Friend is too close?

[shrek]

Recently I took a second job as a barman for some extra income.
This involved working late on Friday and Saturday nights.
A workmate from around the corner started coming around to be with my wife while she waited up for me.
All three of us work at the same local business.
We all got on well and soon the friend began coming around in the afternoons after work and on the weekends as well. The kids love her and enjoy visiting her house as she is very good with them and also owns a playstation.
She and my wife get on fabulously and soon could genuinely be classified as "best friends".
At first I thought it was great that my wife had a friend to be with. I felt free to go out with my mates, play golf etc because her friend was around to keep her company.
My wife's friend is a genuinely good person - my family all love her dearly and there is nothing sinister about her closeness to any of them.
When my wife returned to work this year it was my turn to stay home with the kids. I kept the evening bar work.
Eventually I began to get a little resentful about the amount of time I wasn't getting with my wife as her friend would still always be around.
I refused to acknowledge my feelings, even to myself.
My health deteriorated as I kept burying anger, disappointment and frustration. How could I tell anyone that the situation I had helped create and had actively encouraged was now making me miserable? Why didn't my wife magically notice I was so upset?
Eventually I just cracked one evening and amonst lots of yelling and tears tried to tell my wife how I felt.
She was totally surprised, unaware that I had been feeling unloved and un-needed for months. She didn't understand.
Another incident with my wife (in front of the friend) didn't help and after several attempts at reconciling with the friend things are just weird beyond belief.

Initially I wanted to just cut the friend loose but this is untenable to my wife and the kids won't understand.
My wife says that this is the best friend she will ever have (apart from me). She feels she will lose either way if a choice is forced upon her. I have tried hard to avoid forcing a choice. I seriously want my wife to stay happy. I honestly have never seen her as happy and relaxed as she is with this friend.
It is normal for them to stay up talking until 2 or 3 in the morning several nights in a row until they both fall asleep on the couch. They share something really special.
I feel I will lose either way as well as there will be some resentfulness from my wife as her friendship with the friend is effected by my selfish behaviour.
The friend is hurt and confused by my strange outbursts.

I am trying to be a big enough person to accept things but trust is fading fast.
I am have pretty much lost faith in myself as a person and really am unable to believe my wife's protests about me being the most important friend in her life.

I feel our marriage is under threat from a friendly invader. I loathe myself for feeling this way about a once-mutual friend but I have to acknowledge that it is true.

Are there any suggestions how to start fixing this? We talk and talk and talk and while progress has been made in other areas this one thing makes me want to just hide in the shed and never come out.

[Kate]

Dear Shrek

I think I would struggle if my husband had a friend in that late for several nights running. I think I too would feel neglected and a bit unsure of where I stood.

You obviously have strong feelings that you wish you didn't have. Unfortunately we can't control our feelings away because they arise spontaneously within us. As you found if we bury them, that damages us. In one sense feelings are neutral. They are not right or wrong in a moral sense. What can be judged right or wrong is what we do as result of them, as you found out when your hurt burst out of you. It's healthy to recognise and acknowledge our feelings. It's also helpful to recognise that behind them are our emotional needs. We tend to feel happy when those are being met, when we know we are loved, valued, respected as an individual, and have worth. When our emotional needs are not being met then we tend to have negative feelings like pain, anger and frustration. There is a good book on this subject called The Marriage Builder (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/books/marriagebuild/) by Larry Crabb. It helps us to understand how we can handle our needs and emotions in a healthy way.

I wonder if you and your wife could get away together. You could try a marriage enrichment weekend (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/healthclub/servprov/) as a way to refocus your marriage and start building on the strengths. Perhaps your wife's friend would be willing to look after the children for you. You would have to think carefully about how you presented the idea of the weekend to your wife. Perhaps it woudl be good to start by acknowledging that you realise things have got a bit off the rails and that you have contributed to that in the way you handled things and that you see the weekend away as a chance to make a fresh start and try and see things from her point of view as well as from your own. Enrichment programmes are not about counselling and problem solving but about recognising the strengths you have and your desire to go on building on them.

[shrek]

Had a weekend away - which was good for us.
Unfortunately, the real world was still waiting for us when we returned.
I am unlikely to reconcile with the friend. A sort of "timeshare arrangement has evolved where I am careful to ring up before I come home so the friend has time to leave before I arrive.
My wife generally manufactures an excuse to meet with the friend at least once a day. I've told her to not worry about excuses - just tell me when she's going so I can ring her if she is needed.
It's weird and is a form of "creeping seperateness" as I am choosing to just withdraw.
Time may find a new solution.