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Sorry my Friend, but I want your Man!

By Sally Abo Ouf

Great is love, great it is when you have someone to lean on, someone to open up with, to show him/her your vulnerability without being ashamed or obligated to act the role of the tough person. Great it is that you can close your eyes knowing that someone is out there watching over you. Great is love…

But what if this love is poisoned, what if it has been built on the debris of another relationship that was once successful and where dreams were once floating on a bed of sincere feelings? Riham, during university was in a serious relationship with a person whom she thought was the man of her life. They promised to be together forever by getting married once they graduate.

Unfortunately, this promise was broken when Riham’s best friend fell in love with her boyfriend, and as time went by, this boyfriend decided to end the relationship with Riham, got engaged to her best friend and finally got married right after graduation!

Maha is another case. She was in her 40s and was used to making gatherings at her house inviting her friends over. She knew when it was too late that her beloved husband was betraying her with one of her “friends” and finally got married leaving her with 2 children who reached their adolescent stage missing their father in a story that was not encouraging to tell – at least for their own emotional stability.

But why does this happen? Why do some females decide that finding a man to marry outweighs sacrificing a deep relationship with one of their friends? Unfortunately, there is no clear answer for that.

Asking a number of females resulted in mixed responses ranging from the uneven distribution of men to women that would make it inevitable for a man to marry more than one woman be it a stranger or a friend, to the rationale that the female did not betray her friend, she just shared innocent feelings with a man who was suffering in his relationship with a woman who happened to be her friend!

As shocking as it may sound, is a female taking over her friend’s man necessarily an “evil” person or just a “catalyst” that ended an already doomed relationship? Again a complex question that does not have a clear conventional answer and the reason behind the complexity is because situations differ as much as humans are different and relationships are differently intertwined.

It is true that some of these relationships were going into turmoil and it is also true that some women are married or engaged to men who have engrained tendency to betray or who are easily bored with being committed to just one person for a long period of time. The question however posed to females who are about to end these relationships to win the man over to themselves; who would you rather be in this world; a person who is a “catalyst” to try to fix a stumbled relationship and win the respect of yourself, your friend as well as her husband? A person who supports her friend against her husband’s irrational love stories?

Or you would rather take the role of a female who just wants to become socially accepted by getting married even on the remains of a relationship which involved a person who once confided in you as her friend expecting you to be her solid support in times of need? Or maybe you want to become socially accepted by getting married to an immature man who believes in marriage as a short-term adventure believing that you will be able to change him to become loyal to you only?

It does not really matter in which stage the relationship is going through in order for the female to decide whether or not to step in to win the man over. What really matters is for this female to avoid playing any role that would result in ruining the relationship of her friend no matter what the excuse was.

Not denying human nature though, we have to acknowledge the fact that sometimes; a certain attraction might take place between a female and a man who happens to be her friend’s husband or boyfriend. Then what would be the best course of action in this awkward situation? Well, believing in human nature also, there is another fact that we have to acknowledge which is the human’s ability to control his or her feelings.

Feelings do not come with the same level of intensity at once; they grow and solidify over time. Having said that, and believing that a female should have more strength in control partly to preserve her self-respect, her relation with her friend that was governed by trust and partly to save her friend’s relationship with her husband, she should stay away of any contact with her friend’s husband even if this resulted in limiting her encounters with her friend the moment she feels a signal flagging the onset of certain level of abnormal attraction to her friend’s partner.

Karima is a 30 year old single female who had a friend married to her university sweetheart. She knew her friend first from work and then she used to go out with the couple in various events and so became closer. As time went by, she started to sense a certain level of “liking” taking place with her friend’s husband and she was annoyed with the feeling especially that she felt that it was mutual.

Knowing that this was not right even though sometimes Karima’s friend used to confide in her of problems going on between her and her husband, she decided to put an end to this “misplaced” feeling. She avoided any interaction with her friend’s husband. Karima excused herself from any outing when she knew that her friend’s husband was joining even when it was a large gathering not just the three of them. This of course limited Karima’s outing with her friend but she was peaceful that the cause was worth it.

When confronted with her friend that she is unjustifiably absent of gatherings, Karima made up excuses that she is so busy at work meeting new tight deadlines and that she is going to do her best catching up. As time passed, this sense of liking disappeared from both ends as Karima got really busy with other areas that interested her and filled her life and gradually she began to appear in gatherings like the good old days but with the feeling of pride that she had saved not only her friendship but also her friend’s relationship and most importantly her self-respect.

Karima is far from being an ideal person but she was a person who knows what her priorities in life are when it comes to standards.

As much as we are talking nowadays with sorrow about how we are living in a materialistic world where the end justifies the means, it is our call to make a stop to this and preserve few of the stands that make us warm considerate humans. One of these stands is preserving pure trusting friendship believing that what goes round comes around, that love will come when it is destined to without casualties.

Love is great but only when its source is pure…

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