Search Results: girlfriend or best friend

I actually felt sad for this infidelity story I've once read at Reddit. It was written 2 years ago. The woman was 39 (she must be 41 by now) and her now husband cheated on her with a co-worker. He spent some of his wife's money on the affair and took her homemade meals and desserts to secretly feed the other woman. He cheated as a 40 year-old married man with 3 kids. He ended up having a mid-life crisis and supposedly wanted to see what it was like having sex with another woman, even briefly fell in love with the other woman. She forgives and agrees to marriage counseling. She felt she owed him one and clearly wants to save the marriage.

Flashback to 2002 when they were just boyfriend and girlfriend:

When the woman was much younger (then 19 years old), she cheated on her then boyfriend (now husband) with his best friend Tony. He caught her in a compromised position, both asleep in the couch with the TV running on. Supposedly the guy was in boxers and she was with jeans on but only with bra on top. Apparently they had already finished doing the deed by then and there was alcohol. It was an affair going on for 3 months. She's been repentant for all those years, never cheated again and was faithful as a fiancee and wife. She got forgiven and (yes he still proposed 5 years after the cheating incident, claiming he forgave her completely and wouldn't bring it anymore) they still got married.

https://www.reddit.com/r/survivinginfidelity/comments/yozb12/my_husband_40_m_and_i_39_f_are_working_things_out/

On the woman's previous post, she actually is full of guilt all over again and feels she deserved it. Did she deserved to get cheated on 20 years later? She cheated in 2002 as a 19 year-old girlfriend with no kids. He cheated as a 40 year-old married man with 3 children?

My best friend [19M] and I [18F] are pretty close. He actively makes plans to meet up, stays on call with me throughout the day (initiates it himself, always) for no apparent reason, teases me, compliments me, sends cute flirty reels AND we flirt quite a bit over text too. In a lot of ways, he treats me like he's my boyfriend.

He often sends me couple reels/memes that say "when my girlfriend..." etc, but today he followed one of those up with a text saying "so you're my pretend girlfriend till i find an actual girlfriend to send relatable memes to." Why would he say that? Was it a dumb way to flirt since we have no labels, or was that him setting a boundary?