibility that she is actually polyamorous and that is something that will be a lasting priority for her--but the way this developed is disturbing to me and our friends. She is treating M terribly. We are all focused on supporting M and trying to help him set boundaries with her (she is still calling him for reassurance that what she's doing is okay and he is struggling to tell her that no, it's not). At the same time, my friends are encouraging me to sit her down and lay out for her how unfair/awful she's being, but I'm concerned that if she is genuinely in some sort of mental distress that this will just alienate her when she crashes and needs support. Up until December she was literally just the sweetest, most reliable person from my perspective, and I do feel obligated to try to help or at least tell why before I ice her out.

Tl;dr: My friend has made a lot of drastic decisions in the last month including leaving her husband. We (her friend group) are struggling with how to talk to her and hold her accountable while also not alienating her in case she needs help.

Any suggestions or advice on whether or not to try talking to her and what tone to take would be appreciated. Thanks for your time, everyone.

Edit: A couple of people have very rightly pointed out that M deserves our support and attention during a very difficult situation that he did not contribute to. I want to assure you all that he is our top priority and we are doing our best to support him. We love him very much. This post is focused on F because we have no idea what the eff to do to help her, or even if we should be trying to help her.

Submitted January 24, 2021 at 10:41PM by whiskyvoyeur https://ift.tt/3qJi4iw