we’re all 25, acting like we’re 15. And best friends spite each other all the time. At least me and my best friends do. It’s usually done with love though.
Well… I have to agree with Diogenes you are being a big baby, and trying to buttress your position with childish stuff like the above …“Bro before ho”?. It does sound like you’re 15.
IMO you’re also on kind of shaky ground with the expectation that they should have told you or that they owe you a heads up. According to your OP you three live at some quite considerable distance from each other. It’s not like you’re sharing an aparment or a dorm (or even a city for that matter). People don’t owe you promises as to where their hearts will take them. You should be happy for them.
If you tell them you know and that it’s safe for them to be open with you (you won’t freak out), it’ll probably die out quickly anyway. Also, this might sound trite, but if you get involved with someone yourself, you’ll most likely find that you don’t even care anymore.
Just cuz it came up…
I invented “sisters before misters” to counter “bros before ho’s”
Both attitudes are stupid, but hey…
No, but real friends do owe you the truth. That’s the only qualm I have with the couple. Although, given how the OP is coming across, I can understand why they might have felt withholding the information to be preferable to telling him outright.
The fact that you’re reacting this way indicates they had good reason to conceal the relationship. You’re not justified in going crazy about this and wondering why they didn’t tell you - they didn’t tell you becuae you would have gone crazy.
So here’s your choices now:
1 - Deal with this like an adult - accept the fact that they’re in a relationship and you’re not the center of the universe.
2 - Refuse to accept it - stop seeing either of them.
3 - Try to break up the relationship and succeed - in which case these friendships are going to end anyway, either immediately or in the future.
4 - Try to break up the relationship and fail - they may decide that they’re more interested in each other than in you and you’ll be the one who gets dropped.
I did not “withhold it until Marriage.” As I said in my post, we didn’t tell my brother about our relationship until we had set a wedding date, which was many months before the actual wedding. The fact that my brother became jealous and spiteful had nothing to do with the timing of the announcement. He was just that kind of guy. He resented my dating anybody. The fact that I was in love with his best friend just made things more complicated. Telling him earlier, before we were even serious about each other, would only have elicited more hissyfits and caused a longer period of unpleasantness.
And how long ago was it that you and she originally considered getting together?
That happened in 2001. Understand too that all three of us have been in and out of a couple of relationships with other people since then. I know that she’s been dating other people…I’ve even become friends with one of them myself. I could really care less who she dates, and it doesn’t make me the least bit jealous. The difference is that I don’t know these people, and they don’t know me or anything about me, least of all that they’re going after what I missed out on first.
You know what, screw it. Let them do what they want. Regardless of how I would have acted, lying to me about something this big is unexcusable to me. I’ve trusted both of them with some of the biggest secrets of my life, and they’ve returned the favor, and now I can’t trust them. This isn’t even about them dating anymore, it’s about them both betraying the kind of friendship that we’ve had for years, all for the purpose of trying not to get caught, which they did anyway.
They’re both still at work so we haven’t had “the talk” yet. I’m still deciding exactly what angle I’m planning on taking here.
I’ve been in something similar, and it hurts. It hurts a lot. I really feel for you. And, yes, I do feel you have the right to feel betrayed.
My sense of honor says you don’t do that to a friend. There is always a point where you can back away, and they didn’t take it. We are not talking about Romeo and Juliet, we are talking about two adults who made a judgement that this thing was worth exploring more than they valued their friend’s feelings.
All that being said, it is a done deal. One reason it happens is that both of them are your friends; the very reasons you like both of them is probably similar to what they see in each other. Friends are about feelings, and you aren’t required to continue to like them, and you aren’t required to hate them. Friendship doesn’t work on math.
In any case, your best plan of action is to keep hold of your dignity, just for your own self respect. By that I mean, whether you plan to essentially forgive them, chalking it up to experience and gaining some data on who they really are, whether you are going to back away for a while until you can keep your composure, or whether you are going to back away for good, leave something that you can look back on with some satisfaction. There are enough cringe-worthy memories in being lied to.
Just keep ahold of the fact that life will go on, and it will all stop hurting and eventually even become irrelevant to you. You sound like you are already moving down that path–you sound like a good person.
And, again, I’m really sorry this happened to you, the feeling really, really sucks.
(((((((((fusoya)))))))))
So, you’ve decided to go with the “high road”. :rolleyes:
I don’t think anyone here is supporting the idea of them lying to you, but you’re making it really easy to understand why they chose to. It seems like they didn’t want to get caught because they knew you’d blow a gasket. Why else would they be hiding something from you?
Take a step back, get a fresh perspective, and think about how you want to be treated. I hope you’ll realize that just taking your ball and going home isn’t in your best interests.
well, I had a talk with both of them, separately. She decided to come out and be honest with me about everything. He came off pretty hostile, saying things similar to some of these posts.
I’m currently still on speaking terms with one of them (his choice to cut me off, not mine)…although based on the way he reacted, she’s having second thoughts about him anyway.
This is the main issue in my opinion. Everyone can argue about whether he should have dated this girl behind your back, but the fact remains that they both have been lying to your face. Regardless of wether it would hurt you or not they should have been honest. If you can’t trust your friends to be brutally honest then who can you trust? If I ask my girlfriend if an outfit makes me look fat, and she thinks it does, she’ll say “yes you must return that!” Just happened recently actually. If I had friends that lied to me and weren’t honest, then I’d drop them immediately, I have in the past and I’d do it again. If you can’t be straightforword and honest with eachother then there is not much left to build a meaningful friendship with. I just can’t tolerate dishonesty, a relationship cannot survive if people are not honest with eachother.
Which was very wrong of them, I agree. (Although I can’t say you’re not justifying their fears)
However, at the same time, that was four years ago. You’ve both moved on with your lives, and you don’t own this girl just because you have feelings for her still. This is NOT in any way, shape or form a “betrayal.” She wasn’t your girlfriend, she’s never been your girlfriend. She moved on and got over you, but it sounds like you’ve been pining over her for years. Dude, that’s not healthy.
You need to work on getting over her, and realizing that not everything they do is about you.
When you talked to them, how did you approach them? Were you accusatory at all, or did you just tell them that you know they’re dating, you’re okay with it, but you wish they had seen fit to be honest with you about it?
You want them to do it in front of you!? :eek:
Eww!! 
Did you react to her saying “yes” by whining and crying and making a big scene over it? Did you accuse her of not loving you because she called you fat? If you had done this sort of thing in the past, do you think she would have been as willing to be truthful in this instance? Many people faced with this just say it looks nice to avoid the inevitable argument. It isn’t exactly the most mature way to handle the situation, but the lie-ee brought it upon himself by not reacting reasonably to the truth.
Note in our OP that he was upset that these two exchanged screen names and told them to their faces that he felt betrayed because they were going to hang out. This is not a person you can be brutally honest with. At least, not on this topic, you can’t. He’s been holding a candle for this woman for the last 4 years, and still thinks that means she’s “off limits”.
If you don’t mind my asking, how exactly did she find out about his reaction if you spoke to them separately? I suppose you told her. Let me reiterate a point from other posts. Their relationship is none of your business, and I think it’s pretty lousy to badmouth the boyfriend, especially when you have a crush on the girl. Is it going to make you feel good if those “second thoughts” turn into a breakup?
I think this is an interesting thread which shows people have different views on relationships.
Many pupils I teach at school certainly tease each other a lot (and go out with anyone they fancy, whether ‘taken’ or not).
The adult friends I have don’t behave like that.
One friend of mine helped me enormously when my parents moved house. He drove 90 miles and worked all day. Obviously I bought him a meal, but the point is that if he ever needs my help, he gets it.
Another friend of mine gave me excellent advice on coping with serious illness in my family. This sort of emotional help transcends your ‘showing friendship by spite’.
That was a cogent analysis from an adult point of view. Compare it to your posts (and your emotional reactions…)
I’ve never met this poster (Hi, Bosda!) But he sounds like he’d be an excellent friend to have.
I talked to her first. I told her that I knew that there were more things going on with her than she was telling me, and despite how I may feel about what’s going on, dating each other was their right, and I’d rather be upset about that than I would be about them going behind my back about it – if they’re going to do it anyway, at least don’t lie to me. That was all I had to say for her to tell me everything…she didn’t even ask how I knew. She gave me a sincere apology for hiding this from me – telling me that she only kept it from me because she wasn’t completely sure that the relationship was going to work, and wanted to be sure of it before she let me be known about it. I suppose that’s an understandable excuse.
About an hour later I talked to my other friend. I wasn’t even able to finish explaining that I knew what was going on when he started bitching me out for bringing it up with him again. He accused me of a number of things that some of my fellow dopers did, and finally told me not to call him anymore, and hung up on me. Since my other friend wanted to know how things went with him, I called her back and explained, and she immediately began talking about how this was probably a mistake getting involved with him anyway. I’m not sure if she’s saying that to try to cover things up even more, or if she’s being sincere. At least if they do break up, it won’t completely be my fault.
Well, that’s pretty complicated. I would suggest giving him a couple of days to cool down, then maybe send an email asking him if he’s cooled off yet. It’s not looking good for all of you remaining friends, though. Your trust in her has obviously suffered, and who knows if your guy friend will talk to you again. If she breaks up with him, he probably will blame you, rightly or not.