There’s an old adage that says, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” But what about close friends who have relationships with people that you don’t like and—more importantly—don’t trust? It can put you in an undesirable position whether you consider them to be hostile to you directly or solely bad to, and for, your friend.
I had a much-beloved friend (I’ll call her Leila) who married a man after dating him for less than a year. Before her engagement she had asked me earnestly what I thought of her then-boyfriend (I’ll call him Robert). I decided to censor my intuitive assessment of him in favor of saying what I thought Leila wanted to hear. So I offered, “He seems like a really nice guy”, and neglected to add, “but he’s also got definite control-freak tendencies and he’s way too possessive of you.”
I’d watched Leila endure a bad breakup from a longtime lover not long before she met Robert. She seemed head over heels in love and I wanted her to enjoy happiness for a change. It was clear to me that Robert was her rebound relationship, but I felt that Leila needed positive reinforcement more than a reality check.
Fast-forward to three years after their elaborate fairytale wedding at a lush estate in the rolling verdant hills of California wine country. Leila spent several years discovering the depths of Robert’s petty, controlling ways. Nothing improved with couples therapy and Leila finally filed for divorce. Their convoluted disagreement was not only over pecuniary matters, but over far more poignant matters of the heart.
Since the couple had never had children Robert manipulated Leila the way that he knew would be most successful, he denied Leila visitation of their two dogs until she made financial concessions that she never would have agreed to otherwise. I sat with Leila numerous times over several months as she cried her heart out over missing her precious pups. There was never an appropriate time to say, even gently, “I told you so”; it would have added insult to injury and, to my regret, I hadn’t told her so to begin with.
In hindsight, I have often wondered if I did her a disservice by not revealing my honest assessment of Robert’s personality from the very beginning. Would it have made a difference in her decision to marry him? Would it have prevented her from drifting away from our friendship after her divorce? It’s impossible for me to say, but I do know that if I had to do it all over again, I would have definitely told Leila the truth of what I saw.
When friends choose friends who are more like enemies, what do you do?
