Carolyn Hax: Friend says ex-wife is playing ‘victim card’ after husband’s affair

Q: Some friends divorced a year ago after a 30-year marriage. It turns out the husband was having a six-year affair that the wife more than likely knew about.

Husband is now engaged to the girlfriend. Ex-wife is on a rampage. She is not allowing any relatives or friends to talk with the husband’s new girlfriend. She says it’s a slap in the face if we interact with her. She has been flat-out rude and a bully to my wife and others.

How do I handle this? It is causing a rift in our friend group. I believe she is really playing the victim card, while it appears to me she was equally at fault for the failed marriage.

— Bewildered

A: Wait — that’s it? I just made fresh popcorn for the story of her equal fault for her husband’s side piece, then your question ended.

I’m sensing much conclusion drawn from not much fact: just, “the wife more than likely knew”?

Unless the wife was a “rude” “bully” long before all this … and you in the friend group were always basically Team Husband … and maybe you all solemnly condemned the side piece but privately celebrated her as the dagger to a dreary marriage?

Then your letter would make a little more sense — but also implicate the whole group in the marriage’s failure (microscopically, but still) and leave the ex-wife’s claim to the, ugh, “victim card” intact. Upgrade it if she sensed your animus. Though why you’d pretend friendship remains unexplained. Habit?

The facts just aren’t stretching to fit. If bullying doesn’t account for her half, then what does?

Look. I am no fan of a postdivorce “rampage” or attempts at control under even the most philandering circumstances. If she had asked me, then I’d have urged diplomacy, patience and trust — or aligning with her trusted few, or being well rid of you all. Basically anything but slappy ultimatums.

But no matter what angle I take on this, you remain the one not even trying a remotely sympathetic angle on an ex-wife in obvious distress after being publicly, dishonorably swapped out. Meanwhile, you’ve expressed no collateral discomfort with absorbing her ex’s betrayal.

So that’s where I’d start if I were you: with a laugh test on your own blame assignments for the mess your friends made of all this.

It’s rarely black-and-white, sure, but: 1. Not your marriage, you don’t know. 2. It’s rare to keep our own feelings out of it. If you just like the ex-husband more than the ex-wife, then at least have the self-awareness to know you aren’t objective — and sit on your hands whenever you’re tempted to point fingers at her to justify your sympathy for him.

So, how to handle this, you ask. Based on the information given, the ex-husband was more out of line; nevertheless, you’ve decided not to penalize him as the ex-wife has insisted. Yes?

If I read that correctly, then here’s my advice: You can say this to the ex-wife. Or your wife does, whoever is on the spot. Owning it is kinder and braver than trashing the ex-wife as some kind of rampaging harpy:

“Both you and [ex-husband] are our friends. We don’t condone what [ex-husband] did to you. But we’re also not ending our friendship with him over it. That means we’re including [side piece], because they’re engaged. We also will include you in everything. This is hard, but we love you and are committed to figuring it out.”

Her dropping you is the consequence you risk. If you can’t have that, then make a different choice.

• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.

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