My partner came home all outraged that his friend was crying as he had been dumped. Since I’m friends with the ex-gf, I wasn’t surprised and told him so. When he went to see his mate the next day (he was being supportive), I told him to ask a few q’s to ascertain whether he really was “caught off guard”, as if it wasn’t unexpected to me I’m confused why it would be unexpected to the man in the actual relationship.
Partner came home and went “errr, so I spoke to him. He said he knew she’d been unhappy, but he thought it was just a rough patch”.
So yeah. He did know. He wasn’t caught off guard. He just thought it was a tolerable level of permanent unhappiness.
My friend, the ex gf, is thriving :)