Found out something about my friend

[frankiesamson]

A good friend of mine I've known for over a decade, whom I see almost every day, who supported me through some of my life's toughest times & I don't think I could have survived without her... and vice versa, opened up to me tonight about something apparently no one other than her has ever known about.

I promised her I wouldn't judge and that she could tell me anything.

Then she told me: during her divorce many years ago (her husband left her for someone else), her husband was out on a date with someone else & she felt so desperate she wanted him to come home to her. In order to get his attention, she told him their pet guinie pig had died (a lie). He agreed to come home.

So that he wouldn't discover the deception, she killed the pet. She was so ashamed she never told anyone.

How would / should one react?

Well not a lot shocks me but this has!

All I can think of that she wasn’t of sound mind and was tipped over the edge with the knowledge that her dh was out with another women.

I think she probably still feels immense guilt over it and felt that you would probably understand, she obviously needed to get it off her chest, but wow.

“Why? Nobody knows who the friend is except the op.”

And her ex who went home to the dead GP. And his OW who he will have told about it. And her friends, sisters etc who she will have told as part of the ‘poor man’ narrative to justify their affair.

OP, never again promise you will listen without judging. Because you didn’t.

But....

Why am I engaging in this furry bollocks?

This thread has got me thinking what my red lines are. What sort of action would I feel compelled to end a friendship over, even if the person had always been lovely to me?

Killing an animal can't be one. Because if that was a red line then most of society would be guilty and I'd have no friends. I don't believe it's any better to pay other people to kill animals rather than doing it yourself - if it was then hiring a human wouldn't be considered murder, but we all know that it is murder even if you don't pull the trigger yourself.

I've concluded that causing unnecessary pain to an animal, torturing it, would be a red line for me. Or deliberately harming a human being (abuse, rape, intentional gbh).

^ hiring a hitman

Never let her babysit your kids or pets.

Yes because she's obviously going to kill you pets,feed them to the kids and then kill the kids.

Well animal cruelty is one of my red lines. Killing an animal humanely for food or medicinal research i accept, killing an animal for attention, fun, or whatever I don't.

We all have different red lines, and that's mine.

The meat industry involves huge amounts of animal cruelty though. Very few animals reared for food are treated 100% humanely.

Sorry, but I'd be thinking 'pyschopath'!! They can be very charming too!!

.. for someone to kill just for attention is extremely f**ked up!!! They could of been doing all the nice helpful stuff just to get you on their side.... it's just manipulation & not genuine.

I definitely couldn’t stay friends with someone after this.

I think if it was a one off, many years ago, and the friend told OP how ashamed she was, she probably isn’t a psychopath. And whilst this doesn’t justify the act itself, it also sounds as if it was motivated by feelings about the ex-H, not by enjoyment of animal cruelty. OP is completely entitled to her reaction, but only she can decide whether, in the context of everything else she knows about her friend, this is a red line crossed.

The acceptance of the majority of society that humanely killing animals for food or medicine does not mean that as humans we also accept the killing of any animal for any reason. It does not mean we view any animal as fair game, and that folks can kill their family pets as and when they feel like it.

And anyone arguing we should is just being fucking ludicrous, and I suspect they know it.

Why am I engaging in this furry bollocks?

Ha, quite! The most interesting thing about this "ethical dilemma" (didn't realise there was a category for this on MN) is how many people have more concern for a dead guinea pig than the mental distress of a human.

I wouldn't be friends with this person. No matter how distressed or mentally ill they may be, you do NOT kill an animal. Disgusting.

I just can't see how she could have brought herself to do it. Ok,it was years ago and she was in a very dark place, but I couldn't look at her in the same way again I don't think.

You'd be doing them a favour by NOT being friends with them.

I don’t understand how it worked. Adulterous husband comes back because of dead Guinea pig? That’s very surprising.

I'd assume he came back because it was the kids pet and they would be upset, so to help explain it.

Did the woman have children - was this a child's pet that she killed?

It doesn't make it any less horrendous if she didn't have DCs, but if she'd knowingly killed a pet, knowing her children would be upset just to get her exH to cut short a date, then that's even more shocking.

on the one hand it's hypocritical to be sentimental about pets when we consider how appallingly and brutally we treat animals that are not pets

But a pet is an animal which has been given special status as a human companion, so looking at it from that point of view what does it 'mean' when someone kills a pet?

I'd never speak to this fucking cunt again

There was no need to kill the pet there was there, she could have just said she thought it was dead but it revived
Maybe killing the pet was actually a way of expressing her anger about her partner?
She felt like stabbing him but stabbed the guinea pig instead

I've heard that serial killers often start by Killing and mutilating animals

We do not know how the GP was murdered.

No comment from the OP at all? Interesting.

Oh for god's sake, she is clearly not a serial killer. Serial killers don't feel remorse and they kill for the pleasure of killing, not because they are fucked in the head over their marriage ending.

Because killing a guinea pig is the same as killing a human being.

Of course it's not the same, nor did I suggest it was.

The point was about where someone draws the line, which is a very individual thing. PP had been saying the OP was a terrible friend because she promised no judgement and yet here she is, judging.

Her friend could have admitted to something far worse than needlessly and deliberately killing a guinea pig (although I think that's bad enough) - would the OP's detractors still be advocating "no judgement no matter what " then?