Dear Manay Gina,
My best friend has become involved with an office-mate. While he is single, he has a reputation of a playboy and exploiter. Now they are sharing a pad but she shoulders almost all the expenses. She knows she has no future with him. She refuses however to leave him. I told her she is destroying her life and I can’t stand by and watch it happen. She claims I am no friend if I try to make such demands on her.
Am I wrong to tell her I want no part of her if she acts so irresponsibly? Or is she wrong to expect me to be a friend, no matter what kind of behavior she engages in?
Marissa
Dear Marissa,
A faithful friend should speak her concern when she sees that her friend is clearly plunging toward disaster. How you deliver the message may be the difference between a broken and deepened friendship. The best thing you can do is be a good friend and carry on inviting her out, treating her for what she actually is, not what this man or this relationship is representing about her.
Of course, one always have the right to distance oneself from a friendship, when it is unfulfilling, one-sided, or when a friend adamantly refuses to do what she needs to do to straighten her life. Nevertheless, let her know that whatever happens, you will always be in her corner.
Affectionately,
Manay Gina
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“Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can”
– John Wesley
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Send questions to [email protected] (Gina de Venecia)