Reply to When a friend confides about a really major secret and it changes things...

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When I was young I unconsciously sought out friends who did not judge. Later I realized that was a result of weakness. It wasn't that I wanted freedom to be myself. It was that I wanted to avoid the pressure of living up to anyone's expectations.

Now I have a spouse and friends with high expectations. It doesn't mean I have to be perfect, but it means I can keep striving to be better and still be supported. But that comes with a price. If I had an affair I wouldn't confide in my friends because that' a terrible situation to put them in, unless I did it with the expectation they would expect me to try to do the right thing - tell my spouse, seek counseling, whatever.

The friend here knows she put OP in an unfair situation. She knows what she did is wrong (calling it a revelation or an awakening or whatever doesn't make it less wrong). If she doesn't expect OP will expect her to do the right thing, they have made the wrong kind of friendship for this.[/quote]

Life is complicated poster here. This all strikes me as rather extreme.  I think the friend's mistake (aside from the affair, which we can all agree was wrong) wasn't so much in confiding in a friend as it was choosing OP as the friend to confide in.  Different friends bring different things to the table.  My friends are all kind, intelligent, and believe strongly in family/friends/community.  But they are otherwise pretty diverse in their personalities and temperaments.  I have friends that I know will just listen and comfort me when I'm flogging myself for screwing up.  I have other friends that will kick me in the rear when I need it.  I don't need them to make me a better person by holding me certain standards of behavior.  That's my own responsibility.  They do make me a better person, though, in that each one brings out my desire to have the qualities that good friends have:  kindness, generosity, selflessness, availability, loyalty, ability to understand someone else's perspective.

Being a mother has really brought this home to me as I "coach" my child through the ups and downs of friendship.  I abhor that "my toy is better than your toy/you're not my friend anymore/it has to be my way" behavior that goes on among the elementary school set.  I squash it hard and fast and have realized that the best way to bring those lessons home to my children is to point out how I treat my friends.  [/quote]

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