dear aunty blue
29 July, 2007 by blue soup
Facebook. Love it or hate it, it’s changed how many people live their lives. The anti-FB arguments revolve around it making life too easy, taking away the need to make the effort, resulting in friendships that don’t really exist. Do I really know the 300+ people in my “friends” list? Probably not. Would I weed any of them out? No. Not a soul. As a pro-Facebooker, I value the opportunity to stay in touch with as many people as possible. You can never have too many people in your life. Everyone has a part to play.
Last night First Year Flatmate emailed me through the site.
So what do you do when in April your Nan dies, your job goes sour, you go on a million interviews and Kev’s mum gets bowel cancer. Then when you have 4 weeks when you don’t get on so well, and Kev spends two weeks of May seeing a lot of his so-called friend so he can talk.
Nothing and hope he’s ok, right?
Or wait another 4 weeks until she throws a tantrum and threatens him, then he comes clean and admits sleeping with her.
Wedding’s on hold now. I’m at mum’s and so is he.
He says he never wanted this to happen, hates himself, never wants to see her again, never wanted to be with her and it was like escapism - nothing bad was happening there, it was all fun and away from reality.
How do you marry someone after that? More importantly, how do you forgive them? I’m so worried what to do - and he has no clue. He’s so broken I can’t even explain.
What do you think?
What do I think? What will I tell her? Half me wants to tell her to run while she can. Sell the house, call off the wedding, tell him never to call again. I want to tell her how her heart will break next time he tries to hold her, how his fingerprints will burn like acid, how she will never be able to escape her imagination and the evil films it will create behind her eyelids of him with The Other Woman. No amount of scrubbing in the shower will remove that. She knows how stupid she felt, she didn’t see it. What a fool! I want to tell her how every argument about anything from who last did the washing up to how to pay the gas bill will see those demons rear their heads. “Well you fucked her.” Irrelevant but always there.
Half of me wants to tell her to try it again. They’ve been together for 6 or 7 years. He is a sweetheart. He was a sweetheart. He is worth the second shot. THEY are worth fighting for. He will never shift the guilt. It will hurt him forever. Whenever he looks at her he will thank his lucky stars. He will know how close he came to losing it all. I have always believed in giving another chance, or three, or four… and I suppose that is my problem.
I haven’t replied yet because it needs the right answer. The right mix of the two. Not an email to be taken lightly.
I will probably advise the latter, but tell her to always be aware of the former. If she can handle what he did, if she can bear to curl up with him again knowing that Someone Else did the same, without wanting to tear her own skin off or scream until no sound comes out, then she can make it work. But, that’s a pretty big if.
Spot on, soupy. Even if she can forgive (which makes her a bigger person than me, I fear), she’ll never forget. For you can’t forget a betrayal like that. And how can you possibly move on? But if he’s worth it, maybe it’s worth a try. Maybe.
When I’ve been the guilty party, I’ve always managed to squirm my way back in.
If any girlfriend of mine ever cheated, I’d dump her instantly. Two faced or what ?
Men eh ?
geez, sounds like she’s had a pretty rough time of it as well as him, she didn’t go running off to another man though…..
ah… well if she can move forwards from it then all power to her, some people do strange things when they are having a hard time. depends how strong she is, don’t think i could do it
Goodness. Your friends do make you work hard. The poor dear, though - she must be desperate for ideas. The real problem is that this fellow seems to be a completely untrustworthy character: if he turns to infidelity and isolation when the chips are down, how many times is that going to happen again?
I don’t think “completely untrustworthy” is right. He has betrayed her terribly and some people cannot forgive cheating, but it is not like Kev at all. You[re right that the question is “how many times is that going to happen again?” but I think the reason she is even asking, rather than just walking away, is because it is such a shock.
I’d go for the former. Some things just can’t be fixed and trying only makes it worse.
No, scrub that.
Tell her the truth. Give her all the options as you see them with pros and cons. In the end it’s her decisions (their decision) and no-one else should make up her mind except her.
And yet it strikes me somehow that she came to you for an answer. Is she aware of your troubles with love and fidelity? If so is she looking for affirmation of her own thoughts to give her the courage to end it or to rebel against any advice and seek to resume the former relationship?
If it were me then I’d probably forgive but if it were The Hildy then she’d lock my bollocks in a drawer and stab me with hot pokers.
Bloody hell Froggy. Normally i have to pay for that…………
I hope you aren’t talking about drawers and pokers?
:))))
I have no advice to give. But I like how you look at it from both sides. It’ll keep you a supportive friend no matter what she chooses.
I dunno. That’s a hard one. It would be a shame to throw away a 7-year relationship because of one mistake. Was it just once? I could forgive if it was a drunken night and it happened just once. More than once, or when it involves any kind of planning or deception, I wouldn’t forgive.
Meh. Hard one.
Well, I took ages replying to it, at least half an hour. It turned out to be a pretty long email in the end, but I basically said what I said above, except with a little more care over delivery.
(Froggy - she doesn’t know about all the relationship traumas I have suffered as we started drifting apart before Longterm Ex did that spectacular screw up thing.)
Well, you are a true friend Soupy. I would have gone for the short, sharp, blunt option.
1. Dump him.
2. Sell everything
3. Move house
4. Start a new, fresh life.