There’s a thin line between friend and rival; a woman or man that you consider your best friend also has the closest proximity to your better half, it means they have access to each other and even if spotted somewhere together it won’t raise that high an alarm because they are friends of the couple. Friend of the family.
Jude and his wife had been married for 17 years, and for 10 years there featured a close friend who was introduced to the family by the wife, Eleanor, they had been in college together. This friend wasn’t married. The longer she stayed friends with this family the more she shunned the idea of getting married. Eleanor trusted her so much and would open up about different issues in her home, she talked to her about her husband and children. There were times when she would invite her over to talk to her husband if she thought things were getting out of hand, she used her to dissuade other women she thought were encroaching on her husband. They were that tight.
This lady would call her friend Eleanor in the middle of the night to ask for her intervention in getting Jude respond to her midnight call for help. On different nights she would have different reasons and needs requiring Jude’s help.
Being a single mother her demands were unending, she relied a lot on Jude to lend a hand in the absence of the child’s father. Frankly speaking if I were the wife, I would never have allowed it to get to that point. Eleanor was too naïve, she watched on as her husband did ‘favours’ for her ‘girlfriend’ and with each day, got closer and closer to the friend from college. People used to say things about Jude and this woman, they were seen together most of the time, Eleanor’s relatives were very uncomfortable with this ‘friendship’ but only she seemed blind to what was going on.
One day she decided to act upon the rumours she had heard for long and asked her friend what was really going on. She told her what she had heard from people out there, of course her friend denied everything. As a wife and now on the verge of losing something she considered precious, her husband’s actions needed to be checked; enough was enough. Eleanor started her own investigation and dug up heartbreaking stuff. Her husband’s affair with her friend from college had been going on for years right under her nose and at times, with her support. How was she ever going to make things right? Who was to blame for this, was she supposed to have kept her female friend away from her husband? Would that have stopped him from cheating on her? Would it have been better for him to cheat with someone she did not know?
She remembered how she had allowed her friend’s child to grow among her own, and wished she had known earlier.
As I write, Jude and Eleanor are trying to make things work, she broke up with her friend but cannot guarantee that Jude doesn’t see her anymore. This ordeal was a serious test to her marriage, she hopes to get through and past it.