People get married, and people get divorced. It happens. Sometimes it’s a peaceful parting of ways, other times it’s World War 3.
Couples with small children fight over custody, many times with little regard for how those children feel about it all.
What people fail to realize is that it impacts their friends too. Maybe not the same as the children, but it does have an emotional impact.
My wife and I moved to our current home to live next door to two of our closest friends, one of whom happens to be one of my sisters. You don’t get to pick your family, but you do get to pick your friends and I thought, past tense, she was one of my best friends. (EDIT: Scratch that, she still is, she just doesn’t realize it, and I’m still here, waiting for her to come to her senses.)
They (my sister and BiL) are now getting divorced. It came on fast.. sure I knew they had the occasional problem. What married couple has the ‘perfect’ marriage? None that I know of, not even my wife and me. I just failed to realize I guess, that it was this bad.
Long story short (like I ever tell the short version) they had been split up less than a month when my I found out my sister was seeing someone else. Her prerogative, and not really my business. I did notice the guys truck there at night, and still there in the morning. Hell we share a driveway, I couldn’t miss it, I wasn’t being nosy.
DW (the wife) met him once or twice when she’d wander over. I have nothing at all against the new guy, why would I? I’ve never met him, and I reserve judgment for myself, not anyone elses opinion of someone.
I started this post months ago, but kept it flagged private, as I do a lot of what I write.. this is for me, it’s cathartic. No one else really needs to read it, and most people really don’t care what I think. (that is their loss by the way).
Fast forward to the present, I’ll hit publish on this in a bit..
My sister is still not speaking to me, she thinks I have betrayed her somehow.. in the past 5 months since all this started I have spoken with my BiL exactly 3 times. Three, as in one more than Two. In the first conversation he asked me a question. One he already knew the answer to. I told him the truth. That is why my sister is upset with me. I did not lie for her.
If the situation was reversed, first off I know she would not lie to my wife for me. Second, I would not expect her to. Their relationship is theirs, not mine to interfere with.
In fact, despite the tension between my sister and me the two of them have remained friends. Somehow my sister expects nothing less, despite the tension it now causes between my wife and I sometimes. She (my sister) does not care about that. I don’t either really, I love my wife, I love my sister even if I think she has lost her mind at the moment, I am happy they are still friends.
What does hurt though is that my sister thinks that somehow I did something intentionally to hurt her, as if by refusing to be a liar I betrayed her. My honor is worth more than that.
I’d still drop everything and help her if she asked for it. I just won’t compromise my own integrity for anyone is all.