GREAT SEXPECTATIONS: My best friend is marrying my ex-boyfriend, how is that fair?

In our fortnightly column ‘Great Sexpectations’ the Woman Alive panel answer your questions on sex, faith and intimacy. Drop us a confidential email on womanalive@premier.org.uk and ask us anything. Here, we help a reader who is in the painful situation of a friend and ex-partner getting engaged.

Dear Woman Alive,

My best friend is marrying my ex-boyfriend and I can’t be happy for her. My best friend and I are both 37 and have known each other literally since birth - our mums were in the same antenatal classes. When I was 30 I started dating someone, let’s call him “Chris”, after we met at a Christian music festival. I thought we were in love and would end up married but my friend, let’s call her, “Alice” always said he wasn’t good enough for me.

He broke up with me right before our year anniversary and I was heartbroken. Alice was a great support to me in that time and I cried on her shoulder many times in the months that followed. Fast forward to a few years ago, Alice moved to London and joined a big church with loads of guys (unlike the village church we went together growing up). She started dating straight away although due to the distance and work commitments I never met any of the guys she was dating. But she kept me in the loop about how it was going.