Everyday Canvas

When Stuck in Between

Prompt: We all agree that loyalty is the foundation of relationships with friends and those we love; however, at times, our loyalties get tangled, put in danger, or clash with each other. How is it possible to keep our loyalties intact when people clash or destroy one another?

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This is what I call being trapped between a rock and a hard place. Something in this vein happened to us when we were newlyweds. We had two other couples as friends; both couples had been married for years and with children. One of the guys was a womanizer, unbeknownst to me. This guy had a string of office affairs until the wife caught on to him. The husband of the other couple knew about this, as they worked in the same place, and had told his wife.

Luckily for us, when all this was happening, we were out of the country, and when we came back, they presented us with their mess as if we were a couple of Supreme Court judges. The mess itself wasn’t too bad, but what was bad was that the adulterer had told his wife that the other guy knew of it. He also made sure to say that the other wife knew of it, too.

The adulterer’s wife picked on the other wife for not alerting her. Then the adulterer also said that the other guy had had some kind of an affair, too, which I thought he was possibly lying to take the down the other guy with him. Anyhow the four of them were like big cats, scratching each other. Worst was, they were all coming to us, telling their troubles, and purposely involving us.

Since I was still in my twenties then, I didn’t have the guts to tell all of them to get lost and neither did hubby. The result is, there was no result. Both couples stayed together, but we stayed away from them, after slowly easing ourselves out of their friendships.

Staying out of clashes and entanglements can be done but may not always be possible. I would opt for staying out of the clashes, and when it is not possible, dropping such loyalties. I guess to keep loyalties intact, one has to have a lot of life experience and a cool head. In addition, each case is different.