How to comfort a friend?

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My closest friend (and flatmate) just found out his girlfriend has been cheating with his best friend for some time. He's drunk and high and a total mess. I have a pretty good idea about how he feels because I once dated someone for a year and a half only to find out I was an affair and not the only one, and the whole relationship had been a lie. Fortunately no close friends were involved though. I remember how horrible it was, but I don't remember how I wanted the people around me to react.

Can anyone give me any tips on what to do? I gave him a hug and told him if he needs anything to just say the word, he said he knows. I told him I've been there and I understand, and he said he remembers me telling him. Then he went in his room and closed the door.

I presume that the best thing to do for now is to just give him space, but I'm worried about him. He has a history of drug abuse and while he's been clean for a long time, he's high today (understandably I suppose) and I'm afraid he'll fall back into his old habits.

When he first started dating this girl I had a bad feeling about her, but I kept my mouth shut and let him be happy. When he confronted me and asked me why I didn't seem happy for him, I told him that I was just worried and didn't want him to get hurt. He wanted to know my opinion of her, and I said it didn't matter what I thought as long as he was happy, and he said that's right and we left it at that. I'm not stupid enough to say "I told you so" or anything, but is there any possibility that it will ever be helpful to remind him that she never seemed good for him and it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway?

This is really destroying a lot here. He and this other guy have been best friends for many years. They work together and spend a lot of their time together and talk about everything. I'm blown away that this happened. I'm not surprised that she betrayed him, but I'm surprised the friend did. What I really want to do right this second is find them both and beat the s**t out of them, but I'm small and weak and have never hurt anyone so even if that was a good idea I'd never be able to do it.

The only way I know how to deal with things is to talk them out. But he doesn't seem to want to talk. I don't know if I should hang around and wait to see if he wants to talk, or if I should leave for the day and give him some space.

Any advice would be most welcome. I'd do just about anything for this guy, but I don't know the right thing to do.

Not a lot you can do probably to be honest. As you said.. she wasn't good for him and the only upside is--he's still young (going by your age) and he didn't have to waste his time on her.

Or worse, he (hopefully) doesn't have any kids by her. I'd be more concerned by the best friend who cheated but.. the friendship has been tested and he also knows now that person was no true friend to him.

In his corner he at least has you, someone who has been a true friend and cares about him.

Don't confront them and hopefully he has no need to do the same. There's no reason to reconcile such a relationship.. maybe find out why it happened for closure--and then just let it go.

Thanks for the reply. He's talked to me a little bit now. I'm no longer worried for now that he'll fall back into the drugs and all that. He's clearly in pain but taking it surprisingly well - he's being reasonable, though of course he's extremely upset. As you said and I talked to him about, he's not so upset about the girl. She's much younger than him (he's 32 and she's a few years younger than me) and their relationship was rocky from the start. But he and this guy have been close for many years and now the friendship is simply over. Everything they did together will need to end now. The guy's now ex-girlfriend is borderline suicidal over this, and apparently the ex-friend is being really dense about the whole thing. He says they fell in love so strongly that nothing else matters anymore and is giving my friend a sort of "what can I do?" and a shrug about it all. The worst thing is that my friend is saying that he knows himself and knows he'll probably forgive him eventually, which I don't think he should ever do under any circumstances.

They were only together six months and no, there's no kids or anything. He's not surprised that she would hurt him like this, which was a relief for me to hear because I was definitely not surprised. But now he's lost his best friend and everything in his life will change.

Every now and then he's getting a little overwhelmed and starting to tear up, and all I want to do is hold him and let him cry, but he tells me he doesn't want that. He doesn't like feeling weak and being taken care of in that way - he wants to be strong and pull himself through it. I get it and I respect his wishes, but all I want to do is grab him and squeeze him tight... It's all I can do not to cry when I see him so upset. I care about this guy more than anyone else in the world.

I guess he'll be okay and I'll just hang around in case he wants to talk some more. I wish I could make him laugh though. I've never been good at that (my humor is mostly language-based and there's a language barrier between us). I want to make him feel something good, even if it's just small and brief.

in my opinion, you have done the right thing so far, but keep an eye on your friend, secretly.
you said he has a history of drug abuse, so you should watch for signs that he started using things stronger then weed (weed itself is almost totally harmless, and probarbly even good for him at this time, i've seen it do some good to people in my direct environment).

maybe you could repeat that you are willing to listen a few times, when he appears a bit relaxed. even if he doesn't want to talk, showing him that you are there will mean a lot.

i'm in a simular situation myself; a roommate of mine has lost her mother last year, and 3 more close family members over the past 3 months, so she's in a very bad shape as well.
she has told me, after her mother passed away, that she was happy to know i was there for her for almost everything, and she showed the same sentiment now again.

While I certainly admire/respect you for showing such great concern for a friend, I don't think there's much you can do that you haven't already done.

I went through this with my ex-wife, only there was a marriage and two young children involved. Besides the events themselves, by far the worst part about it was the fact that I had no one "on my side" to care about, or even acknowledge, my feelings.

In other words, don't underestimate the value of just "being there" for him, time will heal the rest...

Yeah, it seems he does appreciate me being here at the moment. He keeps coming out of his room and just talking. I'm doing a bit of reassuring, a bit of telling him not to worry about certain things right now (for example, he is a telemarketer and he knows he won't be able to sell contracts if he doesn't sound happy and confident - I told him to deal with that when the time comes), a bit of telling him he's wrong (when he says he will probably forgive his friend) and he should remove this piece of crap bastard from his life permanently... And a lot of just agreeing and nodding and offering a reassuring smile now and then. If he didn't appreciate it I assume he'd stop coming out to talk to me. I'll just stay here for now and do what I'm doing.

The worst part at the moment is that he is a DJ on the weekends. He played last night, was up all night and found out about this this morning. He has to leave again in an hour or so to go to a big festival where he'll have to be for 12 hours before he can finally get some rest, and there's no chance of him getting any sleep right now.

I don't consider marijuana to be a "drug" in the sense that I mean drug problems. It's akin to caffeine for me - it has its purpose and is basically harmless. In fact, it's safer than caffeine. And yeah, he smokes a lot, but I have no problem with it. The drug problems he had were with much harder stuff. It nearly ruined his life financially, and he made a lot of bad decisions when he was high. Even though I know he's been clean for a long time, I always keep tabs and when he makes even the tiniest slip-up he always tells me about it. He tells me that he really trusts me and now and then he makes a point of saying he appreciates me and is glad I'm here for him. I'll know immediately if he starts down that path again.

It seems like your friend wants to be left alone. Keeping things for yourself is never helpful, but you cannot force him to talk. I would say it would be very nice of you to hang around in case he wants to talk. You can also invite him out to help him go back to normal; maybe for a walk or to eat something.



No. That is not going to be helpful. That is going to make him feel even worst.

Well, he slept for a while, which was good I think, then woke up and asked what time it was and realized he has no way to get to the festival he was supposed to play at, which means he will lose a lot of money, and given his financial situation and his debt, this is a huge problem. Then he kept repeating how is it possible, how did this happen, how could he do this, and then he started crying. I tried to comfort him, he didn't want me to touch him and I feel like everything I said just made him cry harder. I feel like I need to find some way to get him to think about something else, but how and what? it's nearly 9:00 now and there's no chance of getting him out of the apartment. He refuses to eat anything. I know he'll be ok in the long run but I want him to feel better now and I'd do anything to make that happen. All I could think of to do was to buy him some more booze because dammit the guy deserves to be shitfaced right now. He's on the phone with an old friend now and crying more to her than he did to me. He told me he can never trust anyone again and I totally understand why but I want him to trust me and there's no way to fix this. I know I'm not feeling what he's feeling, but christ does this hurt me too. If I ever see this bastard again I think I'll just kick him square in the balls, repeatedly, to make sure the son of a b***h can never breed.

That's just not gonna happen. He is hurt. He needs time to heal. Just imagine how you felt when you were in the same situation. There is ANYTHING you can do to make him feel better right now. He needs to go through all this alone. I recommend you not to say anything. If he wants to talk, let him talk, be a good listener, but try not to start the talking (about what happened). If you see him just talk about something else, trying to make him think about something different. He will get better with time, you will see.

Well he left last night to spend the night with some other friends who would look after him. Sometimes it hurts a bit to know that when he's feeling this way he would rather be around other people than me, but I suppose it's true that I simply am not good at this sort of thing. I'd do anything for him, but he'd have to tell me what to do, and he probably doesn't even know what would make him feel better. He needs to be around that sort of person who just knows the right thing to say at the right time. Certainly when he's crying (dear god I've never seen a man cry like this), anything I say seems to make it worse, and if I try to touch him he pushes me away, so I need to sit a little ways away from him and just wait for him to speak again, and listen and do my best to comfort. When he says over and over again "How could he do this to me?" I try to say that the guy is just a bastard, a horrible backstabbing liar, and not worth caring about. Sometimes that seems to help a little bit and he agrees and gets angry and slightly aloof instead of sad, but sometimes it does no good at all.

We've got a new problem now. He realized as he was leaving that he forgot his keys along with his jacket and (expensive) headphones at the girl's apartment. I lent him my keys for the night, but I'm stuck here now until he gets back. And he needs to get that stuff back from the girl today - even if he wanted to wait, she's leaving on a long trip tomorrow and it'll be impossible to get into her flat to get the stuff. I offered to go and get it for him, he said no, he's an adult and he can do it himself. But I think that would really just make things worse, for him to see her now. I could just go, get the stuff, try my very hardest not to mash her pretty little face into a pulp so hideous that no one will ever love her again, and bring it back to him. But I don't even know when he's coming home...

You are in a pretty bad and uncomfortable situation. Cant you just ask him to give you the keys (the set you gave him) and make a copy of that set? That way you do not have to depend on her. Depending on her does not sound like. A good idea. You can say to your friend tha you need the copy now because you need to get out and you cannot because you do not have keys (which is true...)

He just came home. He's crying so hard that he's drooling and he can't even speak. He has other keys besides the ones to the apartment that he needs, and he needs those headphones for his work - he just got them, they were very expensive, and he can't afford to buy another pair.

I've decided I'll just deal with the stuff myself. I have her phone number. I'll arrange with her to pick up the stuff and go get it. He doesn't have to be involved at all and for sure he shouldn't. I just asked him if he wants me to get the stuff and he said he doesn't care about it, not even his keys, he'll just sit in this chair and cry for the rest of his life. At least this is one thing I can do for him. I'll just have to do my best not to attack the girl when she gives me his stuff.

Poor guy. I am glad he finally allowed you to handle his issue yourself. He is not in shape to handling confronting her right now. I would recommend you to avoid saying or doing anything to her. Just call her, set a time, and go pick the stuff you need. It had happened that after horrible breakups couples get together again and then you are the enemy. I've seen this happen. So just remember you are helping your friend and forget about what she did. He decided to go out with her knowing she was not good for him, so its his fault after all. She is a piece of crap, but she was and will continue being the same piece of crap. There is nothing you can do about it, so try to avoid saing/doing anything that can end up making the situation worst than it alread is. Good luck!

Yep, we arranged via text messages where and when to meet tonight. I'm not going to tell him I'm going, because he gets very upset whenever I mention it. He's asleep right now, which is good. He still hasn't eaten or drunk anything besides alcohol and cigarette smoke, but I keep gently pushing him to at least have some energy drink I made him even if he refuses to eat and he keeps promising he will, though he hasn't yet.

My instinct is of course to either kill her or disfigure her or at least make her realize what a monster she is so she has to live with the guilt for the rest of her life, but he asked me not to say or do anything to her, and I know that rationally it's best to just stay neutral, so I will keep my mouth shut and my fists in my pockets and just get the stuff and part ways.

He's worse today than yesterday though, much worse. He was in shock at first and now it's completely worn off and he's just a puddle of sobs and misery. I've never even seen a woman in this condition, let alone a man (I've hardly ever seen men cry before at all). He keeps repeating over and over again, how could he do this, how is it possible, this can't be happening, this isn't real, my best friend, how could he do this... He tells me again and again, he lost his girl and his best friend in the same day and it's too much. He's been through some really horrible things before in his life, including several near-death experiences and losing family members at a young age, but he keeps saying this is it, this is the worst thing he's ever felt, he didn't know it was possible to hurt this much. I know he will be okay eventually, but I don't know how long it's going to take before he's even able to go back to work. I can't even get him to eat, he hasn't eaten for 2 full days now... At what point do I have to start fearing that he'll drink himself to death, and what do I do if it comes to that?

Does he have immediate family (mom, dad, brothers, sisters, cousins) he has a good relationship with, that you can call for support? Relatives can help a lot, specially to keep him safe. Maybe taking a couple of dayd out with people he loves would be a good idea.

His mother lives in another city, doesn't speak English, and I don't have contact info for her. His father died when he was young and his sister lives in another country, I also don't have contact info for her.

Last night I left for a couple of hours and when I came home he was gone. He left his phone behind. I called everyone I could think of and no one had seen him. I knew he was probably just with a friend, but he hadn't eaten in days, just drinking and smoking, and it would be so easy for him to stumble in front of a train or bus or drink himself to death by accident, and I had no way of finding him. I spent a few hours panicking and calling people before finally realizing there was nothing I could do. I had a choice between being up all night worrying and passing myself out, so I took a valium and went to sleep, hoping he'd be home by the time I woke up.

He wasn't and I spent another hour panicking before he finally stumbled in. I grabbed him and hugged him and begged him never to disappear like that again. He apologized, said a friend just came and picked him up and wanted to take care of him for the night, so he went, which is good. I made him promise that if he does that again, he'll leave a note or send a text or something so I don't panic all night.

He's still in the same condition as yesterday. He still refuses to eat anything. He promises he's not drinking too much and he won't die of alcohol poisoning. I still worry about the not eating thing. He's not even drinking water. Is there any way I can make him eat or at least drink?

His short-term memory is clearly f****d at this point as well. He keeps asking me the same questions over and over again. He probably needs more sleep. I have some more valium and I know that would help calm him down and knock him out, but I'm afraid to give him a pill on an empty stomach after so much alcohol. Does anyone know if it's safe? I know doctors would say it's not a good idea, but I want to know if it's going to kill him or if he'd be ok. A "bad idea" pill to make him sleep right now is better than his current condition.