Thanks again and I think I should point out a couple of additional factors in relationship to your comments. And, by the way, this has been very helpful to me because it is helping me to perhaps not look at things a negatively as I had been.

Anyway, in terms of people sharing certain intimate details of their life with complete strangers and not being willing to share other things I don’t believe this was, or is, the case here. I was one of the first people she chose to tell about divorcing her husband and, in fact, many people in their lives still think they are a normal married couple. And in her last email to me she flat out told me I was one of the only male friend s she had told about her situation (which I don’t believe is true but I’ll get to that)

In addition, one the reasons I have experienced so much cognitive dissonance with this situation is she made a point several times over the course of the past year of letting me know how close she had come to consider me. In fact, she had flat out told me I was one of the top people on her “list” (I believe she said top 3) of people. She had also made it pretty clear to me that getting close to people, and opening up, was something she really struggled with in relationships. The last couple of times we met for coffee she literally called me afterwards to tell me how much she appreciated me and my friendship and multiple times she said she had never had a friend like me.  She felt so comfortable with our friendship that literally a few weeks before the shift she had wanted me to do a private yoga session at the house of another mutual female friend who teaches yoga. I think the reason she reached out about this is because this mutual friend had been pushing to do a session with me a alone and I am pretty sure that my friend inserted herself because she probably wasn’t totally okay with me doing this session alone.

But also, when I look back at the way things went down with her I think she may have been giving me the information she needed to give me and telling me the things she believed I wanted to hear in order to get the attention and support she needed at that time. She mentioned in her last email that I was “one of the only male friends he told about her situation” but I don’t think this was accurate in the way she meant it in her email.

When we initially started getting close there seemed to have been two other male friends where things had gotten a bit weird. One she mentioned she had almost crossed a line with and there was another friend who was trying to get together with her but she seemed to indicate he was looking for something more with her. Keep in mind my friend has been with her husband for over twenty years, is in her mid-forties and has kids. So for both of these men to believe they had any chance with her they must have known about her situation and they must have believed they had a shot with her. For example, one of these guys has a super successful career in which he literally meets hundreds of young beautiful women as part of his job. The idea that this guy would be going after my friend, who he has know for decades as well, is absurd unless he had reason to believe he had a shot with her. And the final “red flag” was that she did mention she has a hard time maintaining friendships which I thought was odd given that we had been friends for twenty years.

So why I don’t think my friend is running around trying to leave a path of destruction and broken hearts I do think the situation she is currently in is perhaps causing her to cross, and perhaps, push boundaries in her friendships with men. She made a point of mentioning several times that she could never imagine dating, or trusting, anyone again but she is a human being and human beings have needs. I don’t necessarily see her engaging in a full on relationship with another man right now because I think she does consider herself married still but I could see her “using” male friends as a way to get some of those “emotional needs” met until her and her husband ultimately separate. And if she has done this multiple time since she has been in this situation I could see how it has ended friendships and resulted in a lot of confusion.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Timepassages2070.