Quote: I find them all kind of sad to be sitting in a pub when they could be at home doing stuff with their families.
I agree! But it's not up to us to make value judgments about others, is it?
I don't think it is wrong to have an opinion. I regularly hear of people who do things that I don't approve of. I aknowlege those feelings and explore the where appropriate. I am aware tha people have different life experiences to me, different values and morals; I accept that. I don't go into the pub and lecture these guys that they 'should' be at home with their families; that is something I feel internally. What they do is up to them. We all judge peopel on a daily basis by the clothes they wear, the places they hang out and who they hang out with. I could argue that you judged H friends by thinking that the imature ones were unsuitable....
Quote: I have never seen Mr. Wonderful's real friends as a threat. Ever. However, after he left he got himself a new group of beer buddies. He did hang around some of his former friends, as long as they followed his rule of "Betsey-free conversations." Most of his beer buddies--particularly the single ones--do not know me.
This was a threat to me, Pink. These guys were more than happy to accommodate his rule of a Betsey neutral zone (they had nothing to add, anyway). Furthermore, they weren't holding him accountable for his crappy moods (which I understand now were the rule rather than the exception), and Mr. Wonderful is generous. That means they were reluctant to lose their drinking buddy, so they weren't going to encourage him to head into counseling or re-think his plan.
I do know that his friends were (are?) bothered by our sitch. His 2 closest friends were LBS (one has happily reconciled with his W and the other is D). And they have made numerous attempts to talk to him about things. As a result, they actually talk to me more often. The D friend of his is one of my annulment witnesses... and I'm talking one of Mr. Wonderful's most dear and cherished friend, Pink.
So, you only approved of friends that wanted to see your R reconciled? Using the above as a guide to H friendship, I would say that H has friends that do not enhance his spiritual growth. They do not encourage him to think about his R with me....They encourage a pink free zone..and so do I. I don't want H talking about me with his buddies or to be encouraged into councelling by peer presure I want him to sort things out in his own mind by himself. I can fully understand his need to have some thought free time. I can think of nothing worse than havingmy friends encouage me to seek therapy or tell me that what I was doing to H was wrong when I needed space. I felt bad enough at that time without my friends disaproving of me too. I wanted my friends to offer me support in whatever choices I made.
Quote: Why do you think that people who engage in Rs where there is no intimacy or depth, it might be a smokescreen for a really huge issue?
Because those types of Rs are not generally the types where soul searching and evaluation takes place. (See my comments about Mr. Wonderful above.) If one continually seeks out shallow Rs, what incentive is there for growth and accountability?
Who are we to say that others need ...or are ready for spiritual growth and accountability?
Quote: I don't know if you read my post about our charity golf tournament in September? Some of Mr. Wonderful's more recent work friends (who I'd not met until then) joined in. I met one of his bowling friends at the silent auction table. Now mind you, this guy knew that Mr. Wonderful had separated and divorced and not much else. He also knew that Mr. Wonderful wasn't really happy and had been moody all year. This guy is married with kids, and I have no idea why I'd not met him before. Pink, when he introduced himself, he asked me how I knew Mr. Wonderful? I was as stunned as I was amused. I told him I was the XW and his jaw dropped. He assumed I was his GF, just from the way he observed Mr. W. looking at me. He gave me a look that clearly meant, "What was he thinking?" D11 told me awhile ago that another one of his friends said to him (within her earshot), "Betsey's a fine lady, and I have no idea what you're thinking there."
Quote: I can promise you that when I contemplated leaving him, my friends all stopped me dead in my tracks. They told me what I didn't want to hear. And although I really didn't want to hear it, I did. Had I chosen to inform some new GFs who only knew that I was unhappily married, do you think I'd have received the same advice?
No I don't. But different advice may not have been wrong. If your friends cared about you so much why would they encourage you to stay in an unhappy relationship? Maybe if YOU had left the R earlier Mr. W. would not have been forced to do so and would not be harbouring all of this guilt now.
Quote: For the record, he's not blaming me at all anymore. Right now, he's absorbing the guilt and also projecting it on to his parents. We're slowly working around that issue...
I'm glad about that. Guilt is a very distructive and debilitating emotion.
