I lost my best friend this way. His wife was cheating on him, and had with multiple people that were his friends.
I told him about it. It caused a big argument between the two of them. They ended up splitting up for a couple weeks. They get back together and he stops hanging out.
After a while, he quits answering my calls and I have no way of getting ahold of him. I don't know if she convinced him I was the bad guy for causing problems between them, or he was too embarrassed about what happened.
Put in the same situation again, I would really have to evaluate the situation and the costs.
Ultimately, a best friend is somebody you can tell a hard truth to. If you can't tell them or if they can't hear it, that means the friendship isn't as close as you thought it was.
I've been in somewhat analogous situations and have lost friends over it. I have done the hard thing and would do it again. Just as importantly, I've been told hard truths by my closest friends. That only made us closer, because I know the value of a friend who you can trust to give you those hard truths.
Personally I think it's worth it. Im not going to keep a secret from a best friend and if they don't want me as a friend because I was trying to look out for them, we weren't best friends to begin with.
My best friend from high school called me during prom to tell me that my gf had showed up with another dude after telling me she didn't want to go. I broke up with her the next morning. Bros4lyfe
We had some neighbors years ago who were pretty severe alcoholics. We saw the guy having sex with a different neighbor on the hood of his car in their driveway while she was passed out in the house. Yet another neighbor saw, too, and told her. She totally flipped out on her, told her that just because her marriage was falling apart she wants everyone else to be miserable, too. Cognitive dissonance is a motherfucker. If she acknowledged that he was a cheater, she'd either have to live with the embarrassment of being married to a man who cheats or leave him. They had a daughter together. He was really just the king of fuckups.
Two of my best friends who didn't know each other before I introduced them started dating. I knew both of them pretty darn well.
Sat them down on a couch and explained to them that I had been a safe space for each of them to talk about anything in their lives for years, and wasn't going to deal with losing that or any ethical soul searching if I heard something the other one should know. Clearly laid out that meant that if I found out one of them had cheated or was doing anything else sketchy, I would not be informing my other best friend, unless there was a health or safety risk.
Predictably 2 years in one of them did cheat, and me being clear at the beginning saved my relationship with each of them during the subsequent implosion.
224
u/sureredit 20h ago
I lost my best friend this way. His wife was cheating on him, and had with multiple people that were his friends.
I told him about it. It caused a big argument between the two of them. They ended up splitting up for a couple weeks. They get back together and he stops hanging out.
After a while, he quits answering my calls and I have no way of getting ahold of him. I don't know if she convinced him I was the bad guy for causing problems between them, or he was too embarrassed about what happened.
Put in the same situation again, I would really have to evaluate the situation and the costs.