Tuesday, December 14, 2010

If you love someone, set them free...right?

Well, it seems that I am managing to get on here once every other day or so. I guess that is okay too though. My mind is still on relationships. This one is a different but related one. I have been friends with this one woman since eighth grade (aka fifteen years). About five or six years ago, she was living with this guy (who is now her husband) and he was not good to her or her kids (he has since changed that and is really wonderful to and for them). She was thinking about leaving him and I fully supported her in that thought process. I supported her and whatever decision she decided to make in that case. Anyhow, she ended up not leaving him (obviously) and they got married. And guess who organized their wedding? (If you guessed that it was me, you would be correct!) Almost immediately after they got married, he decided that he didn't really want her to be friends with me anymore. Because I was friends with her ex-boyfriend and he was afraid that I would "hook" them up together. Not going to happen, but okay...

So, we weren't in contact for quite some time. Then we renewed our friendship via social media (I think it was myspace) and we even went to their church with them as their guests a few times and I was there when she and her husband and her sister all got baptized. It was beautiful! And I thought we were pretty much past the whole fear thing again.

But then one night after they bought their house, they had a house-warming to celebrate and it just so happened that the same night, my other friend (her ex-boyfriend) needed a babysitter for his daughter, so the daughter was staying at our house for that night. And I talked to both of my friends, my girl friend and my guy friend to see if it would be okay if the daughter came along with our family to the housewarming party. My girl friend knows the daughter and they actually get along really well. The guy friend was okay with it, but when I called my girl friend to ask her, she said that we were not invited to come anymore, because we had the other friend's daughter with us and the daughter (and now I) were just reminders of her ex-boyfriend and she wanted to cut all things to do with her ex-boyfriend out of her life. Never mind the fact that she and I were friends BEFORE she and said guy started dating. Never mind the fact that they dated for two years when they were thirteen and fourteen. Never mind the fact that she decided to sleep with him years later when I wasn't in contact with either one of them and she was separated from her husband at the time. Never mind any of that. The fact that I was babysitting his kid was enough reason to cut me out of her life. I tried to reason with her briefly and then decided that it wasn't worth it, and that if she didn't want to be friends, that was okay too. It wasn't worth my effort, my energy or my heart to try to keep a relationship that wasn't wanted by the other person.

So, we parted ways. And, as you may be able to tell from my post the other day, the guy and I are still friends. And recently, the girl friend decided she wanted to be in contact with me again. This happened before the guy friend and I went out that night to talk. So we have been talking here and there. She "can't" be friends with me on facebook because her hubby is on there too and would see that we are friends and he is still not okay with it.

I have responded to her when she sends me messages but I haven't initiated any contact with her at all. I have talked this over with my hubby as well and we rather feel that if she wants to be in contact and be friends, since it was her hubby that decided it was not okay to do so, that we should have his blessing to be friends again. I hope that makes sense. But I do feel that we should have her hubby's permission to be friends again. She wants to sneak around and be friends behind his back, emailing and texting when she is at work or at least when he is not at home. I don't want that. I want to either be friends and be allowed to be friends, or walk away. Maybe that is harsh, but I don't want to go through this again and I also don't want to cause a wedge or any negativity between her and her husband. I just need to figure out how to go about that...

And at the same time, it breaks my heart to know that this is what I need to do. I don't want to do it because I really do desire a friendship with her and if I say this to her, she may turn away completely and walk away. And that would hurt. But it would hurt more to hide our friendship from her husband, have him find out about it and then restrict her from being friends with me again, and continuing to not trust me or her. And that would hurt even more, I do think.

Not to mention that I want to do the right thing. Which would be to honor her husband's wishes and be supportive of their relationship. Even if I don't agree with husband's wishes. It is the right thing to do. It just doesn't make it any easier. And I am dreading doing this because of my own fear of losing her once again. Even if I don't really have her right now either.