Not sure if ethical is the right word, maybe more of a personal dilemma. It's kind of a long story so bear with me.
Several years ago my Dh and I had friends we'll call them Don and Cathy. DH and Don had known each other for over 30 years, more of a friend of a friend thing. Don married Cathy and we became fairly close friends. Cathy had a very loud personality and definitely said anything and everything on her mind. She was very friendly and would do anything for you. She was the type of person either you really liked or couldn't stand.
Our kids were teenagers, early 20's during this time we were friends. During our oldest daughter's college graduation party, Cathy comes up and slaps my middle daughter's (age 19) back which was badly sunburned. She could easily see the sunburn and did it on purpose. My daughter asked her two times to stop but she continued to slap it thinking it was funny. Finally my daughter told her "If you slap my sunburn again, I'm going to slap you." Well, of course she did it again and my daughter slapped her in the face. She took major offense to my daughter slapping her and made a huge deal of it during the graduation party. Cathy wanted me to take sides and make my daughter apologize. I refused telling her it was between her and my daughter. My daughter did end up apologizing that day, but a more general apology, not directly for the slap, if that makes sense.
Our friendship wasn't the same after that. I honestly felt she deserved to get slapped(and finally told her that) and she felt she hadn't done anything wrong. Over the next several weeks she made lots of snide comments regarding the matter. I finally told her I was done discussing the matter, it was something we would never agree on and to please let it go. It didn't end. Every time we saw them she would find a way to get a nasty comment in and laugh it off so finally several months after the initial incident, I was done and told her I needed to end the friendship. She was very upset and from what I hear when into a depression. This was approximately 2 years ago and I haven't talked to her since. I have thought about her during that time and somewhat miss the friendship we had before everything happened. As a side note, my sister and my best friend never did like her (which tells me something). There were other small things that happened, but I didn't let them bother me because we were friends, I considered them a quirk of her personality. My DH and Don talked for a while afterwards, but their friendship fizzled after a couple of months. My DH made no effort but would be happy to talk to Don when he called.
I'm finally getting to my problem. Several months ago I heard she had cancer, thought about reaching out to her, but everyone advised against it. Yesterday I heard it's terminal, they are giving her 2 months to a year. I can't decide if I should try to reach out to her or not. I know I don't want to become friends again, because even sick I'm afraid she would cause drama. But I feel like a horrible person if I don't even acknowledge that I know she's sick. My family and friends say I should not contact her. To be honest I wonder if I just feel guilty for some reason and that's why I think I should. But I'm not sure what I feel guilty about. I think part of me is hoping if I connect with her she'll will finally admit she shouldn't have slapped my daughter's sunburn! Then I feel awful for still even being upset over something that happened so long ago.
If you managed to make it through, thank you and any ideas/opinions?
Several years ago my Dh and I had friends we'll call them Don and Cathy. DH and Don had known each other for over 30 years, more of a friend of a friend thing. Don married Cathy and we became fairly close friends. Cathy had a very loud personality and definitely said anything and everything on her mind. She was very friendly and would do anything for you. She was the type of person either you really liked or couldn't stand.
Our kids were teenagers, early 20's during this time we were friends. During our oldest daughter's college graduation party, Cathy comes up and slaps my middle daughter's (age 19) back which was badly sunburned. She could easily see the sunburn and did it on purpose. My daughter asked her two times to stop but she continued to slap it thinking it was funny. Finally my daughter told her "If you slap my sunburn again, I'm going to slap you." Well, of course she did it again and my daughter slapped her in the face. She took major offense to my daughter slapping her and made a huge deal of it during the graduation party. Cathy wanted me to take sides and make my daughter apologize. I refused telling her it was between her and my daughter. My daughter did end up apologizing that day, but a more general apology, not directly for the slap, if that makes sense.
Our friendship wasn't the same after that. I honestly felt she deserved to get slapped(and finally told her that) and she felt she hadn't done anything wrong. Over the next several weeks she made lots of snide comments regarding the matter. I finally told her I was done discussing the matter, it was something we would never agree on and to please let it go. It didn't end. Every time we saw them she would find a way to get a nasty comment in and laugh it off so finally several months after the initial incident, I was done and told her I needed to end the friendship. She was very upset and from what I hear when into a depression. This was approximately 2 years ago and I haven't talked to her since. I have thought about her during that time and somewhat miss the friendship we had before everything happened. As a side note, my sister and my best friend never did like her (which tells me something). There were other small things that happened, but I didn't let them bother me because we were friends, I considered them a quirk of her personality. My DH and Don talked for a while afterwards, but their friendship fizzled after a couple of months. My DH made no effort but would be happy to talk to Don when he called.
I'm finally getting to my problem. Several months ago I heard she had cancer, thought about reaching out to her, but everyone advised against it. Yesterday I heard it's terminal, they are giving her 2 months to a year. I can't decide if I should try to reach out to her or not. I know I don't want to become friends again, because even sick I'm afraid she would cause drama. But I feel like a horrible person if I don't even acknowledge that I know she's sick. My family and friends say I should not contact her. To be honest I wonder if I just feel guilty for some reason and that's why I think I should. But I'm not sure what I feel guilty about. I think part of me is hoping if I connect with her she'll will finally admit she shouldn't have slapped my daughter's sunburn! Then I feel awful for still even being upset over something that happened so long ago.
If you managed to make it through, thank you and any ideas/opinions?
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