The Strawberry Letter: I Went to Her House To Get My Husband

Dear Steve and Shirley,

I'm 53, and I've been married for 22 years. I have been struggling with my husband's two female friends for 25 years—since the day I met him. We met at an alumni ball, and they were his dates. They had to approve of me before we got serious with each other.

My husband's two female friends live next door to each other, and their husbands accepted my husband as their wives' "bonus husband." I never liked it, but I never said anything about it.

For many years, my husband has been partying over at one of their houses. He never invited me to any of their parties. He always said there would be drinking and that they would be playing cards all night. I don’t drink or play cards, and my husband says that’s what he loved about me.

Recently, I started using an app to track our teenagers in case of an emergency. I added my husband to the app and forgot to tell him. Friday night, it worked in my favor. It was late, and my husband wasn’t home yet, so I located him on the app. He was at one of the female friends' houses.

I got up and went to get him. The back door was unlocked, and I walked in to find my husband, the ladies, their husbands, and eight other people. They were all in swimsuits, and one of the white girls said they were about to go skinny dipping in the lake. There is a lake behind the houses, but the water is very nasty.

My husband said it wasn’t true, but he had on his swim trunks. He pulled me aside and told me never to embarrass him like that again. He's been ignoring me for days. I know my behavior was out of character, so how do I fix this? Those females are a bad influence, and I hope we can work things out.

Do you think I’ve lost him to his friends?