Thoughts of the sMelMoOO: CHEATING

Thursday, September 09, 2004

CHEATING

CHEATING

I have been thinking a lot lately about a friend of mine. This person has been letting me in a little secret and it has been driving me nuts. The person has been cheating on their spouse. I am in no way shape or form a friend of the spouse and I barely ever see this person. I will probably never ever see this person again, but I am getting irritated at my friend.

Any suggestions anyone?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Keep in mind that your friend cheated on his/her spouse, not on you. If you are uncomfortable having this information or if it makes you think less of your friend, fine. Tell him/her that and request that you not be given any more information. It is not your responsibility to keep any one else's marriage together, nor is it fair of you to be judge and jury from the outside -- there's almost always a lot more to these stories than just "I slept with someone else."

If you're uncomfortable knowing the info or if you believe that any cheating is unforgivable, that's your issue -- tell the friend to leave you out of it or talk to them about the problems you have with someone -- anyone -- cheating on his/her spouse. This should be a reasonable conversation with anyone who is really a friend.

--K; 8:26 AM, September 09, 2004
seth said...: Since you don't know the spouse (and have no ties there) and you rarely see the "cheater"....tell the cheater to stop updating you that you don't care to know more about their shallow exploits.

As for there being more to the story, there is nothing more, the person make a commitment and they are a cheater, no mitigating circumstances. Period. End of story.; 10:08 AM, September 09, 2004
Anonymous said...: If hearing about it is making you uncomfortable, you just need to let your friend know that you don't want to hear about it anymore, and be explicit about why. I think you can still care about and support a person without supporting a specific behavior, though it does get tricky.

For me, a lot would depend on the nature of the conversations: is your friend just telling you about it? asking advice? trying to justify the behavior? using you for an alibi or asking you to cover for him/her with the spouse? trying to get the marriage back on track, or end it, or make some change in behavior to better the situation?

I'd feel differently about listening to it depending on what the friend was hoping to get out of sharing the information with me: a sympathetic ear, an outlet, advice, rationalization, whatever. But whatever you decide, I think you need to be clear about what you're comfortable with and what you're not, and why; don't just say "I'm done hearing about this" -- initiate a conversation about why.

Depending how this all shakes down, your friend may really need you later on, and I think it's harder for him/her to feel comfortable coming back to you for an ear or for advice if s/he feels judged or that you won't want to listen to anything having to do with their relationship. Assuming that you do value this friend and your friendship, I think the only way to go is to be clear and honest about it.
--YH; 12:41 PM, September 09, 2004