Dear Lucius:

“I was always taught never to  put my burdens on  others who are close to  me, even when they’re just ranting and raving about their own”-

unfair teaching, isn’t it? The teaching was that it is okay for your teachers to  do  what is not right to  do, not for you and not for anyone. So.. how do you tell your teachers, if they are your parents, let’s say, that they shouldn’t  do what is wrong to do?

It has to cause the student of this teaching anger and confusion

As to your “immoral relationship”-

Let’s look at what is right/ moral and what is wrong/immoral: it is moral for parents to behave according  to what they teach you is  moral. But they didn’t (assuming your teachers are your parents/ caretakers in your childhood). It is moral for a husband and wife to respect each other, but this  was/ is not the case with this woman and her  husband: if they can’t act respectfully toward each other, they shouldn’t be living  together. In this  context you got involved with her.

Were you wrong? yes. Should you extricate yourself from her and her marriage  (no matter how unwell her marriage is)? yes, says I.

And look at the  bigger picture, the context. We don’t live in a moral world. We should do all we can  in our personal choices and interactions to  do what is right for  us and for others, to do-no-harm.

But have empathy for  yourself, for making  mistakes, because it is not that you are a seed of evil in a good, just world. You, like everyone else, is both a victim and a perpetrator.

Do your best to be neither a victim nor a perpetrator.

anita

Dear Lucius,

With any relationship, the deeper you dive in, the harder it is to let go.

Now, at some point in your life, it seems that you were taught that if anyone had a problem, then you should try to help. So when an woman began to shower attention on you, not really the good kind, to discuss some issues she is facing, you tried to help her during your communications. Only, it seemed that you were also craving human connection since you ‘weren’t used to the attention’. So one and one together equal two, the relationship turned from casual to serious on your part until you confessed and she ‘accepted’. Only, the woman in question was also trying to work on her marriage that she had tried to leave before for the sake of her son.

Apologies to be the bearer of bad news, but I have a strong suspicion that woman friend of yours, while possible she might have some affection for you, was probably using you as an excuse to not really work on her marriage. To decide to stay in a marriage for the sake of a child is usually not because of the child, but because both parties have certain fears of leaving what they both know to be a fruitless endeavor, but sometimes, it’s just easier to continue the bad than welcome in the unknown. So when you showed interest, your woman friend grabbed the chance to not have to think about her failing marriage that she chose to stayed in.

So my advice? Cut off your friendship, completely. The longer you stayed in this friendship, the longer you are giving your friend time and excuses to continue to focus on something that is not her marriage. Certainly, she now blames you for it, but really, she just wants an excuse to guilt you into staying with her, to listen to her, to let her play the victim, to let her wallow, this and that but NOT DO ANYTHING to change her situation. And the longer YOU stay, the harder it will be to let go.

After all, you want to help her, to be there for her as her friend, but that’s not helping either of you at this moment. She’s still leaning on you and you’re letting her. Even now, you are letting her blame you for her failing marriage when she should have broke off contact before it escalated to this. Though you weren’t so innocent either. But you can’t fix this. Her marriage is something she has to work out with her husband. It is your relationship with her the one you have to make a decision on. But know that you can’t go back to being friends until you give yourself the space and time to be a friend and her the space and time to decide things about her marriage. Things might not changed on her side later and you might not ever be friends again, but at least you did what you could.

There’s a reason people who’ve broken up should never go back to being friends right away. With all the energy and time anyone invested into a relationship, no one wants let go after all the memories made, even if it’s the better choice. After all, no one wants to give up the hope of that person being the one, in whatever sense they needed that person to be. So once a relationship is broken, the best course of action would be to cut off contact since seeing them will only bring up negative thoughts and ‘what ifs’. So best to grieved in peace the ending of a chapter in life.

So let go of this friendship, it has run its course. If there is one lesson in life you learn, it’s that you are constantly saying hellos and goodbyes, it just a matter of when.

Good luck.