Dear Readers,
This week I’m answering two letters together. Each letter is from one of the women involved in the situation detailed in the letters. I wouldn’t have known the two letters were connected but for the (unpublished) postscript one of the letter writers added, informing me that she knew the other woman involved had written to me as well.
Because both women included their email addresses, I was able to contact them and ask for (and obtain) permission to publish their letters together.
Yours,
Sugar
Dear Sugar,
I recently had sex with a guy who has a complicated history with a friend of mine. I knew sleeping with him would hurt my friend’s feelings, and so I told her I wouldn’t. She didn’t ask me not to sleep with him, but it was implied. She would make references to “his crush on me” and once asked him if we had had a threesome with this other girl. Long story short, I broke my promise. I meant what I said to my friend at the time, Sugar, but I failed.
The man in question is a good guy. I enjoyed spending time with him and let’s just say my conjugal bed has been rather empty of late. My desire outweighed the potential hurt I knew my actions would cause. The guy and my friend have had many conversations since I slept with him, and they appear to have made up, whereas my friendship with her is still on shaky ground. I think it will normalize eventually, but I already feel like our friendship is something that’s not that important to her. I don’t even know if it’s all that important to me either.
Very recently, my step-dad had a heart attack. It was his second. It made me think about gravity and consequence and trivialities, and that if this one night of problematic sex forever alters or negates all the other ways I’ve been a good friend to her, then so be it. If that’s the case, our friendship wasn’t meant to last, and I have more important things to worry about. But at the same time I can’t help but wonder if I am losing my humanity a little. Because today, an ex/friend of mine basically said she hadn’t completely forgiven me for hurting her six years ago. I cheated on her like the dumb 22-year-old I was, and I have apologized a thousand times since then. We weren’t friends for a while, but we became good friends again eventually. Until today, I was operating under the assumption that we were okay. To hear her say she relates to me differently, that she withholds information from me because of how I behaved years ago, makes me profoundly sad and angry. Forgiveness isn’t something piecemeal to me, but clearly I am upsetting people in ways that have staying power. What does it mean if someone forgives you, but never forgets?
I feel both horrible and stubborn. And I don’t know how much of this anger is due to acknowledging potentially ugly truths about myself—that I value desire at the expense of my friendships; that I can’t seem to learn from past mistakes; that I am a person others deem untrustworthy. The last one stings the worst, and is a doubt I expressed to the guy shortly after our tryst. “She never trusted you,” he said, which was a confirmation of my fears, if not a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I would probably have done the same thing, given another opportunity. And I don’t know if that should worry me or if it makes me some kind of pleasure addict or just a terrible friend. I don’t regret my recent behavior, but should I? Am I throwing away solid friendships for stupid sexual gratification? Part of me feels selfish even writing to you, because I know you’ll call me honey bun and make me feel better when I don’t deserve it.
Friend Or Foe
Dear Sugar,
I have two friends who I love dearly. One is a man I’ve known since we were teenagers. A few years ago, he and I started a brief non-monogamous romance. He then fell in love with another woman, who he rightly chose over me. Though I knew we were meant to be friends instead of romantic partners, my feelings for him ran deep, so I was crushed. Eventually the pain subsided, and we became closer as friends.
The other friend is a woman I admire greatly as a writer and as a person. She’s witty, sexy, brilliant. We support each other through romantic traumas and laugh constantly whenever we’re together. She was there to comfort me when my male friend told me he had met someone else. She sat with me as I unabashedly cried in public in the middle of downtown San Francisco.
Recently, these two friends met and hit it off. He started joking about sleeping with her. (He is single now.) I told my male friend that this idea made me feel uncomfortable, but he dismissed my worries. I didn’t press the issue because my female friend swore that she would never sleep with him. She said this to me, repeatedly, emphatically, even when I didn’t ask her. While I was over my attraction to this guy, the history was still a little too fresh, and I wasn’t finished processing the heartbreak. She saw how it was still affecting me. I trusted her.
But it happened anyway. They slept together. When my male friend told me, I got very upset; I yelled at him for the way he’d dismissed my feelings in the past. We talked on several very long phone calls, and by the end of it I felt heard, valued and respected. He also forced me to come to terms with my jealousy and lack of claim I have over others’ actions. Since then, I’ve had to do a lot of hard looking at my own insecurity and desire for control.
Two weeks later, when my female friend apologized for breaking the promise she had made to me, I told her I no longer thought I’d had a right to that promise in the first place, even though it hurt and angered me when she broke it. She had done what she felt was right for her, and now I had to figure out what was right for me: taking time and space. Part of me felt at peace with this conclusion. But by that point, I also felt so emotionally exhausted by the whole situation, and so disgusted with myself, I wasn’t even sure I deserved an apology from anyone.
Sugar, I’m conflicted. I know what they did wasn’t morally wrong; I’ve felt desire before for the exes of friends, and the friends of exes. These two friends have a relationship that’s independent of me. Still, I was so hurt. And the worst part is, I’m ashamed of my hurt. I’m ashamed of the jealousy I didn’t know was still in me, even eighteen months after the romance ended. I want to be the person who can gracefully take joy in the fact that two people I love were able to share some sexy fun. I want to believe that the hurt is all in my possessive, competitive little brain, so I can just change myself and get over it. All I do now is beat myself up, for whatever choice I make. My internal compass on this matter is so broken. I need your wise, soothing words.
Love,
Triangled
Dear Women,
A couple of years ago the Baby Sugars got into a vicious fight over the decapitated head of a black-haired plastic princess. My son was all but frothing at the mouth. My daughter screamed so hard for so long I thought the neighbors were going to call the cops. The decapitated head in question was about the size of a gumball, its neck not a proper neck, but rather an opening into which a tiny interchangeable torso was meant to be snapped. This torso was either the ancient female Egyptian my daughter was holding in her hand or the sultry skirted girl pirate my son was holding in his. Hence the uproar.
Neither of them could be convinced to relinquish their claim on the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess, no matter how gently or sternly or maniacally I explained that they could take turns, each of them attaching the head to “their torso” for short periods of time. Likewise, they refused to be consoled by any one of the countless items that clutter the room they share—not the bin of agates or the wooden daggers; not the stuffed kittens or alphabet flashcards; not the foam swords or half-trashed markers; not the ballerinas or Roman warriors or monkeys or fairy statuettes or fake golden coins or movie-inspired action figures or unicorns or race cars or dinosaurs or tiny spiral-bound notebooks or any other damn thing in the whole motherloving universe but the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess.
It’s mine, my daughter shrieked.
I was playing with it first, countered my son.
It’s special to me, wailed my daughter.
She plays with my special toys all the time, my son bellowed.
I talked and reasoned and made suggestions that soon became commands, but really, ultimately, there was nothing to be done. There was one head and two torsos. The indisputable fact of that was like a storm we had to ride out until all the trees were blown down.
I begin with this allegorical snippet from Chez Sugar not because I think your individual and joint struggles regarding your friendship are as infantile as a tussle over a toy, but rather because I think it’s instructive to contemplate in essential terms our desire to have not only what is ours, but what also belongs to those we love, and not only because we want those things for ourselves, but because we want the other person not to have them. That fervor is age-old and endless and a gumball-size piece at the core of what we’re grappling with here and I invite you both to ponder it.
We all have a righteous claim to the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess. We believe she is ours alone to hold. We refuse to let her go.
Before we begin disentangling your situation in earnest, I’ll say right out that I’m quite sure if the two of you continue talking silently to yourselves about this crappy and weird thing that happened with the man I’m going to go ahead and call The Foxy Fellow you’re going to regret it. And more than that, you’re going to hatch a whole slew of increasingly distorted beliefs about what went down and what that means and who did and said what and it will not only make you miserable and sad and bitter, it will also rob you of a friend who you really should be sitting on a porch with ten years in the future, laughing about what knuckleheads you were back in the day.
You both did something you basically know wasn’t so great. Your desires and fears and failings and unreasonable expectations and things you won’t admit to yourselves clicked into each other as neatly as a plastic head does into a plastic torso and when you put them together you both got pinched. The same thing happened to you from different points of view. With whom should our sympathies lie? On which woman’s shoulders should the greatest blame be placed? In what directions do the arrows of your narratives flow? How best do you find your way out of this place?
These are the questions I asked myself as I pondered your letters. Every time I tried to straighten the stories out in my head they got all tangled up instead. I made charts and lists with bullet points. I took a piece of paper and literally drew a map. I turned your Foxy Fellow imbroglio into a pair of mathematical equations of the sort I never learned how to do properly in school (which utterly frees me to use them for my own whimsical literary purposes). Here’s how they look:
Friend or Foe: “I solemnly swear that I will never fuck The Foxy Fellow because my friend still has tender and territorial feelings for him and I don’t want to hurt her” + [I am a caring person and fucking The Foxy Fellow would compel me to question the sort of person I believe myself to be] + fucked The Foxy Fellow anyway = eek/ugh2 x [but perhaps, when I really think about it, my friendship with this woman is “not that important”] ÷ and yet there was that time I sat with her in downtown San Francisco while she bawled unabashedly > so – fuck this shit! + how dare she be mad at me! + I was a good to friend to her in every other way! + The Foxy Fellow has not even been her boyfriend for, like, EVER! + I am attracted to him! + he is attracted to me! + I’m not even 30 and my vagina is growing cob webs! + who the hell is she to say who The Foxy Fellow and I get to have sex with in the first place? < I am a terrible person and a selfish sex fiend [will the damning ex-girlfriend please present her testimony to the court?] ÷ cheated, yes + lied, yes + to ever be trusted or forgiven, no, never, not by any woman in any time for any reason whatsoever = you know what? Fuck those bitches! + I’d totally do The Foxy Fellow again! ≠ Except. Well. [Damn]
Triangled: “The Foxy Fellow is a wonderful person” + [we “broke up,” though we were never really together, never monogamous, even though he crushed my heart in this really hard-to-exactly-define-way for which I do not fault him because I didn’t have expectations—why would I have expectations? etc] ÷ it’s pretty clear to me that he wants to fuck my lovely woman friend who watched me bawl unabashedly over him in downtown San Francisco and this makes me feel like puking2 + [what is the meaning of monogamy? what is love? do we ever owe anyone anything when it comes to sex? why do I feel like puking if The Foxy Fellow is “only my friend”?] = accept adamant and profuse promises from my lovely woman friend regarding her plans to not fuck The Foxy Fellow x [sisterhood!] – allow The Foxy Fellow to brush me off when I express my wish he not fuck my lovely woman friend = cry/rage when they fail to not fuck + [how could they? she promised! I thought she was my friend! he never listened to me!] < long, difficult, ultimately satisfying conversation with The Foxy Fellow that makes me feel oddly closer to him [and worse about my puny, insecure, control freak, jealous, uncool, dumbass, competitive, needy self2] x short, unproductive, decidedly cool conversation with my lovely woman friend [doesn’t it seem like she should be sorrier than this?/what right do I have to an apology? since when do I get to say who fucks whom?/but she promised!] ÷ fantasize that my lovely woman friend will take a long-term job in Korea + listen to my generation’s equivalent of Lisa Germano’s “Cancer of Everything” repeatedly while huddled into the pathetic ball of myself + [alternate with trying to cheerfully compose the phrase “to share some sexy fun” in relation to those two selfish assholes] ≠ Except. Well. [Damn]
In the math ignorant world of Sugarland, we call this a clusterfuck.
You are both wrong. You are both right. You both know you can do better than you did. The fact that you failed to do so equals nothing unless you learn something from this. So let’s learn it, sweet peas.
Triangled, if it really hurts and enrages you that The Foxy Fellow fucks a friend of yours he isn’t your friend and you should not conduct yourself with him as such. He is your ex, the love you’ve yet to get over for reasons you may not be able to explain or justify even to yourself, the man who is an absolute no-go zone for anyone who’s even remotely in your inner circle. Lose the but-we’re-just-friends-now/free-love mumbo jumbo and own up to what you actually feel: if The Foxy Fellow is fucking anyone, you don’t want to be hanging out with her. Not yet. Not now. Maybe not ever. At the very least, heal your heart before you go introducing The Foxy Fellow to your friends, especially those you’d describe as “witty, sexy, brilliant.” And then brace yourself.
Though it may seem that Friend or Foe’s choice to break her promise and fuck The Foxy Fellow is what caused all this pain, her actions are not at the root of your sorrow. What’s at the root is the fact that you failed to recognize and honor your own boundaries. You tried to have it both ways. You wanted to be the woman who could be friends with a man she’s not over, but you are not that woman. I understand why you want to be her, darling. She’s one cool cat. She’s the star of the show. She doesn’t take anything personally. But you are not her. And that’s okay. You are your own fragile, strong, sweet, searching self. You can be sad a guy you sort of fell for didn’t fall for you. You don’t have to be a good sport. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay with sharing your interesting and beautiful friends with The Foxy Fellow, even if you feel like a puny asshole not being okay with it. You can say no.
But the thing is, you have to say it. You have to be the woman who stands up and says it. And you have to say it to the right person too. Not to the lovely friend who can’t possibly keep the promises she’s made to you while swimming in the shared waters of your wishy-washy ache for affirmation and orgasms, but to the man himself. Yes, The Foxy Fellow. The one who is, but who is not, your friend. You have to live with the uncomfortable reality that it’s from him—not her!—that you need time and space. And then you have to take it, hard as it is, come what may.
Friend or Foe, you made a choice you knew would hurt someone who trusted you—a choice, it’s worth noting, you explicitly vowed not to make—and afterwards you justified that choice with reasons you could’ve more thoughtfully discussed with her beforehand. This makes you neither “a pleasure addict” nor “a terrible friend.” It makes you someone who did what most people would do in this situation at this moment in your life—a woman who took what she wanted instead of pondering what she needed.
You are at once blameless in this and entirely responsible. You were sort of set up by Triangled and you were also basically a jerk to her. The reason all that other junk came up in your post-Foxy Fellow contemplations—(your ex, your feelings of being eternally punished for having wronged her, your sense that your friend never trusted you either)—is that, contrary to your claim that you don’t regret what you did, you know you could have done this differently, better, or not at all. What’s at stake here is not only your friendship with Triangled, but also your own integrity. You promised you would not hurt someone you cared for. You hurt her anyway. What do you make of that? What would you like to take forward from this, honey bun? Do you want to throw up your hands and say oh well or do you dare to allow this experience to alter your view?
We all like to think we’re right about what we believe about ourselves and what we often believe are only the best, most moral things—ie: of course I would never fuck The Foxy Fellow because that would hurt my friend! We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first. It’s the reason we have to fight so viciously over the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess before we learn how to play nice; the reason we have to get burned before we understand the power of fire; the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending.
I hope that you’ll do that, dear women, even if it takes you some time to stagger forward. I don’t know if your friendship is built to last a lifetime, but I know the game is worth the candle. I can see you on that ten-years-off porch.
Yours,
Sugar
69 responses
Dear Sugar,
I found you through our dear, wonderful Colleen. In fact, I had the rather humbling honor of being sandwiched, interview-wise, between Heather Armstrong and you. Please count me as an immediate and delighted fan, poking out to say wow. Just… wow.
Sugar,
Thank you for another lovely Thursday afternoon. I feel like I’ve become a stronger woman, a happier person and a calmer spirit since letting your words into my heart and my head.
Thank you so much for making me laugh out loud (the “math”!) and learn at the same time. You’re the best, Sugar!
For self propheced math ignorance those equations are pretty fucking brilliant.
‘You wanted to be the woman who could be friends with a man she’s not over, but you are not that woman. I understand why you want to be her, darling. She’s one cool cat. She’s the star of the show. She doesn’t take anything personally. But you are not her. And that’s okay. You are your own fragile, strong, sweet, searching self. You can be sad a guy you sort of fell for didn’t fall for you. You don’t have to be a good sport. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay with sharing your interesting and beautiful friends with The Foxy Fellow, even if you feel like a puny asshole not being okay with it. You can say no.’
oh sugar…where were you when i needed you? 🙁
Oh, Sugar. I wish I could put you on my shoulder so that you could whisper loving encouragements, guidance, and gentle corrections into my ear. As you are neither tiny nor my personal angel, I can only read your columns. Cheers.
What about the The Foxy Fellow? Why does he seemingly get to walk away from the destruction that he had a part in causing?
Seconding Jen. And thirding and fourthing and…
The game is worth the candle, indeed. Sugar does it again.
Love this piece. In making mistakes, we understand more about ourselves, learn not to make them again, and be empathetic to others… <3
Chicks before dicks! Stay friends, ladies, and together, lose the Foxy Fellow.
Impressive and completely true answer. Expectations are a pain, people hurt each other, and you are responsible for your own feelings (whether you’re aware of them or not).
You rock. And like you, I have sympathy for both parties here and hope they can accept and still care (for each other and for themselves).
And that’s the most beautiful aspect of failure. Wisdom- of learning who we really are and what’s really important, not what we idealize ourselves to be or what we are told we should be. Unless we don’t. Repeating failures is an awful way to live.
I can tell you have failed beautifully, Sugar.
You’ve outdone yourself this time, Sugar.
Sugar, how do you ALWAYS say exactly what I need to hear?
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Friend or Foe sounds like a self-absorbed ass who doesn’t want to own her behavior. I don’t know this, of course, but that’s what her letter sounds like to me. Triangled has boundary issues but seems to recognize that. Friend or Foe seems have little empathy and she follows acknowledging she hurt her friend by saying she doesn’t think the friendship means that much anyway.
Sure, Triangled doesn’t have a “right” to tell FoF she can’t fuck the guy. And, yes, most of us have hurt people in ways we never expected we were capable of so it isn’t that I don’t understand making mistakes. But I would be pretty pissed at a friend who did that. Not because I thought I could or should control their behavior but because it seems like a callous thing to do.
And FoF just doesn’t sound like she wants to do anything differently. Either way, if I were Triangled I’d take a break from both of them and work on my own issues. Consider being friends in the future but come to terms with myself first. It’s much more important than whether this particular friendship lasts or not.
“But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.”
And there’s all the ear-burning shame of my early twenties warmly and gently folded back into my self-concept. Sugar, keep offering up affirmations like this and I’m going to start liking myself, I really am, and then who knows what’ll happen?
Letter-writers, I’ve been both of you. Triangled, you are not going to be able to be real true got-your-back friends with Foxy Fellow without putting some serious time and falling in love with someone else (you, I mean, he’s already done that and it didn’t help) between you. Not one or the other, both. I recommend a fade-out rather than a deep “this is why I can’t be close to you” conversation because the conversation perpetuates the closeness. Friend or Foe, your need to be with this guy isn’t about the guy, it’s about you as a sexy sexy hot force of witty brilliant nature who everyone desires including your friend’s ex she’s clearly not over. Man, those were great days! Fortunately you can assert your awesomeness (and from your self-doubt musings I can tell you’re a lot like I was and the assertion of desirability is playing counterpoint to something else in your head right now – the thing you are playing out is necessary, keep doing what you gotta do) by sleeping with people your friends do not know.
Meghan above, the Foxy Fellow gets to walk away because he is not emotionally invested in either of these women. He has not known them long, they are not his friends. Not even Triangled, because when you break someone’s heart and then go on being long-phone-conversation close with them like nothing happened, that’s not friendship, that’s something a little more sinister and we don’t want it.
Wow. I have been both of these people….and the Foxy Fellow. There is no good answer except Sugar’s, who do you want to be sitting on the porch with in 10 years?
Okay, I must have missed that Triangled and the Foxy Fellow knew each other from way back… that makes it worse in that it’s going to make him harder to separate from, but it has to be done, because it’s true, he is the doll head. (That’s my new phrase. “Ew, not that guy, he’s such a doll head. He’d totally break your heart, sleep with your friend and then tell you your emotions are invalid.”)
Thank you sugar for this honoring of female friendship, and its capacity for great resilience. How the friendships that are the strongest, allow us to fuck up sometimes, act out our immaturity as we have to, in order to reach and grow into a kinder self, armed with gratitude. And then in those ten years from porch to porch, city to city, we cry to them laugh with them buy dinners on birthdays with them feel loved by them in our darkest moments. Female friendships can be tough, but in return, strong as hell, between two emotional, fragile, beautiful, strong women.
My goodness, how many female friendships have NOT encountered this dilemma? I know I have, many many times. The situation is often INDEED a clusterfuck, but you eloquently laid it all out in that second to last paragraph, Sugar. Cheers!
Excellent advice as always, Sugar. I have to say, though, I was a little put off by “Friend or Foe” trying to excuse her actions because she didn’t think that the friendship meant that much to her. Clearly it means a lot to her friend or she wouldn’t have written her letter. To me that seems just a little bit cruel and like it’s a way for her to write off her actions without accepting responsibility.
That said, I completely agree with the notion that sometimes we have to make these kinds of horrible mistakes just to learn from them.
What Jen said. Lawdamercy.
My first reaction after reading both letters and before reading Sugar’s answer was “you are two flawed, beautiful women!” I say that as someone who has maintained a number of long- term friendships (25, 30, and two 40-year friendships.) It is worth working on…best to both of you.
“But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.”
“But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first….It’s the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending”
I love Sugar’s consistent philosophy of believing in this, mentioned elsewhere in the one about Mr. Sugar cheating. This describes my current long-term romantic relationship which came almost to an end after I was a total selfish jackass. I never knew I could be such a selfish jackass! And I also never knew that a relationship could survive someone being such a jackass but it has and is so much better for it. If only I’d had Sugar to guide me through that.
You’ve outdone yourself, Sugar. This one hit deep home for me while stunning me with your brilliance and wit. Thank you a thousand times for all you put into this column. Amazing work!
you have helped me so much
Sugar, This is a wonderful article addressing the needs of two beautiful women. There is no right or wrong when it comes to matters of the heart/sex, except acknowledging the other person’s point of view. Each woman needs to own their part in this clusterfuck, so it doesn’t happen again. Life has enough senseless drama as it is.
The motivations of Foxy Fellow, on the other hand, seem apparent and not worthy of much investment in any more time or energy from either woman. Blaming Friend or Foe seems ridiculous since F.F. was more than willing to hurt his long-time friend/ex/victim just as easily. “A brief,non-monagamous romance”??? Each woman needs to get serious about establishing their own personal boundaries and learn who your friends really are.
Been There, Done That.
wow, that ending was deep!! and GREAT.
Foxy Fellow sounds TERRIBLE. I know that these women had their problems–but at least they seem to have guilt and want to change (even if they have perhaps a bit too much guilt).
But FF sounds like an entitled douche. Maybe I should use more Sugar-y language, but ugh, who the hell has long talks about how his hurting someone was actually her fault? Fuck that! You are allowed to feel like crap and the fact that he doesn’t means he is, as aforementioned, an entitled douche. I know this is real life and not a movie with Kristin Wiig, but I wish you two would just talk to each other and then go and laugh in his face while you run off in the sunset and try and be friends again…
Like I said. I know it’s not a movie…but this guy sounds slimy. (Which makes me both a little perturbed at the both of you, but I hate him more, let’s just end with that.)
Yes! I wish all the time that the right to space and time to heal, solitude to re-center and sovereignty over doing what one has to do was treated as exactly that: a right, a fundamental right that each person has in the aftermath of a break-up or betrayal. I understood a long time ago that I am not the cool cat who doesn’t take things personally: I engage intensely, and must disengage cautiously.
It isn’t selfish to do this. It’s self-preservation.
Not all my friends and lovers have understood this. Not everybody understands that amputation isn’t about cutting someone else out – but cutting away the part of yourself that contains your obsessive, lovesick, heartbreakingly powerful need to burn yourself down with the torch you hold for them. It isn’t seen as the socially acceptable thing to do. But strangely enough, that porch metaphor is the same one that visually occurs to me whenever I have to. I know that, when the hurt heals, I may set places at my table for everybody ever involved in the interest of fun and bounteousness and the sheer love of life. But who remains, after the party, sitting on my porch with just me and a nightcap – what I see when I imagine it, now that IS my moral compass.
I was put off by Friend Or Foes letter. I thought she sounded insensitive and I didn’t like how she spoke of her friend. It’s not what she did that bothered me so much, but the words she used to describe it and the aftermath. Friend or Foe, it seems like the thing you regret is making a promise you couldn’t keep and then being held accountable. You feel bad you hurt your friend, but you also feel bad about not feeling bad enough. You remark, “Our friendship wasn’t meant to last, and I have more important things to worry about.” Nothing is “meant” to last. We do our best to MAKE it last. Do you want to make it last? If not, get on to your “more important things.” (My gut says this is pretty important if you’re writing to Sugar about it).
Triangled, if time and space is what you want, take it. Listen to your gut. Is she someone you want in your life? She hurt you. Can you forgive her? What color is forgiveness, anyway? You seem like a girl who’s in tune with her feelings. Learn to assert them. Find and trust your own precious voice. Being a cool cat is overrated. Genuine Goddess is where it’s at! I definitely agree that time away from this Fox could be beneficial. Why is he in your life and not her? Did he give you something in the apology that she hasn’t yet? Can you ask for what you want? (If you resent having to ask for it, tell her that. That is a valid feeling to have, as we all want our friends to anticipate our needs. But when they can’t, what they do with our guidance is pretty telling.)
Both of you, listen to your voices and listen to each other (in a radically honest conversation). Then re-check in with yourself. Etc. On repeat. Welcome to adulthood, it’s all sorting shit out and talking about feelings from now on. The basic question: “Do I want this person on my 10-year-porch?” If you do, MAKE it last. If you don’t know, ask more questions.
And Triangled, remember that there will be someone else to sit and cry with you in the middle of downtown SF. Unless there won’t be, in which case, maybe you want to make this work? Or try to. Or something.
Love to you both. Clarity will come with time.
Sugar’s description of the dilemma and the laying out of the issues was great. But honestly, Triangled can do better for her porch. There are true friends out there who are loyal and who DO have the strength to hold back from hurting someone else for a little fun. I hope that Friend or Foe finds a way to forgive herself and become a better version of who she is now. Life’s too short to try and make it work with friends who have proven themselves untrustworthy. Unless, that’s just how your group of friends treats each other. I speak only for myself, but this kind of drama tires me out and I admit I’d drop both Foe and Fox like stones. You can choose your friends, unlike your family. Why not choose friends who can love you well?
I agree with BB. Sugar’s piece was beautiful, and I am going to forward it to my college age daughter, who is experiencing the trials and tribulations of untrue boys, and has yet, as far as I know, to experience the betrayal of a female friend in quite this fashion.
But as an old lady, I remember my “best” and “oldest” friend, who at one time was my roommate when we were in our twenties, in New York. She had a habit of sleeping with the guys I brought into our circle. It is thirty five years later, and after finally having had enough of her “bull in a china shop” manner of dealing with the feelings of others, I quietly exited the friendship about ten years ago. It was the only way to do it, as she wouldn’t let anybody go, seeing it as an insult to her, this desire to not be part of her audience, entourage. It was much more difficult to do than any breakup with a man. Recently, she has made overtures to reestablish a friendship. We met for coffee, chatted and reminisced for three hours, had fun. At this age, there is much loss in the way of death, friends who have come and gone. At the core though, I don’t trust her. She is untrustworthy. She established it early on, and back then I thought, she is like my sister, this friendship is forever, until it wasn’t. It was really one of the great lessons in my life. This is all to say, run Triangled. Run from both of them. All through your life you will meet their facsimiles, and the art of letting them go, will be your greatest strength. It will be the only way you will let in those future porch sitting friends. Gotta make room for the true blue on those rockers.
Foxy fellows come and go but real friendships can be enduring!
Sugar, you are once again truly madly deeply right on. I do feel compelled to add one point of discussion: when shit like this goes down (and it does, oh, how I know it does), why do girls always blame each other instead of the Foxy Fellow, the fulcrum beneath this seesaw of hurt feelings and regret? Is he powerless to recognize that fucking one girl and then fucking one of her close friend is going to lead to major drama? Sure, it sounds like he had some candid conversations after the fact, but it’s such a shame how often women tend to blame each other, and not the penis in question, when clusterfucks like this one emerge. Sure, girls, you manipulated each other. But he manipulated both of you, and no one seems to be holding him too accountable for where he gets his dick wet. What gives?
Sugar, this was indeed a clusterfuck. How you managed to wade in and untangle it, bewilders me. I have been on either side of similar situations. I handled them neither with grace or understanding. I am still close with the woman who had been Triangled, but not the other. I haven’t thought carefully about that before. I avoided doing so. I think it is long past time I did.
Triangled, I had no one to say these things to me. I am happy you do. I wanted to be that cool woman so badly.
Friend or Foe, good luck. The path to staying friends is neither easy nor fast. For me, it was never about how much my friend was worth to me, she definitely was. It was more did I value myself enough to make the effort to work, learn and be the kind of woman who could make that promise and keep it.
It seems to me that now, in the aftermath of the fuck and in the heart of the clusterfuck, is when FoF is sitting back wondering “If my friendship was really so important to me, would I have done this thing that I think is horrible?” I don’t think FoF really thought that maybe the friendship wasn’t that important BEFORE this happened – I think she was a woman who was the best friend she could be to Triangled. FoF, it’s possible you’re just re-evaluating your narrative of your friendship because what you felt then doesn’t jive with what you did.
Further, Foxy Fellow has fucked with your head – telling you your friend never trusted you, giving that small, scared voice that whispers to you your deepest fears and scariest ideas ammunition – that this friend that you valued (but hurt deeply) didn’t value you, and so it’s not actually a horrible thing that you did because she didn’t care about your friendship the way you thought.
But remove Foxy Fellow from this and look at the way your friend writes about you. Even in her hurt, look at the things she mentions. You laugh, you comfort her when she cries in the middle of the city, you are a friend. The kind that you call when the world falls apart. Sugar is right – we become good people by being selfish jackasses first. FoF – stop distancing yourself from Triangled because you’re afraid to own up to what you did – you hurt her, deeply. But use what you did to help you grow and be a better friend in the future. If Triangled chooses not to remain friends with you, you can still use this to remind yourself of the kind of person you don’t want to be. Forgive yourself for not living up to your own expectations, and try again (starting today) to be the kind of person you imagine yourself to be.
Terrific way to break it down, DS. Though you can count me in with those who think there should be greater emphasis on the fact that Foxy Fellow should be held accountable for sleeping with his old friend’s new friend AFTER his old friend told him it would make her uncomfortable. His was a dick move.
It is incredibly frustrating to me that neither woman put any blame on him, instead choosing to blame each other and themselves. I swear, behavior like that is at the root of why we haven’t had a woman president yet.
Look how we have evolved! Today, Fantasy+Desire+Bad Judgment=Clusterfuck.
Yesterday, Fantasy+Desire+Bad Judgment=The Trojan War, etc.
@Sharanya “…amputation isn’t about cutting someone else out – but cutting away the part of yourself that contains your obsessive, lovesick, heartbreakingly powerful need to burn yourself down with the torch you hold for them.” Wow, thank you for putting into words something I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain to my friends (and myself) for a while now.
And a *high five* to Laura. I hate to see women squander each other with the man striding off blameless. If he cared about Tringle as a friend, he wouldn’t have slept with the friend he knew she never trusted. As it turns out, Tringle’s non-trusting-ness may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know I have been the cause of many a woman’s mistrust and the urge to say “fuck it- you think I’m screwing your man anyway, may as well do it” has loomed large. Then again, FoF would do well to remember that sinking to that level is lame- is that the small character you want to be remembered for?
Foxy Fella sounds like an unmitigated douche bag of a human being. Reading about the phone call where he convinced Triangled that she was a controlling nut bag, who had no business being angry at anyone in the situation, and then reading further and seeing her sort of resigned acceptance of that garbage made me want to reach through the screen and shake the ever living shit out of her. Ugh!!!!
That being said, as always Sugar, right outta the park. You managed to wade into that quivering, tangled ball of dramatic, angsty, guilt ridden, angry muck and iron it all out as cleanly and prettily as a linen napkin.
Take her advice ladies. Lose the douche bag, go for the porch. And Triangled, really girl, it really is ok to not be the cool cat sometimes.
I, too, wondered why Foxy Fellow was left out of the response. The 2nd letter writer stated pretty clearly that she told FF that she was uncomfortable with him sleeping with FoF. I feel like she set her boundary pretty clearly, so I’m not sure why Sugar said what she did about that. I agree with some of the other posters that FF is a creep for sleeping with two best friends and then acting like it’s her fault for caring. Surely, he knew the mess it would cause. If Triangled was upfront with him about her feelings, I think it’s safe to say that, like FoF, he valued sex more than he valued Triangled.
The fact is, whether or not Triangled gets her feeling hurt should not depend on how many cob webs FoF has in her vagina. FoF being a little desperate for action shouldn’t make her more willing to overlook her friend’s emotions. The fact that FoF has done something similar in the past makes me feel less like she is “seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first” and more like putting sex before feelings is a pattern for her.
I think that the only fault that Triangled has in all of this was trying to put a casual label on something that was, to her, not casual. I think that sugar hit that nail on the head. There’s so much pressure for people to have “fun” and be “chill” about things that are meaningful to them. It makes people feel embarrassed because they “care too much.”
I basically was Triangled 5 years ago. Sometimes I don’t think I ever fully forgave my Friend or Foe. Thank you for this, Sugar. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I also wanted to respond to some of FoF comments. “if this one night of problematic sex forever alters or negates all the other ways I’ve been a good friend to her, then so be it.” A lot of the actions that go along with being a good friend are symbolic. Listening is an indication that you value someone’s thoughts, being empathetic is an indication that you value someone’s emotions, etc. So, when you do something that suggests that you don’t value someone’s thoughts and feelings… yes, it does negate the other things. You were a good friend when you let her cry to you in SF, but when you turn around and cause her more pain, it does negate the friend “points” that you originally got.
“To hear her say she relates to me differently, that she withholds information from me because of how I behaved years ago, makes me profoundly sad and angry.” I would like to point out that forgiveness and trust are two completely different things. Someone can forgive you for something that you’ve done and still know that you’d do the same thing again. Actually, in your own words, “I would probably have done the same thing, given another opportunity.” By your own account, your friends shouldn’t trust you. Why are you expecting trust when acknowledge that you won’t behave in ways that will earn you trust? If you want to be someone that people feel comfortable around, maybe you should put friendship ahead of 7 min of sexual pleasure..?
“In the math-ignorant world of Sugarland, we call this a clusterfuck.”
I love that line so much I may have to tattoo it on my body.
This reminded me so much of “A Bit of Sully in Your Sweet.” I want to give both of these women great big hugs. I didn’t read FoF’s dismissal of the friendship as being callous, but, rather, as self-preservation in the face of rejection (finding out that Triangled never trusted her to begin with) and from dealing with the harsh truth that she acted like a jackass toward Triangled. And I say that to FoF as someone who has truly been a jackass herself. FoF, get down and dirty with all the ugliness and kindness within yourself. It’s going to hurt, but it will be worth it.
And, oh, Triangled, what is with the men in this city! FF sounds incredibly manipulative and selfish. Would he have the courage to look closely at his own actions like you and FoF?
For being such a vibrant and diverse place, the people in it can be such emotionally disconnected Peter Pans and the beautifully open and giving beings like yourselves, Triangled and FoF, feel like you have to brush off your legitimately hurt feelings to be that “cool cat”. I have been there many times. They need to change, not you, my dears.
I hope you two can build trust and love again. And if not, within every hurt is a valuable lesson.
Oh, Sugar. Where were you seven years ago? Or five years ago? Or even three years ago? I think if anyone could have given me the wisdom I needed to let go of my obsessive friendship with my own we’re-just-friends-except-I’m-in-love-with-him-and-he-doesn’t-love-me-back-not-like-that Foxy Fellow, it would have been you. There are a lot of things I’d have done differently if I could do my 20’s over again, but I think not making a clean break is the one thing I regret. And that friendship was enormously important and valuable to me, but it also caused so much angst and is probably the reason I’m 32 and single for the last 14 years. Even though I knew I needed to get over him, even though I knew he was never going to love me back, even though I knew that as long as I held out hope that he would one day look at me and see something different that I’d never find someone who did love me back, even though I knew it was ridiculous to hold out such hope – I couldn’t let go. In the end, he made some choices that drew him away from me and now we haven’t spoken in over two years, with no sign of that letting up. As much as I miss him, and as much as I miss that deep feeling of rightness whenever we were together, I know that it was better off in the end. I wish I’d had the strength, years ago, to walk away.
I’m sorry, but Friend or Foe sounded very selfish and uncaring. I don’t think she really deserved the response she got. I agree with what another person said, that Triangled can find better for her porch. FoF doesn’t seem to value her, or any of her other friends, for that matter.
Stunner.
It sounds like FoF may be many good things, but trustworthy is not (yet) among them. Many people are overwhelmed by their need to be desired, and it is the cause of so much hurt among people. While FoF’s actions may be “justifiable” because Triangled couldn’t really make a claim on FF, they are hardly in line with the Golden Rule, and that seems to be the root of the problem.
And FF shouldn’t be let off any hook any faster than FoF. He knew full well that sleeping with FoF would hurt Triangled and he did it anyway.
As for Triangled, good luck. It’s hard to learn to ask for what we really need and want from lovers and friends and even harder to live with the fact that they will not always comply. But at least we can make our boundaries clear.
No one can give better advice than Sugar. Period.
all the specifics of this situation aside, it’s nobody’s damn business who any of us are sleeping with. so while it’s unfair to ask your friend not to sleep with someone due to your unresolved feelings, and it’s common practice for friends to try to avoid sleeping with their best friend’s exes, WHY is everyone finding out about it? seems like the act of sex isn’t the only emotionally satisfying transaction people are looking for in a clusterfuck like this.
so why did triangled find out? oh right, because foxy fellow jumped right out of bed with friend or foe and CALLED her to make sure she knew that the one thing she told him made her uncomfortable–after joking about it for months and dismissing her feelings on it–well he just got done doing it. this is careless, abusive behavior. it’s not how you treat a friend even when they don’t have lingering feelings for you, but when they do, it’s just cruel.
when i was friend or foe in a similar situation [though no promises were made], the foxy fellow in question seemed to think our friend in common should know what was going on, even though it was brief and behind closed doors, and for the most part, over. there was no dating, no curious leaving together in public where anyone would know, just a couple nights with a guy i knew would be problematic for our friend in common. and what i realized right then and there was that his desire to hurt this woman with this otherwise meaningless information was deeper and weirder and more fucked up than the fact that we chose to get together even though it might hurt her.
ladies, you can move on from this. we have all fallen in bed with a bad choice, but if you look at who’s stirring up the problems here, you’ll see two contemplative women who value each other enough to write in for advice, and a guy gave each of you hurtful information about the other one to mess it all up.
@ Sharanya
I wish all the time that the right to space and time to heal, solitude to re-center and sovereignty over doing what one has to do was treated as exactly that: a right, a fundamental right that each person has in the aftermath of a break-up or betrayal. I understood a long time ago that I am not the cool cat who doesn’t take things personally: I engage intensely, and must disengage cautiously.
It isn’t selfish to do this. It’s self-preservation.
THIS…describes me to a T.
Why do so many people (usually women) feel the need to be an emotional martyr for The Greater Good of The “Friendship”?
FTR. Clearly we have some competition based on a looks differential. Foxy was incidental and a douchebag that would have been sniffed out and exterminated in a healthier friendship.
Sugar’s answer is enlightening in its exploration of the human psyche and addresses Triangled’s FF situation wonderfully. But it doesn’t reiterate to Triangled that she’s entitled to acknowledge Friend Or Foe’s betrayal and so apportion responsibility to FoF in this situation, as well as to herself. I really hope Triangled is still reading these comments.
Peeve: I hate the phrase “no right to ask.†A request may be irrational or selfish but it is still a request. It is not a directive: suggesting otherwise denies people autonomy in relationships and negates the reality of compromise as mutual. You have the right to ask anything of anyone and they have the right to grant or refuse. People always use this loathsome phrase when what they mean is “I shouldn’t ask†– but whatever their rationale, they damn sure have a right to, just as the other has a right to answer or not.
Triangled, though you were honest about your feelings, you didn’t even ask Friend Or Foe to refrain from pursuing your ex while you were processing your emotional trauma, because you seem to be a person who believes you “don’t have a right†to ask things of people, be it the friend you were madly in love and non-monogamous with or the witty, brilliant friend you seem to idolise a little. I think you lack self esteem, as evidenced by the letter that speaks highly of FF/FoF whilst exploring a plethora of reasons to blame only yourself.
FoF CHOSE to nail her flag to your mast, chose to show herself a magnanimous and compassionate friend by granting you a wish as a show of support in your time of need. How lovely that brief glow of reassurance and solidarity must have felt. But she then chose to go back on her word and break her promise, thereby betraying you. Of course she has a right to sleep with whomever she chooses, but she also has a responsibility to treat her friend with respect. If her desire was overwhelming, the decent thing to do in that situation is to take back the promise and inform you of her intent. Maybe you’re cowardly for not taking what you need from people, but she’s also a coward for lying to seem like a person she’s not. You’re insecure and have boundary issues, but FoF is duplicitous and insincere, thus preying on your fears.
Having been betrayed and dismissed as unimportant by FoF I would learn to let go of the friendship unless FoF actively wishes to make amends and pursue a more positive relationship. FWIW, I don’t see the point of saving a space on my porch for someone who feels that ambivalent about me. Maybe the friendship is worth working on, but obviously the one who has to work is FoF – Triangled, you have shown compassion, empathy, a desire to improve yourself and willingness to forgive and move on, to the extent of blaming solely yourself for this mess. Retaining your relationship with FoF in its current incarnation feeds into the very self-deception that Sugar tells you to fight against. You don’t have to be cool and unruffled, you don’t have to pretend that what she did was okay – it was hurtful and you don’t have to accept it at the expense of not recognising and honouring your own boundaries. Sugar’s wisdom doesn’t just apply to the men in your life, apply it to your relationship with FoF and don’t rely on the voices here misguidedly interpreting this situation as a time purely for female solidarity. Sometimes it’s worth it but sometimes it’s not – nobody can dictate the value of the friendship to you, you have to decide for yourself.
Triangled chiming in here.
This has been an intense and vulnerable experience, being the subject of such a beloved advice column. Reading the comments, in particular, has brought up a swirl of emotions. What fascinates me is the way strangers will use the limited information of a real-life situation and fill in the gaps with their own experiences and interpretations, to create a narrative that jives with them. I can’t really fault anyone for that, though it frustrates me, because I’ve done it before; I think that’s how we tend to engage with stories, culturally. We make them their own. Still, I can’t help feeling like parts of this real-life situation have morphed into a fiction that I wish to address.
I think many of you make valid, poignant points. I’m touched by all the kind, supportive words, the encouragement to allow myself to be human, to trust my feelings and needs, and to allow all of us involved to acknowledge and move past the mistakes we each made. I’m heartened by all you commenters who honor female friendships, who urge me and Friend or Foe to stay friends. Believe me, we intend to.
I don’t want to start a flame war on Dear Sugar, but for my own peace of mind, and for the records of the internet, I’d like to say this. I resent the developing narrative of Foxy Fellow being nothing more than a manipulative douche I should kick to the curb before turning back to FoF as my “real” friend. They are both my *real* friends. I love them both. Foxy Fellow is not a fuck of a distraction from FoF, nor is he an abusive jerk, reducible to his sexual organs. He is my close friend. He was my friend long before we ever embarked on our experimental romance. I’d even describe FF as my best friend. I could have made that more explicit. I was truncating my novel of a letter as much as possible, and inadvertently breezed through some salient details in order to get to the crux of my emotional question. I wish I had outlined the nature of my friendship with FF the way I did when describing FoF. I would have said that he and I also laugh together constantly (sometimes on porches!), and we’ve also supported each other through romantic traumas. I would have said that he was there for me when I broke up with my first boyfriend. I wish I had mentioned these things. But I was pressed for space, and instead I assumed that if I called him a dear friend who I’ve known since high school, the implication of our closeness would be obvious. Forgive the Buffy geekery but he’s the Xander to my Willow. It’s easy to identify with the story of two strong ladyfriends who fought over a bastard who ultimately wasn’t worth it. This is not that story. They’re both more than worth it to me.
FF has hurt me in the past, and I’ve hurt him. Our friendship has a long, complicated history that, in the words of Sugar, is one of those meaningful relationships that “continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending.” I firmly believe, as another friend has told me, that we are all born into this world with our right to hurt others and be hurt by others. The challenge is how to be accountable for the hurt we cause, and the hurt we feel. When I said those conversations with FF made me feel heard, valued and respected, I meant it. He’s been nothing but accountable and attuned throughout this whole thing, (and every other time there’s been a tempest in our friendship), apologizing where it’s appropriate, and calling me on the shit I need to be called on. I can conclude nothing else but that he’s a caring, solid friend.
And please go easy on Friend or Foe. We both wrote to Sugar in moments of vulnerability. We asked her to reassure us that the dark voices in our heads, the ones that whispered to us about what terrible people we were, weren’t right. FoF was incredibly brave to lay bare her insecurities like that, and it’s one of the reasons I admire the hell out of her. She’s someone I want in my life for a long, long time.
Lastly, Dear Sugar, thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I appreciate your insights, your genuine sincerity, your lovely metaphors and turns of phrase. I think, ultimately, I was asking you permission to not feel ashamed of my feelings. You gave me that; you told me I can be my own “fragile, strong, sweet, searching self.” I suppose, in the end, I’m the only one who can really give myself that permission. But you helped me see it. And you reminded me that the vicious claim we all have on the decapitated princess is a human tendency we can own and learn to transcend. That it’s the transcendence that makes us beautiful and alive. So thank you.
This one really hit home for me… A couple of years ago I found myself in a similar situation as Triangled with a friend of mine. I tried to forgive her but the hurt went too deep. I told her she’d hurt me and why (for me it was her betrayal, not the guys, that hurt the most) but although she said some of the right things she also said a lot of the wrong things. She also couldn’t help herself from hurting again.
My advice to Friend or Foe is to look at why she felt the need to do what she did. She knew her actions would cause pain, and yet she did them anyway. I think you need to find a way to feel like a strong validated woman that doesn’t involve men, or hurting a friend.
Triangled, you need to take some time to look at yourself and how much you value your own feelings and opinions. You need to find a strength you do have inside you to own those feelings, to yourself and others. You need to talk to your friend and tell her she hurt you. Scream at her. Swear at her, but try to forgive her. If she’s not willing to hear it, or to make amends then maybe you two shouldn’t be friends, at least for a while.
You both need to talk to each other, and listen to each other. I hear some anger in FoFs letter towards Triangled, but I think it’s actually anger at yourself for not learning from past mistakes. You need to admit that you know you did something that hurt a friend. You also need to forgive yourself. We all do stupid, terrible things, but it’s what we do after that counts. Hear each other. Really hear each other. Listen to each others feelings of inadequacy, of remorse, and try to move on from it, together if possible, but don’t beat yourselves up if its not. My friendship didn’t last because I decided I didn’t want it to. This wasn’t a quick angry decision, but an exhausted, drawn out one, after being stung repeatedly.
I have strong feelings of inadequacy that I battle everyday, but everyday I feel like I’m one step closer to being the strong powerful woman I know is locked inside me… I think you both can do the same.
This is a really long post, but it did really hit home with me. I hope you both find your ways. With love and good vibes for you both.
Letter Writers, you are both very brave for sending in these letters and I wish you the best.
Triangled- just a note on the guy- I have a dear friend who I would never cut loose for the world who is also a guy, and I for a long time had feelings for him that could not be quashed. It was hardest because I was trying so hard to be cool, etc, and because we were almost never single at the same time ((so there was always that but-maybe-when))…
Anyway, I think that the first thing you should do is to sit down with yourself and be honest. ARE you ever going to get together? You seem to think not. Talk it out with yourself. I’m serious- it’s way cheesy, but it helps. And then date. A lot. Go on first dates with people you aren’t compatible with, that you would never date again, even- you are under no obligation too- that is what dating is for!
Have a lot of fun! Open your mind to other romantic options and above all, don’t compare them to him. Ever. And yes, that is what I did, and yes, you are different.
Yeah, that’s not how you use the word “conjugal.”
I was distracted all the way through the letters, answer, and comments section because I couldn’t figure out where FoF’s husband was hiding.
And I’m glad T came back to give us an update.
“We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.” I want to be Misses Sugar when I grow up.
How did you resolve the fight between your kids Sugar? And where could I find this black haired princess toy?
A good friend that I’ve reconnected with has introduced me to you Sugar and I couldn’t be more grateful for your wise words. Just by reading your words of encouragement, I feel more enlightened in my own life. Thank you. 🙂
This is the best, most thoughtful advice ever. Should be in schools.
I know this is a pretty late comment, but I just want to point out an inconsistency I’m sensing. If T thinks her male friend is such a wonderful person and has been throughout such a long amount of her life, I find it strange that he would have told FoF that T “never trusted her anyway.”
Is this the first time T found out that FoF was told this? Is it actually true and something that T told FF?
Some people are very good at manipulating others. T, from your letter it doesn’t sound AT ALL like you “never trusted her” – in fact, if you hadn’t trusted her so much, it wouldn’t have hurt so badly.
So I think it might be good to take a step back and think – did you ever give FF a reason to think you didn’t trust FoF? And if you *didn’t* give him any reason to, maybe you need to confront him on why he would say such a hurtful thing to FoF after they had sex.
You say, T, that you wanted to defend FF after seeing so many people malign him. Yet, the reasons they chose to point out as negative traits were never addressed in your defense of him. Why not?
The reason so many people thought FF was a bad influence was clearly typed out:
A: He knew you had asked him to not sleep with your friend, and he, in your words “dismissed (your) worries” about them sleeping together. (Using the word “dismissed” makes it sound like you are the “little woman” saying “yes sir” to everything he does to you.)
B: He told your friend afterwards that “T never trusted (her) anyways” (even if this were true, saying it after sexing her up was akin, IMO, to the last scenes of Carrie. “Asked to prom – get cows’ blood poured on you.” If he were a good friend to either of you, he would never have told HER something that would hurt her in her moment of vulnerability, and he also would have never revealed what OBVIOUSLY – if true!! – was something told HIM in CONFIDENCE by you.)
C: He had previously had a non-monogamous relationship with you, and WHILE THAT WAS HAPPENING, he fell in love with SOMEONE ELSE and “rightly chose over (you)” Rightly? (I know I don’t know all the details, but it really seemed like you were simply keeping his sex drive satiated, until somebody “worthy” came along. Insinuating that you weren’t good enough.)
D: Apparently you made up with him far before making up with your female friend, even though in your letter you outright say “this idea made me feel uncomfortable, but he dismissed my worries.” So you clearly told him quite frankly that you didn’t like the idea. YET, your female friend you NEVER ASKED to not sleep with him. Even though she promised not to, it was FF who you spoke your feelings to.
In closing, I think you are doing FoF a disservice as a friend, and here is why: She made a promise, yes – yet you knew that FF was itching to get with her, so badly that you told him you’d really rather he not. (Seriously, if he’s so hot, aren’t there other girls who he could sleep with WITHOUT damaging your 5-15+ year friendship?) FoF was weak, and made a mistake. But FF knew all along and actually *rubbed your face* into his attraction to FoF for probably months (from what your email reads)
If this were a murder case, I’d say FoF would get manslaughter (non-premeditated, spur of the moment occurrence) while FF would get Murder One. He planned it. He literally taunted you with it (yes, when he “jokes” about sleeping with your best friend after you say it makes you uncomfortable, that’s not “joking” that’s taunting.)
It’s probably a hard thing to do, but I really sincerely hope you take a whole *leap* back and perhaps consider NOT CONTACTING this guy for a while, during which you sort out your feelings for him, and whether they are based on a reality, or a fictional fantasy within which any negatives are glossed over by your still love-hazed mind.
I wish you and FoF all the luck in the world. And I also suggest you watch “In Her Shoes” the movie. A very similar situation occurs between two blood sisters, and yet they manage to work it out. I think you’ll find it eerily familiar.
Sugar:
I just now found this column eventhough advice columnists are my guilty pleasure, my written reality-TV.
I know why I found you. I know why it happened now and not earlier.
I know the lessons I am meant to lean.
I know what I should do.
I just wasn’t prepared to come across a column that spells it all out for me, waiting for me to be ready, read it and act.
I have a lot of thinking to do.
I have a lot of courage to find.
At last, I know what to do.
Sugar, I am not sure if you are ever going to read this; nevertheless, I thank you!
In ten years I want to be sitting on the porch with a book. Humans are no fun to be friends with. And even if many of them were, I would not be.
Just another perspective on this one, from someone who chose not betray her friend. My friend and I were both divorced. Her ex and I were involved in some groups together where we got to know each other better. There was a very strong mutual attraction, and he came onto me. I turned it down, thinking I would not want to hurt my friend. Now it is many years later and he is remarried. The friendship with my friend broke down for other reasons. So now, I am old, alone, and lonely and wonder what might have been had I taken her ex up on his offer. Maybe I would have been the one he ended up remarried to? At the time it seemed like the noble, right thing to do. Other times, I think maybe I should have followed my heart.
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