Friend in difficulties

[Dutchie]

Brilliantly summarised! You should become a marriage counsellor, Five

[Lola]

Plus it's always the wife who's the crazy one going about kicking dogs and shouting in front of the weans, but the man is always the innocent one in these situations. She doesn't understand me, she's nuts, etc, etc. blah fucking blah. Tale as old as time.

Sorry. I appear to have a lot of rage today

Exactly

[Derek Nimmo]

It's all very well saying 'love the sinner, hate the sin' but that doesn't translate to 'sit and listen with a sympathetic ear whilst a friend confides constantly in you about actions and decisions that you find abhorrent'.

It's certainly not immature to have ethical boundaries, and to consider some things beyond the pale. I'm sure your friend is very nice and all, but it's not "wrong" to judge her activities here as unacceptable.

If it's causing you pain to listen to her, but you don't want to cut her out of your life, then there is nothing wrong in drawing a line in the sand with her and telling her that you'll be there to pick up the pieces afterwards but in the meantime want to know nothing about it (as Beatrix, Lola et al have already said).

ETA And if this means a wedge is driven between you, then so be it - your friend is doing something that makes you unhappy (talking about the situation she's got herself into) and you're asking her to stop upsetting you. If the situation were reversed and you were doing something that upset her, I imagine you'd be mortified and would stop whatever the behaviour was immediately. A friendship where you can't be honest and set boundaries is not much cop.

Also, in the extraordinarily unlikely event that they do live happily ever after, you're under no compunction to have anything to do with him, let alone have him in your house. A good friend would understand and allow you your preferences at that point - if she doesn't...well, she never was that good a friend after all.

[Lily]

Thanks all. Sky, I really feel your rage too. You've actually encapsulated what has been building me in me for some time. When this first began F said "I always thought married men who had affairs were sleazes, but now I see..." It's ALWAYS different for you, isn't it? But you have put your finger on it: he is using the very same excuses and bollocks that she once shook her head at. Now it's her, and it's him, and he's "perfect for her if he were single", it's all different. It's "complicated"', it's "not black and white" (her words) - am I wrong for feeling that actually it is a lot more B&W given his behaviour?

(Apparently the wife has a temper and endometriosis and so she's decided to have a hysterectomy to try and improve things. According to F "she needed this anyway" and Sleaze thought they might have a chance if her temper improved 'which would be better for the children'.)

I really appreciate your responses on here, which have helped me to think this through. I especially feel reassured that I will not be obliged to have anything to do with him if they get together. I know that's a selfish thing to think, and that I may feel differently in time, but right now that's how I feel and it's good to know that I am 'allowed' to feel that and act on that.

I think when she wants to update me I will say, I love you, but I'm struggling hearing the ins and outs of this man's behaviour. I may ask you chaps when I need help wording it.

Yesterday one of my other friends was buried; late 40s, diagnosed with bowel cancer in August and died NYE. She was so calm, clear-eyed and non judgemental. I remember being really upset about a mutual friend letting us all down very badly. Sam was sanguine about it, not judging, not hurt and angry... as I watched the funeral sobbing my eyes out I thought, I want to be more Sam, she always made me feel that I was a better person than I really am, and here I am judging someone (Sleaze, not F - I love her, I think what she's doing is wrong but it doesn't stop me loving her and wanting her to be OK - without Sleaze!). When does judging someone's behaviour stop being judgement, that thing we should all judge in itself, and try to avoid, and start being sensible and fair? How do you tread the line between the two?

[sally maclennane]

I'm sorry to hear about your friend Sam, she sounds fab.

I agree with all the other advice you've had here, you don't have to agree with your friend's choices at all. It's fine to say that you care about her but you don't agree with what she's doing, and that you would prefer not to have it as the only topic of conversation. I wouldn't want to tell her that she couldn't discuss it with me, but equally she doesn't get to dominate every get together with tales of her relationship.

Your man sounds like a prick of the highest order. Of course, his wife has "a temper" and of course, its all due to her hormones Nothing to do with being married to a serial shagger. He might as well have said "bitches be crazy" :woteva: I wouldn't give him the time of day, and she needs to realise that if she chooses to be with him, she may have friends who don't want to associate with him. That's her choice.

[Mountain Goat]

I'm sorry about your friend.

I don't think that being judgemental is a bad thing. Nor is being empathetic: they both have their uses and their places where they're not appropriate. Being judgemental means you have clear boundaries, you are unlikely to be vulnerable to manipulation and you are clear sighted (as well as various negatives). I'm not sure that non-judging is necessarily what you want to aim for: when you describe your friend Sam, she sounds...realistic and accepting that every last one of us is an arsehole in some way, at some point, from someone's perspective. I'm guessing she judges as much as anyone but shrugs it off where there's nothing to be done. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you having opinions and feelings about your friend's behaviour and being angelically delightful about everyone's wrong doings is not the epitome of the good person, it's ...anarchy.

[FiveO'Clock]

Goat said my thoughts, but much better than I could have. And I'm sorry about your friend, Sam, too.

This man appears to be a cruel human being. His wife is having SURGERY to try to moderate HER behavior when he's the one CHEATING. I would imagine he has a special talent bringing out a crazy temper in just about anyone.

[Edith Bacon]

Letting (encouraging) his wife have life-changing surgery in an effort to save her marriage whist he continues to shag about and line up his next relationship is both cruel and gaslighting of the highest order.

If he was giving his marriage his full attention and maybe working in therapy to try and help, then I’d possibly have more patience with him. But what he’s doing is vile.

[Montana]

When I have a thought which I'm struggling to express and then Goat has the same thought and expresses it perfectly, I know I must be right!

I am so sorry about your friend, Sam, Lily.

[Lily]

You have all helped enormously. I've been doubting myself so much and wanting to be a good friend. I sent Del's words to Mutual Friend who is really struggling with it also and she said how badly we both needed to hear it! This could possibly end a friendship, which would make me immensely sad, but if that's what happens, that is what happens. Friendships, like other relationships, end sometimes. I treasure my friendships hugely; but without sounding boastful I have a lot of good friends, so it is perhaps unrealistic to expect them all to stay good friends forever.

You chaps have really given me (and by extension Mutual Friend) peace and strength. Thank you all.

Thanks also for your lovely words about Sam. She was pretty special. It's shit.

[Lily]

GROARRGGGH

I don't want to start a new thread but I also don't want to take over IWLTS with my blethering so this seems as good a place as any. This is about Mutual Friend. A few months ago she ended a relationship, nay an engagement no less, which turns out to have been abusive to the point where she was suicidal. She and Difficult Friend were not talking through all this due to Difficult Friend's situation, so it was me she leaned on (which is fine). She did really well getting Arsehole out of her life and even changed her car.

Anyway, now she is back with Arsehole. The guy who talked her into having a termination which she bitterly regrets. She told me via text and I just said I'm not telling you what to do but I suggest you go back through all our messages and remember he made you have a termination then a few months later said "Well why don't we have another kid" which utterly enraged her. She said she had, but it didn't make any difference. So I pretty much left her to it. My choir were singing for the coronation and she said "I would like to come - Arsehole has taken the afternoon off to spend time with me, I don't suppose you would like it if he came along" and I obviously said absolutely not. Privately, I was hurt at the time that she would spend time with him over supporting me but that's a childish niggle which I pushed aside.

Difficult Friend is having a leaving party (the affair has now ended, she said more stuff had happened but I politely said I didn't want to know and she's fine with that) and I said to MF that we could go together. She replied "yaaay", then that Arsehole may come too but it's not confirmed yet. I'm like - ???? At what point did inviting him to things and acting like this is a normal relationship be OK? I was the one picking you up off the floor when you were close to hanging yourself FFS and now you expect him to join us in our lives. I haven't replied to that. I don't know how to. To quote Mumsnet, AAIBU? Because even if I am, I don't think I care. I'm too old to be nice to people I don't like unless I'm getting paid to do it. She asked about my play in the same message - I expect she will be planning to bring him and I'd love to have her in the audience but Christ not with him there. I can feel these things, and I can act on them - not go mental, obviously, but simply ignore him and not have him part of my life the same way Del advised earlier about the affair bloke - but how do I say these things? And what do I say? It's up to her who she has a relationship with.

I suppose what is getting to me most of all is that it has never occurred to her I might have major, major issues with this bloke being brought into our friendship group again. It hasn't crossed her mind at all.

Sorry for the rant but I type fast and i'm stuck in a very hot office as I thought I'd turned the heater off but I turned my phone charger off instead. I suppose I'm asking AAIBU and moreover DOES IT MATTER IF I AM?

[Luce]

But like you said, its up to her who she has a relationship with. I think the bigger question is can you be friends with people whose decisions you don't agree with?

[Morganna]

Luce is right, Lils.

People do unwise and sometimes downright awful things, and it is up to friends how much they see themselves as having to 'live with' those decisions. I am sometimes out of step on here (as with Difficult Friend), as to me a friend is someone who accepts you warts and all. You don't have to compromise your own moral code by accepting that not everyone lives by it. Outside of serious breaches of decency that you couldn't ignore (grooming young boys?) I think you can make your feelings known but then need to let it lie, and be there when things go wrong. The thought of living with social control to the point where people stop wanting to be around you because the see you as a transgressor fills me with dread. It's frustrating when you (one) have advice ignored, particularly when you are proved right down the line, but friends are with you through life's ups and downs.

[emma_p]

But like you said, its up to her who she has a relationship with. I think the bigger question is can you be friends with people whose decisions you don't agree with?

Yes, 100%.

[Lily]

It's not that I can't be friends with her. It's also not about being friends with people whose decisions I disagree with as previously stated. It's about whether I have the right to feel as I do which is aghast that I appear expected to entertain this man as if nothing has happened and if I have the right to refuse to do so. Having slept on it I've decided I do but Del's sage advice is spot on in this scenario as well.

[Lily]

Luce is right, Lils.

. The thought of living with social control to the point where people stop wanting to be around you because the see you as a transgressor fills me with dread.

I know you don't mean it to be, but this is a really horrible thing to suggest I'm doing. I'm not going to make a big deal out of it but it is so far away from anything in this thread that I had to say something.

[Morganna]

Oh, I’m sorry - I didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t suggesting that you would do that at all - I know you wouldn’t.

I expressed what I meant clumsily. Sorry again.

[Lily]

Phew! I'm trying very hard not to do that hence asking on here. I've only ditched two friends really in my entire life and one took about 15 years ago so I'm not that cutthroat!

[Morganna]

No, I know. I was kind of thinking aloud about much more general things, if that makes sense? Extrapolating from what you were saying, not talking about you at all.

Too much time on my hands and too much on my mind, probably.

[Lola]

I’m not sure I fully understand the story but I do think you can say to your friend that you don’t want Arsehole to be at your play as it’s your event and you don’t want to be put off. The other events, I’m not sure what you can do except minimise any time spent with them. You’re fully entitled to your feelings though. I’m also not good at pretending to like people Also, why can’t she do anything without him there now? It’s a bit creepy/controlling.