I guess he's not gonna be my Facebook friend!

Something happened recently and I need to vent...

I had a really good friend in HS who was a guy. Since I don’t know who is reading this blog, we will call him “Joe”. Joe and I met at the beginning of my senior year. We were both Catholic. He was practicing, I was not. We started talking and I eventually ended up going to Mass with him every Sunday. I got to know his family. His parents adored me, his brother taught me to drive a stick shift, and I became part of the family and vice versa.

Nothing ever went beyond friendship with us. We went to a dance or two together… held hands once and it was really weird so that was the end of it. When his parents went out of town, I would stay there at his house… hang out and "babysit" when he decided to have parties. It was a totally innocent relationship.

After school, I started dating my ex-husband and eventually got married. By then Joe had moved away and we lost contact... although I would run into his family and my mom worked at the same place as his mom so I would always get an update on him.

When I was pregnant with Ty, in January of 2000, I went to Joe’s wedding. It was the first time I had seen him in years and I was so happy that I had been invited to his special day. I thought maybe with him moving back, being married, and me being married and starting a family, we could hang out more. Only to find myself abandoned again… calls and letters went unanswered.

Fast forward to February of 2006 (I think)… and I ran into Joe up at WSU. We talked a bit. I told him I was divorced and had 2 kids; he told me he had a child and one on the way. I point blank asked him “What’s the deal? Why did you completely cut me off?” and that’s when he told me that his wife was crazy jealous when it came to me. The words he used were “she gets fire in her eyes” when my name is mentioned. I guess he had asked her to have us over for dinner… to prove to her that there was never anything there more than friendship and she absolutely wouldn’t allow for it. I told him that it’s too bad it had to be that way. He gave me his cell phone number anyhow and told me that maybe one of these days we could go to lunch and catch up anyhow… but I never heard from him.

Fast forward again to my birthday this past summer… Raquel took me out to lunch and we saw Joe and his family. He wouldn’t talk to me… he knew I was there but had this “please don’t come talk to me look”. Honestly, it made me sad.

Last week I noticed his name on the side of my FaceBook where it says “people you may know”… so I thought, what the heck? I sent him a message that basically said “Hey! Long time, no talk. I miss our friendship… I hope that we can be friends on Facebook and see pictures of each other’s families, if it doesn’t upset your wife. Hope all is well.”

A couple of days passed… and I got a reply.

The reply really took me by surprise. It was from his wife and she was angry. Swearing… telling me there is something wrong with me for trying to get in touch with him, that I don't know him... calling me names… telling me to stay away from her husband.

Wow. Really??

Being that I am in the type of relationship I can tell my husband anything... so very first thing, I talked to Bryan about it last night… and he said he feels sorry for “Joe”. It's too bad that he has to live in that kind of relationship… that he can't be friends with who he wants to be friends with… hell, he can't even reply to his own email!

Personally, I couldn’t imagine being in a relationship where my spouse doesn’t trust me. I couldn’t imagine not being able to have friends who are of the opposite sex (remember, Blake is my BFF!). I wouldn’t want to live that kind of life... but I also wouldn't allow for it. If my spouse thought they could control who I was friends with, they probably wouldn't be my spouse.

I am very thankful for the relationship I am in and the trust we have.