The Worst Form of Betrayal: my boyfriend and best friend had been having an affair right under my nose- and I had the messages to prove it!
“I had to say out loud, ‘oh my God, they’ve had sex.’” Slamming down the laptop screen in shock and disbelief, Georgia Macmenemey, post-graduate student navigating life after uni, describes the trauma left behind having discovered her long-term partner and best friend of several years had been having an affair. Reading through their messages to each other, she had full blown proof about what had been going on between the two people closest to her.
With her hands sat firmly on her lap, Macmenemey describes the heart ache she lived through following completion of her degree. Finishing University during the midst of a global pandemic meant finding and keeping a job was extremely difficult. After being let go from the call centre role she had secured, she felt somewhat reassured with the fact she had a place to live. Having moved in with her long-term partner, there was less stress in having to find somewhere new, meaning she felt she was able to search around for something else without having to panic. It wasn’t till later that she would realise this was simply the calm before the storm.
She’d been with Harry for 6 years and friends with Jess for around the same. She tells us: “I grew up with Harry, he was someone I spent a quarter of my life with. He was everything to me.” She continues: “I also loved Jess, I would never have dreamt of saying a bad word about her, ever. I would have defended her in any situation, she was my best mate.”
The pandemic has been causing issues amongst plenty of relationships worldwide. Marriages have been breaking down, couples have been at war and divorce rates have been skyrocketing. It appeared Macmenemey’s had fallen victim to the same curse. She was somebody in crisis, relying on those closest around her to pick up the pieces Harry and Jess had left behind.
Scanning her eyes across the words on the screen, she quickly had to accept that the unthinkable had happened. Harry had left the flat briefly, heading off to the barbers in search for a new haircut. It was at this time Macmenemey found her opportunity and took it. She had opened up his laptop and had found herself searching through his direct messages only to find the worst.
After reading through some of the conversations her partner and best friend had been having, it was obvious the affair had been going on for some time. She had to face the terrible reality of what had happened. Whilst the messages included details of their sex life and passionate lines of ‘I love you’s’, there was no escaping the reality of the affair. “I saw messages like, ‘that quickie in your room the other day was unreal’ and, ‘I loved it when you had both your legs up on the ceiling’. It meant I couldn’t help but imagine exactly what kind of sex they were having”, she tells us.
“One of the messages from Harry said, ‘the orgasms you’ve given me have been some of the biggest of my whole life, easily.’ Another read, ‘I loved how excited you were when I got undressed the other day’, so it was pretty easy for me to picture it all in my head,” she tells us. “I remember thinking, I really don’t know how I’m going to get through this.”
Diligent, attentive and persistent, Macmenemey finished her degree with a First. However, her post-graduate experience showcases what it’s like to fall from such a high to an extraordinary low all within the space of a few months.
“You could hear how broken I was just through my voice”, she says, describing the visible pain and grief her friends and family would see.
She had completed her course in Graphic Design but due to the pandemic, struggled to find a job in the industry she loved. Her next plan was to find any work that would help cover the cost of living in Bristol. Macmenemey had a idea for the near-future set out, although, life was turned upside down when the affair came to light, and the levels of betrayal were shattering.
Realising that her long-term partner and best friend had been having an affair right under her nose meant that her world came crashing down in seconds. Discovering that it had been going on for months, on both intimate and emotional levels, made getting through things even more painful.
Describing the thoughts that first ran through her mind, she says: “You just so don’t want it to be true. I trusted him so much, he was my boyfriend and she was my best friend and, in my mind, — they loved me so much. They wouldn’t do that to me”.
Quickly having to make the tough decision to pack up her belongings and get out of the flat they had once shared together, she fled the scene and headed back to her family home in Yeovil. Realising what had happened and what the future might now hold for her, Macmenemey recalls the car journey back as being her lowest point throughout it all. She says: “I was just trying to deal with it, but there were so many thoughts running through my head”.
Fleeing the city and refusing to answer any of her calls, her best friend had left her with many unanswered questions. Leaving Bristol and avoiding any confrontation meant that Macmenemey was left to try and make sense of things by herself. Although still shocked by the revelations, she admitted to having doubts beforehand when she had questioned the amount of time Harry and Jess had been spending together. She went on to describe the process of pushing those thoughts away: “You’ve got to understand, this was my boyfriend and my best friend. I felt guilty for even having doubts. I felt like a bad person. So, I just disregarded them.”
After the initial shock wore off, it was time to get answers. Macmenemey spent the following few weeks searching for more details about the affair and decided to go straight to the source- she asked Harry.
Experiencing further heart break and gaining all the information she could bear; she had a better understanding of what had gone on between them. With months of secrets and lies behind them, Harry and Jess had been sleeping together for a while. But it wasn’t just about the sex, it appeared the two had engaged in an emotional affair all at the same time.
From dinner date nights to sleepovers when Macmenemey had left the flat, the details were traumatizing. Although, Harry and Jess knew their story had a time limit. Their betrayal had lasted months but they knew it couldn’t carry on forever. Playing it over in her head, Macmenemey tells us, “they obviously realised they wouldn’t be able to keep it up, but if I hadn’t found those messages, I really don’t know how long it would have gone on for.”
Months on, Jess and Harry are no longer in contact after turning against each other when they news came out. Macmenemey is moving on, although still pictures some of the more graphic details late at night when left alone with her thoughts.
Despite dealing with heartache, betrayal and hitting rock bottom- Georgia Macmenemey’s experiences prove how things do get better, even when happiness feels like a thing of the past. Speaking about how she moved on, she reveals: “My friends got me through it, the support they gave me was genuinely all I needed. They helped me with everything, nothing was ever an issue for them.”
So, what does life hold for her now? A new flat, a new job and a buoyant, feverish sense of the future.
