(Let me throw in a condemnation of your husband here, too. It’s all of a piece that a woman who would sleep with her best friend’s husband would also think it appropriate to set up college funds for the betrayed friend’s daughters, presumably to launder away her guilt.
You should join him for some of those sessions so that you can stop feeling that this outlaw of an in-law has any power over your lives. Since you say your husband has gone from seeing the affair as a great love to a great sin, one that makes him feel sometimes unworthy of his current happiness, he needs to talk about all of this with a therapist. You are letting her eat away psychologically at your marriage without cause. Don’t let this auntie maim your relationship-she’s no threat to you whatsoever. Your husband is right that these innocent parties should not have to find themselves exiled from your lives because of their mother’s egregious behavior. Your letter started with high drama, then dwindled to a minor dilemma: Should you and your husband unfriend his cousins from Facebook? My answer to that is no. His happy relationship with you, and especially having children himself, has caused him to see his relationship with his aunt as dark and twisted. Yes, the relationship continued into his early adulthood, but because it began when he was still a boy, she undermined his normal adolescent development-so he’s struggling now with what happened. Thank goodness he eventually realized that it had to stop and that he had already extricated himself before you came along. She was an adult woman with children, he a minor-and a relative! He may have found her attention sexually arousing and emotionally enticing, but that doesn’t lessen her violation. Were this about an uncle and niece, no one would think otherwise. I agree with you that a 35-year-old woman who finds sexual and emotional comfort with her 16-year-old nephew is a predator. So you have come to an agony aunt for your aunt agony. I’m seriously confused and losing faith in us. Am I being crazy? Even deleting them would not guarantee she will be gone from the picture. But he asked me to accept his cousins’ friend requests on Facebook, which I did and now regret. I am really struggling with all of this. I want to delete his cousins and asked him to delete them, but he says they are his cousins and he can’t. I have no reason to believe he is in contact with her. At times he has even wondered how he got so lucky with our family given his “great sin.” The problem is that because he is close with his cousins, his aunt’s children, she still has access to our lives. He told me about this affair before we were serious, and he said it had been true love.
We have been together for three years and have young children.
They remained in a relationship for 10 years. She was 35, and I believe she took advantage of him and lured him into an affair when her marriage was falling apart. When my husband was 16, he began an affair with his aunt, his mother’s brother’s wife. Submit your questions and comments here before or during the live discussion. Got a burning question for Prudie? She’ll be online here on Slate to chat with readers each Monday at noon. Please send your questions for publication to. Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week click here to sign up.