[Two Pronged] Guilty best friend

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes. Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he enrolled in, and subsequently gave, workshops in work-life balance and gender sensitivity training. He has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years, as co-lecturer and occasionally as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives. Dr Holmes needs no further introduction.

Dear Dr Holmes and Jeremy:

This is my dilemma. My best friend’s marriage is going through a very rocky phase (she is very depressed and even her counseling sessions are no longer helping), and I have information that I think might influence her to re-think her decision to sacrifice everything for her marriage.

A couple of us, her close friends, have already told her to go on trial separation. The reason we feel this may help her is because we’ve seen how she has turned from a strong, independent, career-minded woman (pre-marriage) into an emotionally battered wife (after just a few years of marriage). But she keeps citing their young kids as primary reason for staying together. She says though, that if she ever found out that he had cheated on her, then she would definitely leave him. This is where I come in. I recently have come to know that before they got married, her then-boyfriend (now-husband) was actually cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend. He also told my best friend before they got married that he was a virgin when many of us knew he was not (because we run in the same circles). She believes and values this about him, to this day, I think.

So I want to tell her what I know so that she’ll begin to really question everything. But I also hesitate because (1) it happened before they got married and (2) I got hold of the information only from another friend (who’s very good friends with the ex-girlfriend). So since it’s technically hearsay, is it “admissible in court” as they say in legal parlance? The reason I do want to tell her is I feel guilty knowing about this and withholding it from my best friend. And I wonder if sharing this piece of information with her might actually be the push that she’s waiting for to leave her husband? Or am I assuming too much about what she wants from her marriage? If I were in her shoes, I think I would want her to tell me if she knew something about my husband too.

What do you think, Dr. Holmes and Mr. Baer – should I tell her or should I just forever hold my peace? — Guilty Best Friend

***

Dear Guilty Best Friend,

You are indeed caught in a dilemma, or even perhaps several dilemmas.

Firstly, you possess information which could make your best friend view her own problem differently. Your difficulty here is that not everybody thanks their friends if they bring them bad news of this kind. There is a real risk that you will jeopardize your friendship if you reveal the truth and there is no easy way you can test the water.

Secondly, should you actually involve yourself to this extent in your friend’s marital problems? At the risk of being accused of a gross generalization, I would suggest that women are more open to this than men, because they are more willing to share their problems with their friends than men. So their friends are better placed to help.

How about your best friend though? How will she react to your intervention? You obviously hope that she will see the truth of her situation and, freed of guilt, leave her husband. However, history is littered with cases of the messenger getting shot because the message itself was too unpalatable.

To share a personal example, a friend once told me that he had broken up with his girlfriend. I told him that I thought he had made the right choice because she looked more like his grandmother than a woman his own age and no wonder he never had the hots for her (as he told me on several occasions, the way, I am sure, your best friend has told you many things). 

I am a man, I make no excuses for being mababaw (joke only). Besides, focusing on her physical limitations was much kinder than on her emotional and intellectual. But I digress.  He laughed and thanked me for my comments.

A few months later, however, I received a wedding invitation from them. Shortly after they got married, they moved first to Rio de Janeiro, then Barcelona and Hanoi. Lots of our mutual friends were invited to stay in the magnificent houses expatriates like them are housed in while abroad but, surprise, surprise, I never was.

We just do not have sufficient information about your best friend to know how receptive she will be to any intervention on your part so you will have to be the best judge of that. Suffice it to say however that you must be prepared to lose a friend if you reveal your information.

An alternative could be to try to achieve your desired result via a different strategy.

Your friend thinks that staying in a bad marriage is worthwhile for the sake of the children. If the children’s welfare is indeed primary, she would be well advised to consider the example she and her husband will be setting them.

Their understanding of marriage, the roles of husband and wife, of father and mother, will be formed by how their nuclear family behaves over the next decade or so and frankly, unless their parents are fantastic actors and can remain in character at all times, they will be psychologically affected by the inevitable tensions of a bad marriage.

Does your friend really want her children to have an emotionally battered woman as their role model of a wife (and presumably a batterer as their role model of a husband)?   

If you can persuade her that the children will be at least as well off, if not better off, by leaving him, then your chances of keeping your friendship and a happy outcome will be immeasurably increased. Best of luck. — Jeremy

***

Dear Guilty Best Friend:

Many thanks for your letter. Without any ifs,ands,buts, or any other qualifiers, I feel, without any doubt, that you must tell your best friend.

This of course, is mere opinion, though one based on research in relationships which I will discuss later and also on (limited) clinical experience. Limited because I do not often come across heterosexual clients who wish to discuss their same-sex best friends with me. 

This, too, is an opinion I would not share with anyone who might have the same dilemma, but I feel your sincerity and your (successful) attempts to examine your reasons for telling her what you know. Many times people tell on others, merely to get one-up on a “friend” they have a complicated relationship with. I do not see that in your case.

In psychology the Social Penetration Theory claims that, as relationships develop, they penetrate deeper and deeper into private and personal matters. This exposes vulnerabilities on both sides, so trust has to be developed along the way. 

Social Penetration Theory lists 5 stages in friendship. To my mind, your friendship with your best friend is at Stage 4, the Stable stage, when the relationship reaches a plateau in which truly deep personal things are shared and each can predict the emotional reactions of the other person in most but definitely not all, situations.

The depth and breadth of your friendship is obvious in the letter you wrote. She has shared things with you she wouldn’t share with someone she didn’t trust deeply. You have seen her blossom in many ways, but also “devolve” from a confident, accomplished woman into an emotionally battered wife.

It makes perfect sense that you feel guilty for not telling her. Not to do so would mean one-upmanship-ing her, for you cannot help thinking, even if in the most caring way possible “If you only knew what I knew…”

In addition, your having to “forever hold your peace” will, like the Chinese Water Torture, pain you because you will feel you’ve let her down. And that will be accurate, if you’d hoped to be the sort of friend to her that you want her to be to you. Without your meaning to, your friendship will reach stage 5 (of the Social Penetration Theory): Depenetration, when the relationship starts to break down and costs exceed benefits, and then there is a withdrawal of disclosure.

It is not as if you are insensitively telling her tsismis (mere gossip). You know telling her will break her heart even more. As Jeremy warned you above, you too are taking a risk –of getting your heart broken should she choose to shoot the messenger instead of focusing on her marriage. You too are in danger of getting your heart broken. Okay, okay, perhaps some would think not as devastatingly as ending a marriage, but I think true friendships are far more valuable than bad marriages. 

Your statement “If I were in her shoes, I think I would want her to tell me if she knew something about my husband too” says it all. In the end, what really matters is that you try to behave with as much integrity, generosity of spirit, and love as you can. If she takes it for what it is, terrific. If she doesn’t and decides she no longer wants to be friends, then charge it to experience.

Should the latter happen, and if you still value her friendship as deeply, you may even try asking her to forgive you. Yes, yes, even if you meant no harm, and even if your heart was in the right place. Ask her to forgive you for disillusioning her, perhaps, even for misunderstanding that all she wanted was for you to say tsk tsk, pat her hand, and agree what an SOB her husband is.

Believe me, that is a whole lot better than trying to forgive yourself for not being the best friend you’d hoped to be. — Margie

– Rappler.com

(Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email desk@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED.)