I know this is not really worthy of a new thread, but I have to speak up on behalf of that girl for whom Robert's friend left his family.

I was the wife who got ditched along with the beautiful child by our "man" of the family. Somehow, I never felt inclined to blame the sweet young thing that had 'lured' him away. I couldn't help thinking that after all the lies he'd told me, he must have been telling her some whoppers as well.

Turned out that she didn't even know he was married, or had at least believed him when he said he wasn't. She found out when he got served with the divorce papers. Poor kid. He'd been telling her that he'd just gotten out of a horrible marriage to an evil shrew (that's why he couldn't commit to her, and needed a lot of time to himself). She thought I was a genuine witch, and that our child was a result of an affair I'd had.

She got away from him when she started seeing the many holes in his stories, I'm glad to say. Unfortunately, he's had more come and go, and is now on his 4th marriage (how does he afford all those divorces???)

Anyway, my point is, Robert, don't be to hard on Miss Honey, she probably has a VERY skewed idea of what your friend left behind, and if she is young, she has no real concept of what marriage and love are really like. She probably thinks she's helping him recover from a terrible experience, and more than likely, he's having a great time letting her do it.

The chances that she is actually an evil, calculating "girl puppy", are very unlikely, although somewhat higher if your friend is very wealthy or powerful. Much more likely she is some poor kid who needs love so bad she'll swallow a bunch of lies to get it, and she will be left in the lurch when the chips start to fall. Let's all hope she wises up before she finds herself depending on this guy to protect her from a gang of not-very-nice bad guys. I can see this guy running out the back door while she's trying to block them from getting the front door, can't you?

Sorry to ramble so, just a whisper of deja vu floating by my mind...

-- Arewyn (nordic@northnet.net), November 15, 1998

Answers

Arewyn: In reply to you post, I do not know 'Miss Honey", and most likely will never meet her... nor do I know much about her except what he mentioned. She is a widow with children and knows that he is currently married with 2 children. When I started the thread what I was really after was to try and get other reactions from the forum that were also from 'left field'... and also to vent. Perhaps not in that order. Anyway, the fact that she knows he is currently married (he clearly stated this) speaks volumes... unless he's lying. one last note: my wife, who is more astute than I am, made the following observation: He doesn't look very happy. I stick to what I said originally: what goes around comes around.

-- Roberty Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), November 15, 1998.

I am not in favour of dumping a spouse indiscriminately, as witnessed by the fact that my 20th anniversary is rapidly approaching. However, I have seen several situations where the obviously 'guilty party' wasn't so obviously guilty when you knew the inside facts. I've come to the conclusion that however much it looks from the outside, there are always two sides to every story. On the otherhand, I would be hard put to trust any man who would leave his family in the midst of Y2k preparations, or any woman either, for that matter. If you can't be faithful to your family, what can you be faithful to?

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), November 16, 1998.

Hi, Robert,

I wasn't responding so much to your description of her as to some of the other opinions that followed. From what you've said, sounds like she's old enough & experienced enough to know what she's doing and to make responsible decisions, if she were so inclined.

People have always been and will always be capable of doing really rotten things to one another; I guess I just wanted to be sure who needed bopping on the head. (Not to mention a brief diversion from Y2K obsessing...

I'm glad to hear that his wife is making preparations; she sounds like a survivor. Her children are forturnate to have her :).

-- Arewyn (nordic@northnet.net), November 16, 1998.

Arewyn: Agreed.

-- Robert Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), November 16, 1998.

I can't believe you people are posting this Dear Abby crap on a Y2K message board.

-- Anti-chainsaw (Tree@hugger.com), November 16, 1998.

...because how "people" respond is 95-99% of the concerns about the future post-2000. Programming computers is easy compared to "predicting people."

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 16, 1998.