Out of Bounds

I was talking with a friend the other night, and she confided in me that one of her good friends is having an affair.

Her friend - we’ll call her Jenny - got married very young, while she was still in her teens. What happened is what sometimes happens. Jenny and her husband grew up and apart, and Jenny fell in love with a man who wasn’t her husband. Jenny has two young children, and though Jenny’s husband found out about the affair, as did her lover’s wife, months ago, Jenny stayed with her husband to try to make her marriage work for the children. But, well, I guess it hasn’t.

The whole situation is just icky.

So my friend is feeling conflicted. While she doesn’t agree with what Jenny is doing, she’s trying to be supportive because she wants Jenny to be happy.

So what do you do when your friend steps out of bounds? Is it up to you to steer them back? Or do you just keep your mouth shut, your fingers crossed, and hope for the best?

Quite a conundrum.

I guess when your friend is in such a scary place, you just try to be there for them. Friendship, even more so than a familial relationship, is just one of those bonds that can beg the question: Will you really still love me if I make these life choices?

So I tell my friend who’s wrestling with her duty to Jenny, “You’re doing the right thing.”

Because I really believe she is.

Even if she would never do what Jenny is doing, what other choice does she have? She likes Jenny. She respects Jenny. She values her friendship with Jenny. And, most importantly, she isn’t Jenny. She doesn’t have to go to sleep at night wondering if the life she stayed in out of guilt and duty and security was the right life for her.

Besides, who knows what you’d really do were you to find yourself in Jenny’s shoes?

You can tell yourself that you wouldn’t make that choice. You’d never take that step. But what if you did? What if you did, and you felt scared and guilty and confused, and, most of all, very alone?

At a time like that, I bet you’d really hope that you had a friend like Jenny’s.