Expert: Eugenia Springer, Ph.D. - 5/16/2011

Question
Hi,

I recently went through a problem which I'll briefly explain below:

One day me and my childhood best friend and cousin Shami went to a place where i saw this girl Nada, and I started liking her, you know, like her nature and the way she spoke to me was good so i thought why not befriends with her. 

So I added her to my Facebook account.

Now this guy Shami is engaged and his fiancé and Nada are very good friends.

Shami told me Nada is a very good girl and I should seek to have friendship with her. So on the face of it all, Shami was being my well wisher. Upon his encouragement I started talking to nada on Facebook.

Anwyays, one day Nada told me she's not interested in me bla bla. So I was like ok chapter closed. And I told Shami as well, that I am not interested in her anymore , and I told him there should be no more discussion about me and Nada, since its over now.

Now here's the twist, Shami didnt know that I had his facebook password! So one day I logged on to his Facebook account and read all the chat that took place between Shami and Nada!

Would you believe that it was all planned by them! Shami actually started flirting with nada and when they became good friends, he suggested her that she should say something to me that will break my heart and so I will automatically get out of their way.

When I read this my head started exploding. I thought Shami was my best friend and I can trust him. But now i know i cant. And just look how cheap shami is...

I mean, he's flirting with his fiance's friend. If his fiancé comes to know about this, they will be ruined.

Now, what shud I do? Shami doesnt know that I have access to his account. So I can probably mess up with his profile. Or i can alert Nada that I know everything that took place between her and Shami and she should stay aware from this. Or i can confront Shami and tell him all this and part ways from him.

There are so many things I can possibly do.

But I dont want to act out of revenge mindset. Yet I want him to know he has betrayed me and he will never gain my trust again.

What should I do? Let him continue with this?

Eagerly waiting for you reply!

Answer
Khurram,

I see that even though you are upset with Shami, you still realize that what is important here is that your integrity remains intact -- you do not want to go the revenge route.  

Your idea of telling all to Shami sounds solid.  You would be holding no secret to torture yourself.  Whether or not you would want to stop relating to him after that would be up to you, but I have found that there is so much for us to learn from one another, that locking off others because they betrayed us can leave us eventually feeling very restricted.  

Of course, trust has been betrayed.  And the consequence might be that that familiarity with Shami is no more.  When familiar ones violate our trust we don't have to thrust them out, we can just put some restrictions on what we share and what we do not share with them till trust is regained.

Shami's behavior says much more about himself than it does about you.  He needs lots of compassion and  help, for he evidently is not the person he is pretending to be.  In the end he will hurt himself, his fiancee, and others.  Maybe he needs this confrontation you are contemplating, to shake him up to the reality of the dangerous game he is playing.

Another point, if you were in his fiancee's place, would you want to know what is going on with the person you are planning to marry?  Perhaps you can put it to Shami that his fiancee has a right to know, and which would he prefer, to tell her himself, or to have you tell her.

There is still one other matter you should think of, and that is, how do you feel about surreptitiously going into Shami's facebook account?

Dr. ES

P.S.  I invite you to visit my website: http://www.releasingresentmenttips.com