shocked

[sarahmichigan]

I just found out today that B., a friend I've been out of touch with for a while, up and left her husband E. and moved out of state. That's shocking enough, but I can't believe she left her little girl, L., (5 years old, I think?) behind with Dad. I know that she was a little flaky, and that she and her husband had their issues, but I'm just completely blown away.

A friend of B's came into the office to talk to me about advertising, and mentioned it as if I knew all about it. I hadn't talked to B & E since August or September of last year, so I was out of the loop. Apparently, an old college boyfriend of B's came back into her life last August, and by NOvember she'd left her husband of 9 or 10 years and her child in Michigan and had moved back to Kentucky with her old flame.

I can't believe it. I don't blame her for trying to find happiness, but the part about leaving L. behind *really* bothers me. I'm just. . . stunned.

Comments

[mogwar.livejournal.com]

I once dated someone who'd abandoned his wife and child in a similar manner. I've since decided that that sort of action is a dealbreaker for me. The mindset that would allow someone to do that is not only so foreign to me, but something I don't even want to try to understand. There's no way I could support someone in a situation like that without a *very* good reason and not feel like I was betraying my own ethics. So I'm simply not willing to go there at all. If nothing else, I don't want to model that sort of behavior as something that is acceptable to my own child. It's far too disturbing for that. (And it's one reason why I don't think I'll ever be able to have any sort of relationship with the person I used to date, ever again.)

amen

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

You know, I wondered *while* you were dating him how you felt about that. You're *so* devoted to Adrian, I wondered how you rationalized his decision so that it didn't bother you. I didn't know all the details about his sitch, so I was just keeping an open mind that I didn't know the whole story and that perhaps there were extenuating circumstances. But just based on the little I did know, it bothered ME, and I don't even have kids!

Re: amen

[mogwar.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure how I rationalized to myself, to be honest. A lot of my thought processes involving him went something like: "he's young and very stupid right now, and making a lot of bad choices, but I was young and stupid and made bad choices once, and maybe he'll grow out of it and turn into a decent person, like I did". But even that doesn't entirely hold, because I don't think even at my young and stupidest, I'd ever have let myself abandon a child. A spouse? Sure. Other responsibilities? Absolutely. But a helpless kid? I don't think so.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

What?!?!?!!?!? Damn, I think we need to contact E and offer assistance. I also am stunned that B would just leave her daughter, it blows my mind!