Should I be mad at my best friend for dating a WAY older man and having his kid after only 4 months?

Your friend sounds very immature and irresponsible. Perhaps she will grow up, perhaps not. Only time will tell. You have a responsibility toward her that consists of being willing to listen to her when she needs to talk, but nothing beyond that, I would think.

As to the age difference, I can’t say anything since my wife is 15 years my junior. We have a wonderful relationship, but that’s largely because we truly love one another and would do anything for each other. Doesn’t sound as though your friend and her new husband have that sort of relationship.

Your friend is acting like an idiot. I wouldn’t be mad at her. But I would be extremely disappointed…. and frankly I would have no qualms in letting her know she’s acting like a moron.

Dating an older man, fine. Moving in after only 4 months, questionable but passable. Having his child after 4 months, stupid. Having his child while he has multiple children with multiple women, very stupid (his loyalty doesn’t come into question at all????). Having his child while he has multiple children with multiple women and you have another child already, just really stupid. Having more children whilst you have no job and are dependent upon a guy who has questionable loyalties…....... When you’re on welfare I’m going to point at you as being the problem with this country and I’m a vehement liberal, that’s how incredibly stupid you are being.

@tedd – That is basically how my thought process went as this was going down.

Yeah. Go ahead and be mad.

le’me know how that works out for you

I don’t understand why you are mad at her. She has not harmed you in any way, she is fucking up her own life. The only reason I can think you might be mad, is because it upsets you that she is doing such dumb things you won’t be able to be friends with her anymore. At least not close friends. But, angry is the wrong reaction, it is not the real reaction, there is some other emotion underneath it for you.

Concern for her situation is a logical and realistic reaction. Being upset about it seems normal. My guess is that she also is not happy about it, but is looking for some shred of positivity about the situation, including your acceptance. Being mad about it won’t do either of you any good.

She already has another child, so surely she knows what she’s getting herself into. Maybe this is that time in your life where your paths go in opposite directions. Not all friends stay friends forever. If the relationship is important enough to stick around, then you need to find a place in your heart to support her decisions.

@JLeslie – that is definitely why I am mad.

“I feel like he is only keeping her around for the sex and companionship, not for love, and she is with him for the money (because he makes a lot).”

Based on the situation with the kids, and the situation they have all created for their own lives, it doesn’t really sound like all that bad of an arrangement. And if you think about it, that arrangement isn’t all that far off from what many newlyweds base their relationships on. None of this is really out of line.

“She wants me to support her, but I just CAN’T. I don’t know why…. perhaps my morals?”

You can disagree with a friend and still be supportive. But only if you are truly her friend.

@Glow No, you are dissappointed. Stick to the real emotion. Think about it from her side, she is thinking, why the hell are you angry at me, what did I do to you? sticking to the underlying emotion is very important for all relationships and communication.

If you can’t be supportive, if it as about morality (what exactly is immoral to you? That she is having sex out of wedlock? Having a baby out of wedlock? That he is much older than her?) then I think it will be very difficult for you to be friends with her. Dissagreeing with her actions is one thing, but I think it is much harder to be around behavior you find immoral.

Glow, your ten year friendship investment shows that you each have a strong affinity for each other, however, when it comes to the male-female emotional realm, as in the case with your friend and her new relationship, this is territory that can separate friends lightning fast. Emotions run high and do not always correspond to logic and what makes sense. Your friend, for whatever reasons, perhaps low esteem, laziness, – who knows? doesn’t want to invest in the inner healing she needs. She has a short term answer at this time for what she thinks she needs but as with all of us, this is just deferring dealing. Your friend is only trying to carve out an immediate answer and is not trying to offend you in any way, so being mad at her will not make a positive outcome for your friendship regardless of what happens in her new relationship. At this time, you have some soul searching to do. Is it time for you to begin to look around at where you are at now and if you cannot accept things as they are with her then, gently ease into new things for yourself while still continuing to value her in your heart for the fulfilling times you enjoyed over the years.

I suggest taking a minute to think about the golden rule. How would you want her to react to you if she disagreed with something you were doing?

Being mad will probably push her even closer to her man and further from you, it won’t make her magically unpregnant, and it won’t undo the last 4 months. If you’re seriously close and her best friend, try to support her by actually being her best friend. Offer to go with her to find a new job, take her to lunch. Don’t waste energy being pissed at her when it won’t do a damn thing.

How has your friend hurt you? Have you even tried to understand why she has done what she has done? Have you asked her to explain it to you? Have you listened while she explained it or have you argued every single point?

We get angry when we have been hurt. I’m have trouble seeing how you’ve been hurt. Do you get to spend less time with her? Are her kids getting between you? Does her man not like you? Does hurting herself hurt you somehow? Do you think that the relationship will break up and you will be stuck taking care of her?

If this is not about you being hurt, then perhaps you are angry at her because she is causing you to worry about her. Sometimes we get mad at people for dying or getting sick, things they have no control over. Could this be like that?

I think that having an open mind helps relationships better than judging people right off the bat. I always try to understand why someone is doing something, especially self-destructive things. I find that helps me help them better. Empathy gets me much farther than anger. Because of some personal experiences, I understand why people do self-destructive things. I can talk to people and explain what I understand. Usually they are so grateful because no one else has ever even tried.

That allows me to find out what they really want. Knowing what they really want helps me figure out things that might help them.

Your friend might want security. Or maybe she wants someone to love her. Her man may not love her, but her baby will. Maybe she hopes her baby will tie her man to her. There’s a million things that could be going on, but only she can tell what is really going on, and I guarantee you that if you are always angry with her and you attack her, she’ll never be honest with you.

So I have to ask you what you want out of this? What do you want from your relationship with your friend? What is going wrong for you (not for her). That is what I can help you with. I can’t help you with whether you should be mad until I know what you want out of this.

I will say one thing. I have found that anger is problematic. It may get you what you want in the short term, but it can be too costly in the long term. If your friend can forgive your anger, and understand where it comes from, then maybe it is ok to be angry. But if you got angry with me, I might try to please you now, but I would be planning my exit from the relationship as of then. I don’t like being with people who don’t try to understand me. If you’re angry out of concern, and you can tell me that, then I can still trust you. But if it is a selfish anger, forget it. I’m gone.

Maybe you are jealous too? Is she spending less time with you now?

It’s irrational to be angry at her for something that has nothing at all to do with you and your situation. I’d suggest that you examine your real motives.

Is you friend happy with her current situation? If so, why is it so bad? Some people are perfectly happy being a stay at home spouse/partner. If they are able to have that, good for them! Also, the fact that he has other children doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a bad person. There are a lot of people that have children from previous relationships and are still good people. That alone doesn’t make someone a bad person.

I don’t think you should be mad at all. How has your relationship with her changed in this time? Has she moved away from the area you live? Is she spending less time with you and more with him? Could you be upset about that and not really about her relationship with him?

She is 17 with two kids.
Sometimes, even long term friends get toxic. This is the age that a lot of friendships start to fade away. Unless you want to risk getting sucked down the rabit hole, I would suggest you start reducing your emotional investment in this person. I am assuming you are close to her age. If so, you have a great big world ahead of you, and important life decisions to make. You can’t afford to spend to much energy trying to rescue someone who doesn’t want to be rescued.
If you exit her life gracefully, you can reunite in 10–15 years and reminisce about the good old days.
Take care of yourself and start planning YOUR bright and beautiful future instead of stressing about hers.

@Judi She didn’t say the girl was only 17-years-old, just that the guy she is with is 17 years older than her.

I would be mad, too, but you can’t do much about it. It’s their decision to make, even if it is stupid.

You have some logic on your side, but this isn’t about logic. Supposedly, if she is your best friend, you assume that she has logic too.

It is very judgmental of you to assume that they are not in love.

Even if it goes badly and you are prived right, what have you gained? You are right at the expense of the friendship.

I think if you care about her, you will tell her to forget what you said, and you will support her decisions and lifestyle choices,

Oops. @Glow; how old are the two of you?
Also, when I was young I had a friend in similar circumstances. In retrospect, when I’m honest, I was really jealous that another person had more influence on my friend than I did.

I don’t understand why you are mad about this? Concerned is one thing but mad? Ultimately it is none of your business regardless of how long you have been friends. There is 20 years between me and my partner (ok, I am not pregnant and still have a job but those were my choices and your friend has every right to make hers) and if anyone told me they were mad at me for this I would tell them to jog on! She may be making the wrong decision but if this is what she wants now then let it be. I think you’re parents are absolutely right.

If this is what she wants and you are a true friend then I don’t see why your “morals” would prevent you from being supportive after all, you didn’t mention any laws being broken.

These reactions baffle me. What is it any of your business to be mad or not mad unless you’re in a relationship with her? You told her how you feel, she didn’t take it well and that’s all there is to it. Let’s just hope that when it comes to love and war, you’ll be so much smarter…I mean you must be, from your high horse.

@smilingheart1 and @wundayatta – Very interesting responses! They made me think a lot…

For those of you who keep criticizing me for being mad at her: I am mad because i CARE about her. Throughout her life, she has made mostly negative choices that have impacted her life greatly. I know her better than you guys do, and I love her more too, so YES, I have a right to be upset. Now that I see her do this, I can’t help but be upset for continuing to make choices in life that are done out of desperation and haste. Her last kid was with a guy who she was for 3 months. She moved in with him too, and now he is a psycho who she had to get a restraining order on. Obviously, if you’ve never been in this situation before, you wouldn’t understand the hurt and pain this puts me through. I almost feel like she stabbed me in the back, considering all we have been through because of her bad choices in life. Jealous? Definitely not. She is like a sister to me, not just a friend. I want her happiness as much as mine. I have my own relationship that I’ve been in for 4+ years. I don’t need to be jealous of her and honestly, I can’t imagine being so :|

Btw, is my anger going to make me hate her? No. It’s going to make me upset for a while. Is it going to make me abandon her? HELL NO. It’s an emotion I can’t control. it will happen. Does it make me a sinner banned to hell? No again. It makes me human.

@Glow I can understand you being concerned if you have genuine reason to be (yes, you know her and her track record better than we do) but if she is making you feel emotions like anger by making her own choices that you consider to be bad ones, then maybe you need to evaluate how involved you allow yourself to get. At the moment you have two choices, accept her decisions and be there to support her whether you agree or not or move on from the friendship and focus on your own decisions in life. Chances are, she is not going to change her lifestyle because it makes you mad which means you are wasting energy.

Mad is obviously the wrong choice of words. Everyone is disappointed with the decisions their friends have made at one point.

I hate her. But that’s just me :/

@Leanne1986 – You’re probably right, I am probably involving myself into it too much. I guess I feel like I have to… I guess sometimes I feel like I have to take care of her… perhaps it’s more like a motherly anger than anything?

And @Blackberry – You’re probably right too… my disappointment runs real deep though…. I don’t know, I can’t help but feel mad too :S

Is it possible that she did it because she was ‘struggling’ with her other child… in an attempt to create a stable environment/money/safety that she just couldn’t provide on her own?

There are people in your life who will never grow up and never fail to disappoint you. Your friend sounds like a good canidate. I understand your anger. Its probably fustration. You think she is a good person and deserves better but you can’t seem to get through. Your anger has probably more to do with the fact that she cares so little about her child and herself.
Its like having a good friend who wants to be a boxer and he is good looking. You see him get pounded in the face over and over. His looks are disappearing and his brain is going to mush from all the head injuries.
After a while you just can’t look. You are seeing someone who could’ve had a perfectly healthy and good life go down the drain. Not everyone has the stomach to see someone self destruct.

I had a friend like that…I really dislike her now, she went ahead and had a baby with a ‘rough’ eh man, she had no job and neither does he. If it wasn’t for the state, she couldn’t feed her own child. But why not, she wanted a baby…

@Jude wrote “But, angry is the wrong reaction, it is not the real reaction, there is some other emotion underneath it for you.”

I’m thinking you grieving the loss of a close relationship. Your close friend is in self destruct mode, and you are losing her. It’s painful to you to support her in activities that are detrimental to herself, her children and your relationship. You can’t do a thing about it, and you are angry about it. Perhaps there’s more than this, but at the very least, this is part of it.

Go ahead and feel your feelings of anger, outrage or whatever. But don’t say much to her about her decision making because we should just pity her. You’ll never change her. She could be unbearably lonely; lots of things.
Talk about dysfunctional and self destructive. Very sad.

Her life and decisions aren’t up for your approval, and it’s a bit presumptuous of you to think otherwise. Being angry at her presumes that she should do what you think she should do, not what she thinks she should do. It’s her life, not yours, and you don’t have a right to have any authority over her life whatsoever.

@Glow ; I didn’t mean jealous of her, I meant jealous that another person had more influence on her than me. In my situation, my friend was with a looser controlling convict. I know what you mean about loving her and all, but sometimes, you just have to cut out the drama out of your life for your own mental health.

As an old lady once told me, ‘no matter how horrible or insane someone’s life appears to us, some people enjoy that kind of existence.” I’ve never forgotten that. I think it has it’s roots in chronic boredom.

@Blackberry

You have wisdom, my friend. True freedom includes the freedom to fail, which may very well be one of the most important freedoms.

The age difference has nothing to do with it.

But I’ll tell you I was mad right when you said that she’s having a second kid while she doesn’t seem completely capable to take care of the first one. Now that’s f’d up!

@mrrich724 That’s the only thing that bugged me too.

@mrrich724 and @Leanne1986 …she has a 2 year old with another man that she is struggling to take care of. Yes, this is a potential heads up. Since there are no objective details provided, it is only a subjective opinion to us at this time.

Wow guys, how is it effef up to say that she struggling to take care of her first child? Um okay, she is struggling to pay for the childs food, clothes, and daycare, and she is struggling with the child’s horrible temperament. How is it effed up to notice that???

For those giving actual helpful answers, thank you. It has really got me thinking, and that’s what I am looking for.

@Glow LOL, so those that patted you on the head were the helpful answers? Bwahhha, you’ll love fluther ~

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – exactly who patted me on the head and exactly where did I mention them? I did not say thanks for patting me on the head, and I did thank specific people, and if you think they “patted me on the head” then maybe you need to re-read what they wrote before making any assumptions here.

@Glow Right. Will do. Thanks.

So you come here just to give sarcastic remarks over the internet to feel like some powerful cyberbully? Ok, get over yourself and get off this topic if sarcasm is all you can muster right now.

@Glow No, I can give you many other remarks, my dear but it seems you’re not in the mood to hear them. Your detail section above betrayed your latest statement that you were ‘just concerned about the baby’ ‘cause if that were ever true, you wouldn’t mention the man’s age or how mad you are or that she didn’t listen to you. After all, if it’s ‘all about the baby’, you can help your (supposed) friend with said baby by being there for her, which you’re not. Anything else?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – making assumptions again “you can help your (supposed) friend with said baby by being there for her, which you’re not.”

@JLeslie – I just read what you wrote and it’s interesting, because she actually isn’t spending LESS time with me, but she did stop spending time with another friend, and THAT friend actually stopped talking to her because of it! o_o I feel like she is destroying her friendships over this guy, kinda like some teenagers do when they get their first boyfriend or something :/

@Glow Sigh. So you are helping her with the baby? Then the baby will be fine, will she not? Seeing how concerned you are. So, there you go, problem solved.

I still believe you are being with someone based on love. If it is based on materialistic reasons I find it morally wrong and usually it won’t last. At the end of the day, it is her life and she is the one who make her own decision. YOu have given you best intention to tell her and if she’s not listening, nothing you can do and let her make her choice.

@CaptainHarley – “True freedom includes the freedom to fail, which may very well be one of the most important freedoms.” You make a good point…. I am so afraid to see those failures come crashing down on her though… so afraid…

@CaptainHarley – and yes, it seems that is what it is coming down to for me here. I am glad to get others inputs on this though, because I hate having just mine and hers to go by. I just hope she is getting similar inputs on her side though, but from what i can tell, it may only come from her new guy.. and from what she has told me, he has basically told her to dump TWO of her friends already, I can’t imagine what he has told her about me now ):

See @tedd
Your friend is an idiot. You are doing her a favor by being mad at her. Somebody has to be the voice of reason. She is not, nor apparently, is anybody else. Get more mad!

Yes, that’s the answer @josie. “Get more mad!” Cause we all know the “voice of reason” is heard much more clearly when more madness is applied.

I hear the Mad Store is running a special on madness today and today only. Buy one, get one free. Qualified shoppers can sign up to win a full on Temper Tantrum and they’ll throw in a bucket of Rage at no extra charge! Speaking of charge, you can even put all that Vitriol on your credit card at 23% interest.

@Glow

Ever heard the song, “Sometimes you’ve gotta be cruel to be kind?” When an alcoholic has drunk up all his money and driven away all his family and is sitting in the gutter with no one to help him, it’s sometimes sufficient to make him wake up and finally take responsibility for his own life. The well-meaning friend who comes along and gathers the alcoholic up, feeds him, gets him a bath and a haircut, etc., is doing him no favor .. unless the alcoholic has already turned the corner and accepted responsibility.

Your friend is like the alcoholic. She’s going to have to hit rock bottom before she will come to her senses. As much as it will hurt… sometimes, you’ve got to be cruel to be kind. : (

I haven’t read everything that has been said before but while you may be right and your friend may be making mistakes, they are her mistakes. By all means let her know of your concerns, but then be her friend. Be there to support her when (if) things don’t work out. We can’t make people do what we want and sometimes people have to learn from their own mistakes. Be her friend and let her know you will be there if it all goes pear shaped.

It’s not messed up that you noticed her struggle to take care of her kid… what’s messed up is that she can’t even take care of one . . . not even basically financially, yet she’s going to have another. . .

I imagine if you can’t pay for one thing (never mind emotional care), you definitely can’t pay for two things, or in this case vulnerable human beings…

It’s her business and choice to date a guy however many years her senior, but when she’s aving babies with different guys that she can’t even afford, that’s messing with another life.

@Glow How old are you and your friend? Did you say already and I missed it?

@Glow I actually meant that, if true, it bothered me that she had a child that she was struggling to look after already not that you told us that.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I think you are right. In fact, I think you’re always right? Everybody should have any number of babies with no matter who, born out of ‘fuck trains’ whatever, it’s all good…