QUESTION: My best friend recently left her lovely, kind partner of 12 years for a man no one likes. He’s arrogant, cold and seems untrustworthy. But my friend is obsessed; she says the sex is out of this world and she never had chemistry with her ex. I worry it’s all a looming disaster. Meanwhile, her ex wants her back. Should I intervene?
ANSWER: No one is less open to advice than the lover who’s enjoying the electrifying heat of a new sexual passion. Counselling someone in that state is about as easy as telling an alcoholic: “Hand over that sherry!’”Erotic love is highly addictive - but utterly baffling to all those not being dragged along by it.
Few authors have conveyed the force of all-consuming passion better than Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights. Cathy’s wiser choice is clearly the handsome, kind (if slightly weedy) Edgar Linton, yet she cannot help pining for the brutal, uncouth but sexy Heathcliff. Lust is of the body and owes little to logic: it often alights on the least suitable people.
I strongly suspect that even if you told your friend about your concerns, she’d ignore them. And she might take against you for being so hostile about the man who enthrals her. It’s easier to cast you as a jealous, negative meddler, than to give you credit for sage counsel that she has no intention of taking.
My advice so far is predicated on the assumption your friend’s new boyfriend is as bad as you make out. No one else you know likes him, which seems to back up your points, but some people are slow burners. Sometimes shyness is mistaken for arrogance. It’s still early days and that love makes everyone behave oddly.
It’s even possible that part of the reason you mistrust this man is because you put little faith in sexual passion.
If your relationship prioritises friendship, stability and comfort, you might feel frightened of the potential hazards that accompany erotic obsession. That kind of lust can feel destabilising to both participants and those around them. I wonder if some of your anxiety is sparked by observing the kind of chemical attraction that can drive a woman to leave her “lovely, kind” partner for someone less obviously benign.
If we all behaved like that, would all decent people be abandoned for vamps and lotharios? Is there a teensy bit of you that longs for a little sexual novelty and adventure? We often disapprove of impulses in others that are buried deep in ourselves.
The main question is: what are your friend’s core needs? Perhaps she rates sexual fulfilment over emotional stability; some do. If so, there’s nothing more frustrating and lonely than living with a partner whose libido doesn’t match theirs. We have all observed sibling-style relationships lacking erotic spark: few of us set that as our “happily ever after”.
I’m not saying your best friend is right (it’s too early to say for sure), but she thinks she is and that’s the thing to bear in mind.
What she requires of you is affirmation; try to find a positive angle - unless you have hard evidence of this man’s perfidy. Only offer advice when (and if) it’s asked for. If your friend’s ex truly wants to win her back, the ball is firmly in his court, not yours. - Daily Mail