Couch Talks: My Friend’s Having Multiple Affairs—Now What?

Couch talks is the bonus episode of You Need Therapy where listeners send questions to [e-mail]. This week Kat gives feedback to a listener who was recently put in a very uncomfortable situation by a friend. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of Couch
Talks on You Need Therapy podcast. My name is Kat
and if you're new and don't know what couch Talks is,
it is the special bonus episode of You Need Therapy
where I answer questions that you send to me and
you can send those to Katherine Ka t h r

(00:30):
y n at Therapy podcast dot com. And I always
like to remind you, guys that although I'm answering your questions,
this podcast still does not serve as a replacement or
a substitute for any actual mental health services. Let's get
to our question for the week, and a quick reminder.
I usually answer one question per week and they always

(00:52):
remain anonymous so you can feel safe setting in your question.
So here it is. Hi, Kat, I recently started listening
to your podcast and have found it to be really helpful.
I am hoping that you will consider my question for
an upcoming Couch Talks episode. I recently had dinner with
a friend who I have known for many years. She
shared some things that made me very uncomfortable. She told

(01:15):
me that she is cheating on her husband with multiple men,
and she has no intention of stopping. I listened and
tried not to act judgmental. However, I was shocked and
felt a pit in my stomach because I completely disagree
with her actions. At the end of the dinner, my
friend thanked me for not judging her. While I'm glad

(01:35):
she felt like she could talk to me, I am
not sure if I did the right thing by not
telling her that I think her actions are wrong. I
am really nervous to hang out with her again, and
I'm not sure if I can do it. She is
very different than the person I thought she was. Do
you have any advice on how to navigate a situation
where a friend is engaging in a behavior you strongly
disagree with? Thanks? Okay, so this one was I wanted

(02:01):
to say it was shocking to read, but as a therapist,
there really aren't that many things that shock me anymore
because I hear so many of the secrets that people
don't really share that often. I think what was shocking
to read was more that she told you so flippantly
it sounded and there wasn't a lot of desire to

(02:22):
change the behavior or feelings about the behavior that you
shared with me. I don't know really how that was.
I can imagine feeling extremely caught off guard in the situation,
and you know, I thought about you and you sitting
there and trying to figure out what to do and
how to react. And I think when we're trying to
be in quotes good people, we get really in our

(02:43):
heads about what that actually even looks like. So we
have this flashing like headline that says, don't be judgmental,
don't be judgmental, don't be judgmental, And so then we
become really accepting of literally everything. And so I wanted
to just say, first off, that you can be a
good person and still have judgments about people. Everybody has

(03:06):
judgments about people. And I know that might sound kind
of strange to hear a therapist say, hey, I think
it's okay to judge people, But I live in a
world where I accept that judgment is a natural part
of life. It's something that just happens, and what we
do with the judgment is more important than whether or
not we have them, because then we get to make

(03:28):
really conscious decisions and we get to be in charge
of those. And I'm really curious about a lot of things,
So I'm going to throw out a lot of things
at you to think about, and I want anybody who
might have a similar situation like this. It doesn't have
to be as extravagant or big as this dilemma, but
I want anybody to kind of like just take in
some of these questions that might help you in the
future as well. I'm very curious as to what you

(03:50):
did say in this conversation because you said you didn't
want to act judgmental, and I think there's a difference
in saying, oh, good for you, like cheering some on
because you don't want to be judgmental, and then taking
like a more neutral stance like oh, I wasn't expecting that,
and not really giving an opinion on what you think
about that behavior. And what I want to do is

(04:11):
turn this a little bit on you versus focusing on
your friend and what she's doing. It sounds like you
might have been more concerned with how she was perceiving
you than how you were actually feeling. So I would
be very curious about what did come up. What was
uncomfortable about what she was saying. I felt uncomfortable because
is a sentence that you might want to try to finish,

(04:34):
or I think what she's doing is wrong, because might
be something for you to try to complete as well.
I suppressed my thoughts because just kind of answer some
of those sentence stems and see what comes up, and
that might lead you to a need or more information
about really what was going on with you underneath that,

(04:56):
I don't want this person to feel judgment. Something else
I might add ask is why don't I want her
to feel judged? What do I want her to feel?
And am I responsible for those feelings? Do I have
the ability to change somebody's feelings? Might be some more
questions that might be helpful to answer. I also am
wondering here what it would have been like to get

(05:17):
really curious about why she was sharing what was going
on and what she was looking for. I don't have
clarity on that from the email, and I don't know
if you had clarity on that, if she said there's
a reason she was telling you or what she wanted
from you, then based on that, you might have felt
a little more inclined to be honest about what it
was like for you to hear that stuff from her

(05:39):
those confessions. Now I'm making the assumption that you don't
want to throw this friendship away. Else I don't know
that you would take the time to write this email.
So another thing I'm curious about is what is it
that you would need to repair this friendship. It sounds
like your friend doesn't even know that there might be
any kind of rupture, and so what do you need

(06:01):
to repair that? And is it something that requires her
knowledge of the rupture That is dependent on what that
first answer is. Now depending on that, it might be
really helpful for you to take yourself into account and
maybe share with her a bit about the aftermath of
that conversation and what it was like for you, what

(06:22):
it brought up for you after you've kind of answered
some of these questions and you've really had clarity to
think about it. And you can approach that super simply
by saying, Hey, are you open to hearing some things
that came up for me when we met last time
and we talked about X Y Z. And if she
says yeah, then you have an invitation to share your experience.
And I also would encourage you to let her know

(06:43):
what you're looking for, just like I asked, do you
have clarity on what she was looking for? It's really
helpful in conversations to ask for what we need, so
we can show up for our friends in the best way.
In those circumstances. You don't have to tell her what
she's doing right or what if she's doing something, but
you can share how it felt for you to be

(07:03):
in a position like that. And again, I don't know
a lot of the details of this conversation how it
even came about, but one thing that I imagine would
probably come up for me and something that I might
share would be, Hey, it felt like you were wanting
me to keep a secret that goes against my moral compass,

(07:24):
and I didn't feel like I had a choice in
that matter. And it's becoming really distressing from me because
this is something that I am not able to keep
a secret from other people that are involved that I
love and care about. That's something that I would probably
say even if I, like you, came back around after
this conversation was over and was able to sit with

(07:46):
it for a little bit. One thing that I don't
believe as a human being is that all of our
friends have to have the same exact beliefs and morals
and values as us. And it is true that the
people around us, the people that we spend them most
time with they do rub off on us. We do
actually learn from the people around us. They influence our behavior,

(08:07):
they influence our thoughts, They even can influence our language.
So I want you to know that so you can
actually feel really empowered in making a decision that is
right for you based on what is right and good
for you and best for you, and not you trying
to maintain what the world says is right and wrong.
Because while it's okay to have friends with different belief

(08:29):
systems and different values and all of that, it's also
okay to have limits and boundaries. That's totally okay too.
That doesn't mean you're unkind. That doesn't mean you're a
mean person. That doesn't mean you're a bad person. That
doesn't mean that you're a shamefully judgmental person. I think
it's really important to pay attention what it feels like
to be with certain people, because when it feels like

(08:52):
I have to sacrifice what is true for me in
the presence of another friend, one, I'm getting some codependency
vibes in there. But two, when we pay attention to
that and we see, oh, I'm getting this vibe right here,
then we actually can turn that and attune to what
we actually need. It helps us actually get what we
need versus give other people constantly what they need. And

(09:15):
again I want to remind everybody that there are not
especially when it comes to this kind of situation. There's
not a black and white right or wrong answer. There's
not like one thing for you, Hey go do this, Hey,
go say this, Hey, go tell that person this. Hey,
there's not that. There are decisions that are best for us,
and those are going to be different based on who
we are, which influences what we want, what feels good,

(09:38):
what feels harmful, and what is going to actually lead
me into being and having the life that I actually
want to have. Okay, So I hope that was helpful.
As always, I threw some questions at you to ask yourself.
I threw some examples of things that might come up,
and again I just want to remind you that there
is no right or wrong universal thing to do here.

(10:00):
There is something that is right for you and the
moment that you're in, in the space that you're in
with what you need to kind of live and be
the human you want to be. So tough situation, really
tough situation, jarring situation. I'm sure shocking situation. I assume
you weren't expecting that conversation to go the way it did,
so good luck. I'd be really interested to see how

(10:21):
you handle this and how that worked in what you learned.
If you want to ever send us update, I would
appreciate that, And for everybody else listening, feel free to
send your emails Katherine at Unied Therapy podcast dot com.
And I hope you're having a day that you need
to have, the moment that you need to have, and
I will talk to you guys again on Monday.