Ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
When you’ve been with someone long enough that your friends are all their friends, breaking up suddenly becomes ugly.
Two good friends of mine ended a long relationship recently and I feel myself pushed to almost choose sides; and not by either one of them, but by myself.
How can I willingly accept invitations to hang out with the guy when my heart actually lies with the broken-hearted woman?
I don’t think I can. She and I have had some heart-to-hearts about the whole thing and I feel like setting foot in his house would be a betrayal of her trust.
What makes it even more of an interesting conundrum is that my boyfriend is best buds with the guy. They call each other brother, since grade school days.
There’s another woman in the picture, and in order to protect the pieces of my broken-hearted friend, I ordered my boyfriend that if he finds out anything official about said other woman he’s forbidden to tell me. Because if she asks me again, and I know something, I won’t lie to her.
She asked me right after the break-up, and I could in honesty deny hearing any such things. And knowing all that I know now, and how hurt she is, I do *NOT* want to be the one to have to answer that question with more than an, “I don’t know.”
At this point in time I don’t think the guy did anything violating the relationship code, other than that she was out of town for school and he met someone and may have emotionally moved on in her absence. Even that I can’t really fault him for. I did that myself, once, a long time ago. There were some differences there– he was gone for a year and a half, not a matter of weeks– and I honestly don’t think he was still in love with me.
I’m a believer that as long as it isn’t leading you into territory dangerous to your emotional, mental, or physical health, you should follow your heart. And he seems to have done that. And I want to be happy for him and still be his friend, even if I think he’s a blathering idiot for giving up such a great woman after so long over someone he didn’t know that well at the time.
An invitation has been extended to boyfriend and I for an Independence Day party type thing, and I think I’ll have to let boyfriend go stag. The new girl is going to be there. I don’t want to know about any of it until my female friend has healed.
