My unbearable grief over loss as the Other Woman

It has taken me some time to even understand that what my friend and I shared was an emotional affair. We were close friends for years, and we played music together. This meant we had a lot of one-on-one time and we connected in a special way over the music we shared. Several years into our friendship, I started feeling vibes from my friend and I thought that by acknowledging them, they'd dissipate. They did not. They grew. And for the next 2 months we talked about what to do with the feelings we had for each other, given he was married with 2 kids and was in a monogamous relationship. We didn't really act on the feelings aside from long hugs and casual touch. We knew it wasn't appropriate but he thought there might be room to open up his relationship. I hoped that was the case.
It was agonizing for me in those 2 months, because I felt wrong for hiding this from his wife, but I also didn't feel like I should be the one to tell his wife that we had feelings for each other. I thought it was his choice to tell her. I know now, I should have had better boundaries and this all could have been avoided. But it took him some time. And finally one night we were out with mutual friends were both pretty drunk and kissed each other. It took immense willpower to leave it there but we did. And after about a week when he hadn't told his wife, I was adamant he tell he or we'd have to stop interacting. He agreed. We both knew it could happen again if we were in a similar situation. We didn't want to have an affair.
Although I'm not monogamist, I strongly believe in ethical non-monogamy and this was not it. When he told her, she was livid. Their 20 year partnership almost collapsed. I feel horrible for what this has done to their family. They stopped communicating with me, and I understand why, but this was incredibly painful for me. More than I could have imagined. I had all these emotions that involved them but was blocked from communicating them. It felt dehumanizing. It's now been almost 2 months since she found out, and I'm still a wreck. She's sent me seething emails anytime I try to reach out, and I understand that she feels super threatened by all of this. I know he's doing what he needs to do to protect his family. And I know that most advice is to cut off all contact with the OP, but the OP is also a human with feelings! So what do I do with all my grief? I never wanted to lose this friendship. It was so important to me. I've been single for more or less 10 years and my friendships mean the world to me. It was only a couple of months of feelings that got stirred up and we were actively trying to deal with them...but now it's clear that we can't be friends at all for the foreseeable future and I'm totally heartbroken.
It just seems like such a harsh result of having feelings of admiration and appreciation for another person. On the other hand, I have been cheated on myself in the past in a monogamous relationship where he had a one-off sexual experience, and though the sex part wasn't hugely painful for me, the breach of trust was. And I understand that must be what she's going through.
I have so much compassion for them, but I'm also just so destroyed by this.

50 comments posted: Friday, December 24th, 2021