Say you have a friend C whose marriage is going through a rough patch. She tells friend K, in whom she expects she can confide without judgment, only to find K making incisive little hurtful statements to/about her all the time, dragging her business out in front of people who do not need to be involved, and most hurtful of all, misinterpreting her marital issues as a death knell for the relationship and announcing to the world that her marriage was over. Say C is really hurt and really angry, but won't confront K about her behavior because she doesn't think it would do any good.
Say also that friend R is kind of annoyed at K because, while she would just like to let her hair down around her oldest friends and complain vigorously about her extremely difficult pregnancy, when she does, K keeps making irritating statements like, "Oh, but why would you want to adopt if you have a second child? Of course you'll want to have another one of your own!" Like R and her husband haven't thought this out, and like their worries and frustrations about this preganacy aren't really that valid. R is also still a little peeved at K for pushing her just a little bit too far at her wedding several months ago (that incident ended with R snapping and bursting into tears at the end of a very long day). But so far, no one has really confronted K about this stuff, either.
G is just sick of hearing about K from R and C, and witnessing K's behavior first-hand; and she thinks that at least part of what is at the root of K's current attitude is K's "balding alcoholic douchebag boyfriend" (BADBBF for short). We all think the BADBBF is kind of a problem, in that he doesn't treat K all that well, and he's really kind of an asshole - but an asshole in the sort of way that you can tell he's only acting like that because he's insecure about something (so, y'know, if he would just chill the fuck out and stop needing to be the arbiter of good taste on every occasion, he could redeem himself somewhat). We're wondering if, perhaps, his abrasive style is rubbing off on her, or enhancing her latent natural tendency to critique.
We are all also afraid that K is beginning to turn into her mother, who is a judgmental old shrewish harpie (very old school, very much focused on what others think of her and her family, very into using emotional guilt-tripping and nagging to get others to act as she thinks they should, pushy - but in a subtle way, and totally absorbed in her own perceptions of the truth, however far those may be from reality). She's the kind of mother who, for example, criticizes her daughter's weight to her daughter's friends whenever said daughter has left the room for a moment (as if that will accomplish anything other than making us all feel uncomfortable). Think "character in a Tennessee Williams play" and you'll be close. We
do! not! want to see K turn into that.
Say K herself is torn between wanting her BADBBF to propose to her, and acknowledging that their relationship, while very comfortable, lacks passion. We all see her walking on eggshells around him (changing her stuff to suit his style, thinking first if he'd like it before buying something for herself, etc.), but she actually says she feels comfortable with him in a way that she hasn't with anyone else. And for all that he is an asshole, he has mellowed out a lot in the time that he's been with her - become much more open about showing his emotions and much more willing to talk and compromise. But even K knows they still have a long, long way to go before they'll have all their issues resolved (like that whole Protestant vs. Catholic thing they need to sort out before they should even think about having kids). And she's afraid that their aforementioned lack of passion will lead to a tragedy later on when one or the other of them has a mid-life crisis and realizes they still have some wild oats to sow.
K's putting up with more bullshit than I'd put up with in a relationship, but is it worth it for the stability, predictability and constancy inherent in a relationship that fits like an old pair of jeans? Sure, they may chafe in a couple spots, but you know exactly where those spots are, and otherwise the things fit like they were made for you. And are her relationship issues at all related to how she's been treating her friends, or has she really always been like this and I've just never noticed? Does she even have the slightest clue she's hurting people and pissing them off? I think we need to stage an intervention this weekend between the five of us - just sit down and have it all out, so maybe we can resolve some of this mess. No one else, however, seems to think that's a good idea. I would hope, though, that if I were the one in K's position, either the rest of them would sit me down and talk to me about what was going on instead of discussing it endlessly in my absence, or I'd be alert enough to pick up on the fact that something was up and thus could bring up the issue with them myself.
I suppose by now you've gathered that there's nothing hypothetical about the situations I posed above. I think I've pretty much covered all the angles of our predicament as I've come to understand them over the past few weeks. If I messed something up, I'm sure I'll hear about it. My life is generally drama-free, so I wasn't expecting this much of a miniseries this weekend. With this group, however, I'm sure it'll wind down pretty quickly and have a happy ending.
