How do I support a friend who wants to forgive their cheating partner?
I don’t want to make things more difficult for him by making him feel like he can’t talk to me, but I’m finding it extremely hard to just tell him I hope things work out, etc. because she betrayed him horribly. She was secretly sleeping with one of their mutual friends right under his nose, taking advantage of his work schedule and his absolute trust in her to go hang out with him and have sex. It happened multiple times and her story doesn’t even make sense, so I’m pretty sure she’s also lying to him about the extent of the cheating. He’s asking me not to treat her differently, but I pretty much have a zero tolerance policy for cheaters in my life and have dropped friends for it before. Especially in a situation like this where she can’t possibly frame it as a one time mistake that she owned up to. EDIT: It doesn’t help that she’s also seemingly not a great girlfriend in general. I’ll never forget the time I had to support him for hours after he found out one of his family members died while we were bar hopping with some friends…because she didn’t feel like staying with him and wanted to go to the next bar.
He’s such a kindhearted, forgiving person and I hate that he’s with someone who’s taking advantage of that. I feel like I wouldn’t be being a true friend to him if I sat there and reinforced the idea that “oh she’s a good person this was just a little mistake I’m rooting for you guys.” At the same time, my personal feelings about the situation are far less important than being someone he feels safe confiding in right now, so I don’t want to get so caught up in my own outrage that I essentially make the situation about me when at the end of the day it’s not my relationship.