The Vine: March 1, 2001
WTF was that last entry in the Vine? I am truly scared for that woman. Granted, I do not have my MSW yet, but as a non-clinician who has seen many an ugly scene, this has all the makings for her ending up in the ER with a broken something. It’ll happen. This guy is violent. And so what if she decides in 3-4 years that she made a mistake and wants to leave him (this seems inevitable as her lead-in line is “the man I am supposed to spend the…” What a SCREAMING endorsement!)? I bet that he has a rule for that, too. And I am sure that it involves her getting her ass kicked.
Although I must also add that I was really troubled by this line: “I don’t have a problem with the asses of my exes being kicked…” WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? Okay, this girl needs help. Because either she never cared about these guys, or she never learned how to get closure.
Mess. My advice: They need counseling. Or she needs to leave now. Your advice that she call the police might just end up in her being the recipient of his pent-up anger. She should know that and get to a shelter before he gets home, if she chooses to do that.
J.
Dear J.,
You know, I had the same feeling about that line you quote in the second paragraph — like, what? At the very least, shouldn’t she dish out the beatdowns herself? I mean, not that I condone violence, but the whole thing just seems so ridiculously Jets/Sharks.
Regardless, if this is the way the two of them think problems get dealt with, then yes, they should get counseling. I do get the sense that such a recommendation would fall on deaf ears in this case, though.
Dear Sars,
I’ll make this short since I am writing at work and will probably catch hell if i get caught.
My husband and I have been friends with this guy — let’s call him “Chris” — for a few years. He has always been kind of flighty and not very stable. About 2 years ago, he started dating this girl (let’s call her “Annie”). We (my husband and I) didn’t really expect the relationship to last long, since Chris and Annie come from vastly different backgrounds and such. There’s no birth control going on in her family (they have 9 kids, even though the last 3 have been born with serious birth defects), and she doesn’t believe in using anything in a marriage. Chris, on the other hand, has been around the block SEVERAL times, and has much more…liberal…ideas about sex and birth control.
To make a long story short, about 8 months ago I found out (from Chris) that he had been “satisfying his needs” with a mutual friend of ours. It seems that “Kate” (who is also seeing someone) and Chris agreed that it was purely sex, no emotional attachments, whatever. I agreed to keep quiet about “L’Affaire” in the hopes that Chris would come clean himself. I didn’t want to lose 4 friends in 1 shot by opening my mouth.
Okay, so last week I get the e-mail announcing the engagement of Annie and Chris. Now, I like Annie. She’s very nice, if terribly naive. The problem here is this: Do I let her marry a guy who has been and to my knowledge still is cheating on her with one of her closest friends? I feel guilty enough that I kept quiet about it for so long as it is, but this is marriage. The thing is, if someone had told me my first husband was a lying, cheating bastard before I married him, I might have proceeded with more open eyes and not have missed all of the GLARING
signs of his infidelity. (Sorry, my stuff there. Back to the original topic…)
I know that it’s a 50/50 chance that she will even believe me, I’ll probably lose her, Chris, Kate and the rest for saying anything, and it really isn’t even my business. But I can’t help but feel that if I don’t say something, it will be worse in the long run. And then what happens? She comes to me saying, “I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner!” and I say, “Well, it’s been going on for 6 years.” What kind of a friend am I then?
I guess my question to you is, what would you do?
Sincerely,
Guilty By Association
Dear Guilty,
Ugh, I hate situations like this.
Here’s what I would do. Now that they’ve gotten engaged, I think you should talk to Chris, and Kate, and tell them to stop. Tell them that you understand that situations sometimes get away from us, and that you don’t judge either of them, but it’s gone too far — it’s wrong, it’s getting wronger, and it’s making you very uncomfortable having to keep their secret and live in the middle this way. Mention in a neutral tone that you will continue to keep quiet about it for now, but if asked directly by Annie, you will not continue to cover for them. If either of them gets angry, shrug your shoulders and leave. It’s one thing to indulge in extracurricular activity, and it’s one thing to expect friends not to bruit it about, but if they get angry because you justifiably don’t want to get dragged into it — well, you don’t need “friends” like that.
I’d love to tell you to “tell Annie NOW” or “send her an anonymous letter,” but that’s not how adult life works. Annie isn’t a close friend of yours; there’s only so much you can do, and once you’ve made it clear to both of the offenders that there’s only so far you’ll go to protect them, your work is done.
To put it a lot more harshly, if Annie’s missing the signs, that’s not your problem. And from the sound of it, Helen Keller could pick up the signs here.
Tags: boys (and girls) friendships
