Trust

Alright I have been stewing over this for a few days now and I have finally decided to post a blog about it. Shannon had the pleasure of already getting the vent session from this because I just knew she would have the perfect advice for my situation. For all my other readers...let me catch you up.

I work with some pretty fun people. We all have lunch together and we all have a good time. There are 3 males and 4 females that all have lunch together at school. We have become more than co-workers as we are all now friends. We had a Christmas party because the one our school was having didn't sound like fun. From that we decided that we would do this once a month because it was a really good time for all the couples to get together and chat.

My friend, Mike, asked if I could pick him up from the car dealership last week because he was having some work done on his car. I said of course since I live five minutes from the place and I really didn't see a problem with it. Neither did he. However, his wife did see a problem. She found it necessary to basically yell at him and in a round about way accuse him of doing something. As if that didn't irritate me enough, she basically told him that she didn't like me because I wasn't very friendly when we went out together. I was just as friendly to her as I was to all the other wives/girlfriends, but she isn't exactly what I would call an approachable person. She gives off the persona that she is very overprotective of her husband. I get that and I respect that. Mike is a great guy, but I have my own great guy at home and I wouldn't trade him for the world. After talking with Shannon, I tried to see things from her point of view. She has kids at home, she might have had a bad day, maybe he cheated before, anything that would make this woman freaking out over a ride a lucid reaction. NOPE! Still can't see things from her point of view. So I tried to let well enough be alone and then I went to school on Friday (this all happened on Thursday at lunch).

Friday, my friends at school and I all sat down to lunch again. Well I was a little more quiet because I really didn't want to talk about this whole thing because I was offended that this woman that has met me a total of three times thinks I am a mean person out to get her husband. Mike informs us that it wasn't that she thought he was cheating, it was how her image looked. It was a matter of respect. Um ok...I didn't think I was being disrespectful since I was just giving her husband a ride. If we had breakfast together everyday or we went out all the time without her, but that is not the case here. Both times I have hung out with Mike outside of the school setting, it has been a couples thing and she has been there both times. It was at this point that I just said I really thought it was silly and that I didn't see why she was so upset. (Now I can be a jealous person and even this wouldn't bother me). Two of my female friends at school then proceed to basically side with her!! They literally made me feel like the worst person in the entire world. My one friend was just trying to point out that I was feeling singled out because it felt like Mike's wife was attacking me. In the process of pointing that out to everyone, she took that fact that I was feeling singled out and multiplied that by 3! My other friend was actually siding with the wife and asking me how I would feel if Dave did that. Well if it was a co-worker that I had met before who I knew had a significant other, I wouldn't be bothered. But if I didn't know her at all I might question it. Then I got that thrown back into my face. Well then put yourself in her situation my friend told me...ok I just did I HAVE MET HER BEFORE...SHE KNOWS ME!!!! It's not like I"m some random girl that had never met her. I basically felt that my two friends took the situation and tried to manipulate it so that Mike's wife's reaction was valid and that it was correct. I felt as though my friends were accusing me of actually doing something when this literally was nothing more than offering a friend a ride.

To Mike it all came down to trust...(hello faith trust and pixie dust!). She wasn't trusting him. To her it was all about respect. He shouldn't have ever been alone with a female other than her. To me...I wonder if that is really how she feels. I wonder if my friend Chrissy would have given Mike a ride if it would have stirred up things quite like it did or if Chrissy is right and she is threatened by me for some reason (that was something Chrissy said that I haven't explained but when she was talking about singling me out this was why I felt singled out.)

Today at school was awkward. Although I shouldn't feel guilty I do. Mike bought his wife flowers and now she is over it...hypocritical too because after saying she didn't really think I was friendly and that she didn't want him to have female friends...today she is ok with me and him having friends or so he says. I feel like my friends have guilted me into feeling like I did something wrong when I know in my heart I didn't. I had a hard time actually talking to Mike for fear that someone was going to say something about us being in the same room as each other. Considering that the three people who read this blog are all married...I pose this question to you. If your husband needed a ride to his car and his co-worker friend that you had previously met gave him a ride because she lived near the place, would you be offended? Would you not talk to your husband and make him feel like he was an awful person? Am I just way out of line because I"m not married and I don't' know what it's like to have a husband? I really feel like I did nothing wrong, however I feel like I am guilty because my friends have created the situation around her feeling to make her point valid.