When two friends in a group date and then break up, who gets custody of the friends? This is our dilemma. I’ve wrote about my friends Bryan and Penny who broke up after over a year of dating. They had mutual friends before dating, while dating, and still now after dating. We all party as a group, go out as a group. She is my good friend as well as a good friend of my boyfriend. He is my boyfriend’s best friend.
Thursday night Penny, my boyfriend, and I along with a few other friends went to a local baseball game and then our Thursday night hot spot. I admit we did avoid telling Bryan where we were going. This is the second week in a row my boyfriend and I have avoided telling him where we’re going in order to avoid the awkward confrontation between Penny and Bryan. But it was too late…
Thursday night as we arrived at the bar a few of our other friends were pulling up. My boyfriend, Penny, and I were already slightly intoxicated as we marched up to the bar together so we are laughing and wave real big to the carload of our friends. In the backseat we see Bryan with a very displeased look on his face.
Despite our attempts at avoiding him, Penny and I ran smack dab into Bryan and another friend for the awkward confrontation. Bare in mind, this is the first time they have seen each other since breaking up. Awkward silence, small talk, oh we have to go. End of conversation.
Friday night apparently Bryan drunk dialed Penny. They got into a huge argument about: you guessed it – friends. Bryan complained because Penny was hanging out with “his friends” and now he couldn’t go to that club on Thursday nights or out them nights at all because of the awkward confrontation.
Bryan was mad because we were hanging out where we always hang out with the same people we always hang out with. It’s a sticky situation. It was a mutual breakup so no one really hurt the other so they should be able to be civil to one another.
My question is: Should they learn to co-mingle or does one person have to stay home to avoid the awkward confrontation? When two people break up and have mutual friends, who get custody of the friends? Do we need to work up a custody agreement? You get Lee on Friday-Wednesday. I get him on Thursday. Ricky’s yours today; mine tomorrow. How do we solve this?
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7 comments:
you are not going to beleive that I was just thinking this last night. I had discussed this with a friend before and it's so hard b/c we all go out as a group as well. We are "the gang" I always wondered what would happen if I broke up with my man b/c I would still want to continue to party with these people. But my man is just as close to them as I am. It would be sooo hard.
That is so weird. See, we are long lost sisters - maybe even twins separated at birth! It really sucks because they can't hang together yet I want to hang with her and my boyfriend wants to hang with him so it really causes problems. We can't go to the same place but we always go to the same place. My only solution is for them to get back together but that's not gonna happen!
that's a tough one...altnernate every other weekend...i have no solution...i don't have friends ;-)~
man, this is a rough subject. about 2 yrs ago i broke up with an ex, and we had the same group of friends.. it didn't end well. my ex took the breakup really badly, first of all, so people were kind of forced to take sides (if you weren't with him you with ME, the evil wench). both of us lost friends b/c the whole group split.. it wasn't good. hopefully your friends will be able to be civil in each others' company soon, so no one has to choose friends or sides.
Thanks Allie! That's a great idea. They are both headed to the same bar tonight and neither one knows so this should be interesting!
I was thinking of Ross and Rachel too! I think co-existence is the solution, ESPECIALLY if the break up was a mutual decision.
Break-ups are never truly mutual, since it's always one persons idea first and then the other person just succumbs to their will on the issue. I had something like this happen with a girl I dated that basically decided to hang out with all my friends on a regular basis. She thought that I should hang out with all of them and I had to tell her that she is being very rude and inconsiderate to monopolize on spending time with my friends and she should try hanging out with them less so that I could relax around my friends without her being around all the damn time. Of course, being inconsiderate as she is, she refused to stop hanging around. So, I decided that the best way to deal with it was involve my friends in the dicussion. After all, I knew them first, and she met them through me, so regardless of what Friends episode is invoked, if people break off the relationship, that means that they don't want to be together anymore. Give them both equal time and distance and eventually they'll either come to terms with having to hang out together again, or they'll stop hanging out with the group altogether. Not quite as cheery as the others, but at least it's honest...
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