Wow, that is a crappy situation.

But don't "we" watch at 8th and St. Charles?

I honestly can't recall, I definitely remember one year being camped out kitty corner from the Grocery, which is at 6th. I just wander the neutral ground uptown from Washington till I find my peeps. Or meet new ones.

But you've grown and changed since then so you aren't actually the same person who did that. I believe this 100%, but don't think I could stop the judgmental voices in my head either. Still, it's a HUGE situation to deal with.

What Scrappy, as usual, Said.

It's a really shitty situation and I feel sympathy for the Wife. Not that Husband realized he's gay, but cheating especially in this situation where the topic was broached and quashed is uncool.

It is the discussion and then ignoring the discussion that makes it bad.

As much as I don' t get affairs - I get that they happen. It is what feels like a fake attempt to include wife in the decision. I imagine that she feels everything he says was. A lie.

I feel sympathy for the Wife. Not that Husband realized he's gay, but cheating especially in this situation where the topic was broached and quashed is uncool.

Yeah, and that's where all her anger is -- she's not angry about him realizing he's gay (though obviously she wants him to be straight because he's her husband); it's the flat-out lying and cheating.

I just want to knock their skulls together. (Husband and Boyfriend, that is.)

I imagine that she feels everything he says was. A lie.

Pretty much.

If you didn't have the awareness that your own actions could lead to accusations of hypocrisy, then I'd have questions about your right to say "Not on, dude!". If someone says to you "But you did it!" you could say "That's how I know about it!"

Doing a deed doesn't remove your ability to judge the rightness of the deed. You just acknowledge that you don't always act in perfect righteousness.

And then there's the part where I feel like I have ZERO moral high ground to even make any value judgment, since I have been there and been the person who has sexytimes with someone behind their spouse's back.

So my brain is an awesome place to be right now. I would just like to be able to own my opinion that what Boyfriend and Husband did (the going-behind-Wife's-back part) SUCKS without my inner critic saying, "Really? After what YOU did, you think you have ANY right to feel that way? Hypocrite."

I get this, Tep, I totally do. It's not a completely analogous situation, but almost seven years ago, when I got the promotion in my job, and I was tasked with being a total hardass on our sucky contractors, and coming down on them for lying and cheating us out of money and basically doing a crap job in every way possible, and making sure they knew that they had to shape up or I was the one who was going to ship them out. I felt like I didn't have the right to tell them all of that, because I had failed out of college after my mother died, and I hid it from everyone --because my father was so depressed and I thought he couldn't handle it, because I was ashamed, and because after a while, I thought my friends would hate me if I came clean. (I eventually came clean, years later, to all the people who mattered, and no one hated me, of course, but man, did I build it up in my mind as the be-all, end-all of everything.)

So I felt like I didn't have the authority to demand any kind of upstanding behavior from anyone, because I was such a screw-up, but I had to, because my new job demanded it of me. So I came up with this mantra, which I had to recite over and over, just to get through my prep for meetings with my contractors, and the actual meetings with them: "I didn't do anything wrong." Which is ridiculous, because I HAD done things wrong, but in this context, I hadn't, and that was what mattered. Saying it over and over gave myself permission to do my job, and that was what I needed. (And if you think this makes me sound totally crackers, that's just the tip of the iceberg.)

Anyway, tl;dr, I get that feeling that you're a hypocrite, but it's totally okay to feel outraged on your friend's behalf, even if there's something in your past you're not completely proud of.

(This post sounds like a Goodbye and Good Riddance post for my entire adult life, kinda. Er. Brought to you by Erin, and her amazing resume-writing skillz, which double as demon-purging skillz. I actually framed my college diploma this past fall, which I had hidden behind a shelf for years.)

This:

Doing a deed doesn't remove your ability to judge the rightness of the deed. You just acknowledge that you don't always act in perfect righteousness.

And this:

it's totally okay to feel outraged on your friend's behalf, even if there's something in your past you're not completely proud of.

Definitely help me re-frame stuff in my head. Thanks!

In hilarious timing, the person who borrowed my corset and didn't return it for months and months just texted me "Hey chica! Can you call me tonight? Need to talk before the weekend!"

I literally never talk to her or text with her or e-mail her or otherwise communicate with her unless I bump into her at a gathering. So I'm assuming it's another can-I-borrow-your-corset request.

It's only hilarious timing because my mood is so foul. It'll make it a lot easier to say No and not feel bad about it. (I won't be a dick; that's not what I mean. I'm not taking my mood out on someone who doesn't deserve it. But my mood makes it easier to not be so easily manipulated by a whiny "But pleeeeeease???")

Seriously? Some people really are like bad pennies, aren't they?

Tep,

I understand whatever guilt you are feeling, but I am thinking right now the wife friend needs all the support she can get. So if you can help her through the next several months, karmic debt paid!

BTW, if husband now considers himself gay and bf still has gf, is bf leaving gf, or is gay husband dating a bi man?