I was never great at relating to friends with bad boyfriends in high school and college. The friend would inevitably ask me what I thought of her boyfriend after he did something like, let's just say for a random example, forget to call her on her birthday because he was looking at porn on the internet all evening. Sure that type of thing happens all the time. Well at least for that friend it happened once. I would answer her honestly. I tended to be pretty blunt, but my insights suggested that "He's not a winner." When they inevitably got back together and the friend shared my actual words with the boyfriend, he would insist that she end her friendship with me.
After losing a couple friendships the same way (well almost the same way, since internet porn was only a factor once), I decided that neither honesty nor spending a lot of time with friends with creepy significant others is the best policy. Maybe it would just be better to not say anything at all or to say something like "What I think doesn't matter. It's what you think." Then I would silently mutter "I can't believe you are still considering dating him." Fortunately I haven't been in this situation since college.
A couple of years ago I went out to the Cheesecake Factory with my moms group. I was a fairly new member. While we were there, several members recognized another member's husband who was there with another woman. Her husband was supposed to be living in another state. He had just been transferred there, and his wife was getting the house together to put it on the market. People were debating whether or not they should say something to this member. No one believed it was innocent, but accusations of infidelity aren't something to just throw around. Fortunately, I didn't know any of the people involved, which was quite a relief.
On Thursday I will be attending BlogHer in San Francisco. (I pause to let that sink in...I can't wait.) I've been talking about it for a while, so all of my local friends know that I'll be across the country. Coincidentally, a female friend of my husband's from high school will be in MA for the weekend and will pay a visit. I consider her a friend as well, and I am certainly OK with the visit, but I haven't mentioned it to anyone else (except those of you who read this blog.) because I just keep forgetting. I'm curious as to whether any of my friends will run into them. If they do, I wonder what they will think and whether they will tell me about it.
If you saw your friend's husband out with another woman, would you say anything?
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: It can be hard to reconcile honesty, discretion, and doing the right thing.
Unrelated, we received a complimentary 75 cent "Pay As You Throw" garbage bag from our town today. In a time where there are annual reductions in the number of teachers and classes in our town, and our town is about to start charging us to pickup garbage, it is somewhat surprising that our town spent 75 cents per household on this gift.
That's a tough one. It's going to sound like a cop-out, but it would totally depend on the couple (triangle?) involved and the circumstances of the sighting.
That's a tough one. But oddly, I have alot of male friends and occasionally I'll run into one at the park or such. Hugs are usually given and we usually talk for a bit. I'm sure my friends wonder who the hell they are, but no one's ever mentioned anything to Husband. And usually it's me or one of the girls who tells Husband we ran into xxx today.
I guess it depends on the situation. I'm sure it would be different if there were more contact, it the setting were different or one of us was "supposed" to be in another state.
I guess it really depends on the situation though.
I would tell you. I wouldn't say it in a way that implied anything, but I'd be like "Oh, I saw the Big Giraffe the other day." and let you take it as you would.
I would want to be told. If my husband had lied to me about it, then I would definitely want to know. If he told me, then no big deal.
I would want to be told, and I would probably mention it casually. In most cases, I think, it's more something that the spouse already knows and is an innocent situation.
Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.
That's a tough one. It's going to sound like a cop-out, but it would totally depend on the couple (triangle?) involved and the circumstances of the sighting.