I'd never hang around low-lifes like that. I'd feel drained from their negative energy.

i have a friend who has been "seeing" a guy for over a year who has a girlfriend

essentially this guy has two girlfriends, only my friend KNOWS about it and the other "real" girlfriend seemingly has no idea

and i do NOT support it, but what can you do? you can't force her to stop, although i do not encourage it and often give her tough love when she asks for advice or attemps to cry on my shoulder

this same friend used to sleep with a guy but would lie to her roomate about it because the roomate was in love with him...when she'd go see the guy, i would end up being the decoy without knowing! i found out a year later that she used to say she was coming to my house late at night because my boyfriend made me cry and i needed support...the roomate must have thought my boyfriend was the devil!

I have to say that its not anyones right to judge, You can disapprove and voice that but also remember that people make mistakes and they arent automatically low lifes for doing so.

I was in this position, and I am glad I had people there to support me and understand and be rational. It helped me alot.

"I have to say that its not anyones right to judge, You can disapprove and voice that but also remember that people make mistakes and they arent automatically low lifes for doing so."

I agree. I may not approve but as a friend it is my role to be supportive and remember that someday I may do something questionable too.

Every situation is different, and even if I dont agree with what may be going on I am not going to continuously berate the person for it or remove them from my life. We are human! things happen-

this is tough, and I don't feel there is a "right" way to handle it. I have a friend who has had two affairs with married men, and doesn't see anything wrong with it. When I got engaged/married, I told her I never wanted to hear about those men and was not available for her to cry on my shoulder about them. I realize some people will think that was harsh, but it was the only way I could remain friends with her --- once I was married, it was just too close to home when she told those stories.

It has worked OK. We're still friends and she doesn't talk about them.

It sepends on the situation. I've been the cheating friend before and I can say that I WAS that girl because I was going through a difficult time in my life. I'm not proud of it by any means and it was not the right thing to do, but I was not feeling good about myself in general and I really needed my friends there to help me. It's easy to judge someone but we all make mistakes. I didn't mind if my friends told me they disapproved of what I was doing. I understood. I needed to get myself to a place where I was strong enough to move on. With the help of my friends, I was able to do that. So, NO I don't think you should necessarily ditch a cheating friend. If I were bragging about cheating with guys that were attached/married and looking for them all of the time, then yeah, I wouldn't blame a friend for ditching me.

My comment isn't a judgment ( I wish people knew definitions before they offer a rebuttal)... it's an opinion and I have one, and a right to speak it. And my opinion is that a person who cheats on someone is a low-life. It's a choice, not an accident. No one falls on someone and oops accidentally had sex. It's not to much to ask adults to be responsible for their actions.

Mesayme. I cheated. I knew what I was doing, i didnt accidently do it, but it doesnt make me a low life at all. but thats my opinion...and my husbands..and my families...and my friends....

No I don't hang out with people like that. I can't support a cheater.
Cheating is wrong no matter the situation. If you aren't happy with your current partner get some guts and dump them. Then do whatever you please. At that point it isn't their business what you are doing with your time!

If this was a very close best friend, I would talk to them about it being wrong. It isn't a matter of being judgemental, it's about being honest with your bff. I do however have a friend that another guy is cheating with...his gf has no idea, and they meet up once in a while. i don't know. It bothers me, and we are getting closer so maybe when have reached that point i might say something, but we just don't talk about it now.

It depends how good of a friend they are and how far they are going with their infidelity.
If they are my close friend, I will call them out on it.
But I cannot judge them.

This would make me extremely uncomfortable. I'm not too judgmental about it - everybody makes mistakes - but I have had two friends who cheated continually and eventually, they both turned it on me. I don't know, I'm of the opinion that being too close to people who do things like this puts you at risk for them doing bad things to you.

I wouldn't drop the person as a friend and I would still listen to them talk, but I would let them know I didn't think it was right.

I think for me the line is being complicit in it - if a friend was cheating on her bf, I wouldn't lie to the bf for me or cover up for her. I wouldn't go out of my way to inform him though either. For example, if she said she was hanging out with me and he asked me about it, I would just say that we weren't hanging out and he should talk to her about it.

Cheaters take away the right of the innocent partner to protect their own physical and emotional health. The poor guy's wife or girlfriend, in addition to having her heart broken, could get a life- or fertility-threatening disease.

(and by turned it on me, I meant that one slept with a guy I was dating - she'd set me up with him! - and the other made out with my long term boyfriend. clearly, the guys were crap too.)

SORRY THAT HAPPENED TO YOU PRINCESS_EAB. I HAVE A HARD TIME WITH THIS WHOLE THING BECAUSE MY DAD CHEATED ON MY MOM WHEN I WAS SEVEN AND I SAW HOW IT MESSED UP NOT ONLY MY MOMS LIFE, BUT MY SISTERS AND MY LIFE AS WELL AND THE IMPACT IT HAD ON MY RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEOPLE. HATE CHEATING! IT'S A BIG SLAP IN THE FACE!!!!!

NEVER CHEAT
break up before you get with someone else.

i'm in this position right now. lol.

& i have been struggling with it, even though i can't stand her boyfriend, i just don't think she should be doing what she's doing.

but, it's her life, & if i'm going to judge her and put her down, then i shouldn't be friends with her. so i choose not to judge her bc she's been there for me & she has so much good in her. "sometimes good people do bad things."

i just really hope my friend learns from her mistake.

Everyone seems to be very worried about not judging their friends. I have to be honest here; I WANT my friends to judge me. Dont' you? I surround myself with the types of people (bffs) that make me happy, energized, etc. If I am doing something that boethers them, I want them to tell me. I want them to judge me if I am wrong and can't see it. It shows they dtruly do like/love me. And I inturn treat my close friends (again bff's not aquaintances or barely bffs).

I don't think that it is being judgemental per say. I think it is being lovingly worried.

Don't support! A real friend gets in your face and let's you know when you're screwing up big time. I would gladly do that to any cheating friend.

As someone going through a divorce right now because of a cheating husband....I simply could not support someone who is putting someone in the position that I am now.

My best friend cheated on his boyfriend (he's gay) and told me about it. I'm no one to judge but as a real friend I did express my opinion and told him that I thought what he was doing was awful. His excuse was that he didn't know how to be monogamous to which I told him that that was fine as long as the guys he was with knew about each other. I made sure to include that I did not want to meet these men as I am not one to lie to others and knowing myself I would have blurted it out. He eventually spoke to all of them and informed them there were others. Some stayed and some left.

"Everyone seems to be very worried about not judging their friends. I have to be honest here; I WANT my friends to judge me." But judging is not the same as being lovingly worried. When I say support I mean trying to let your friend know you disapprove but not calling them lowlifes or insulting them. People are human and make mistakes. Even if your friend KNOWS it is wrong she may do it for whatever reason. A good friend provides support and love- not judgment.

My husband's coworker and friend from college is getting married on November 1st. I have been socially connected with his fiance several times. She's a very nice girl. I feel like crap every time I'm around her because he has hit on me, hit on my sister-in-law, was sleeping with my other sister-in-law's best friend, and sleeping with an ex-girlfriend of his. And yet, as much as I want to tell her to run for the hills, I can't.

well i think that it's not necessarily our place to judge what others do - but i think that i'm always going to tell my friend that if she doesn't want to be in the relationship, then what's the point in continuing with her significant other. i was cheated on and i would have hoped that someone would have told my boyfriend that it wasn't the right thing to do but apparently all the guys that were his friends thought that it was a great thing...

The very definition of a lowlife is: a person of low moral character (or lapse of)... and that is what you have when you put yourself in a position of destroying someone with that level of betrayal. Many people have committed suicide because of cheating in addition to dying from AIDS. It's not something that's so off-the-cuff. Some people take it very hard. I would think that if you could do something, why wouldn't you? I would feel just as guilty if I didn't at least try.
I could not carry that guilt and that's why I would cut communication; and have done it.

You're worried about not judging and hurting your friend's feelings when they are risking someone's life. I hope everyone agrees to judge a molester or rapist and would turn him in. Taking that risk with someone's life is absolutely wrong no matter what 'outs' you've given yourself.

Argh! I'm having this issue right now. My ex boyfriend (also one of my friends) is cheating on... a girl in America who is moving to the UK on November 10th, a girl who lives locally who is 17 (he's 23), a girl in London (who knows about the other girls) and is trying to hook up with more. Oh, and he slept with one of his other ex's a couple of weeks ago and she knew about all of the other girls too.

The girl who lives in America has declared her love to him (they met through an online dating site and talk every day on the phone/IM) which is a bit strange since they've never met in person. She is moving back to the UK on November 10th which is 4 days before local girls 18th birthday and 5 days before her own.

The local girl who is 17 is doing her second year of A levels and he's already graduated university. She is a virgin. On the third date he tied her up and performed oral on her. Then told us all about it.

The girl in London wants to come up and have sex with him but has started calling him more often and is treating it more like boyf/girlf...

The ex is a silly horny girl who doesn't get laid enough. He put a plate of glass on her back and made her into a coffee table. Or something. Then told us all about it.

He intends on breaking it off with all except the girl from America. In the meantime he tells us about his sex life (he works with my boyfriend) and I just tell him he's a terrible person.

OH MAN THAT FELT BETTER. I needed to get that out. Me and my boyfriend disagree with what he is doing but what can we do? The girl in America has never even MET him... so is it still cheating? I have no idea.

Phew. I needed to get all that out.