20SB Debate # 1: Would you tell your friend if you didn’t like his/her partner?
Lisa of I don’t think it’s going to rain posted about this here
This is totally hitting close to home.
I’m going to answer in a totally indecisive kind of way and say that I think the answer to the question depends on your relationship with your friend. If you have a great friendship where total honesty is the cornerstone, and you feel comfortable being blunt with your friend, then yes, I think you should tell them.
If, on the other hand, you’ve been friends with someone for years and years and you know that they are delicate and overly sensitive, then maybe you shouldn’t. Or you might lose their friendship. Oy.
I’m in this situation right now. A friend of mine who I’ve known for a great majority of my life (I’m not exaggerating, either) is dating someone who I am totally and utterly disgusted by. I used to find him just okay, which turned into general dislike, which turned into total and utter contempt. It has to do with a lot of situations, but mostly it’s because of how he treats her.
To make a really long and uninteresting story short: She supports him financially. He has a pretty regular and pretty costly marijuana habit (I’m not knocking it — I’m just saying, if you can’t afford to pay your RENT, should you be spending money regularly on marijuana?). He’s rude to people in authority positions. He’s rude to people in positions lower than him (waitstaff, etc.). He hasn’t given her one single anniversary card or present in the 3.5 years they’ve been dating (he doesn’t celebrate anniversaries until married, hmph). He owns his own business and drowns in the winter, and wonders why. Maybe it’s because he spends like an idiot in the spring and summer. On their last anniversary, she got nothing. The day happened to coincide with the anniversary of his first year of being in business. He bought himself a vintage sports car.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Add to that list the following: He doesn’t want her to ever go out with her girlfriends. If she tries, he insults it and makes her feel uncomfortable. He accuses her of cheating on him regularly, while she is the most honest and responsible person I know. She would never do that to him. He criticizes her weight.
I could keep going on and on, but it would get rather boring.
I’ve debated whether or not to tell her. She comes to me with her problems regarding him, and I’ve offered my opinion. I’ve offered her help to move out. I’ve motivated her. I’ve told her that I love her and that I’ll always be here. But nothing ever changes. We never hang out because she’s always busy with him. Busy? Busy is a relative term. They do things, yes, but I feel as though she could be better at making time to spend with her friends if she wasn’t so BUSY worrying that he’s cheating on her.
Our friendship is suffering big-time.
I made a decision this week. If I tell her, it will only make things worse. I certainly do not wish for her to make a choice between him and me. That isn’t right or fair. But what I would like for her to do is to make a stand for herself and for her life. I want her to have interests and activities outside of him — which, I would like to include ME because hello, we never do anything together! EVER! I would like for her to stop supporting him financially so that she’ll have the funds to treat herself right — buy the shoes she’s eyeing, get new makeup like she wants, come to dinner with me and my girlfriends.
Nothing ever changes. And if I went there, really went there, balls-to-the-wall honest about what I feel, it would destroy our friendship.
I’ve zipped my lips.
We haven’t talked at all in 5 days — truly a record for us.
yikes that’s a tough one. i told my best friend in high school that i didn’t think her boyfriend treated her with respect. there’s a long story to this but basically i heard him say something VERY disrespectful to her in front of quite a few people. i never told her to choose between him or me, or to stop dating him, i just wanted her to see it. she didn’t and we didn’t talk for a very long time. this is a fine line to walk.
I agree with you that it totally depends on the friendship. I got so sick of my friend talking about her horrible relationship with her boyfriend that I eventually said that if she wasn’t going to do anything about it I didn’t have any interest in hearing about it. It wasn’t abusive or anything, they were just acting like babies. I felt bad (kind of) but it made it so much more enjoyable to be around her because she was talking about something other than how much she hated him.
I feel like you’re taking the right things into consideration.
I was once in the same position with a close friend. There were a few things about the guy and their relationship dynamics that concerned me, but I decided to keep it to myself unless it got really destructive. A year into their relationship, the friend actually asked me for my opinion on the guy, and I was pretty honest. Thankfully, we had enough trust with each other to sustain the friendship, and she continued to seek my input and support. Eventually they broke up for many reasons.
But like you said, it all depends on the people and the relationships involved. I wish you lots of love and wisdom with this situation with your friend. You’re NOT in an easy position.
erm, sounds like my brother-in-law. And because he is now MARRIED into the family, we all have to shut our trap for my sister’s sake. It’s really quite horrible, and after all these years the best way to manage the situation is to support my sister and show her how much we care without commenting on her husband.
I empathise with you on this one because of my sisters situation. It sucks.
I’ve just tried my hand at this debate, but eeek, this situation sucks. But if your friendship is suffering now, you’ve got to do something about it. Because if their relationship progresses, your friendship will completely disinegrate.
Oh wow, that is a tough situation. Maybe there is a way to remind her of all those crappy things he does without actually telling her to break up with him? Sort of a nudge in the right direction? Obviously you don’t want to end your friendship with her, but at the same time, it must be extremely difficult to see her with such a loser. Ugh, what a predicament.