The Story of BFNM - Part 2

He started going to Florida every other weekend. I didn’t ask many questions of his relationship. We had this deal in order for us not to feel like we were ever being nosy. If he had something to tell me about the relationship, it was up to him to bring it up in conversation. I mostly kept my questions to, if I had any, when are you going to Florida, how does your family feel about you two seeing each other again, or how was your weekend. He asked me what I thought about him attending church. I told him if he got something out of it, there wasn’t anything wrong. I had long ago decided that attendance to religious services was not something I would be able to do on a weekly basis. He had the same feelings. I asked him what had changed. He said new/old girl had now found religion and wanted to attend weekly services together with anyone she was in a committed relationship with.

I know my BFNM well enough to know this was never going to work. On numerous occasions, we would talk about religion. We would discuss how we both did the right thing growing up and obtained our religious education. We discussed how for a period after leaving our parents’ home we maintained a connection by attending services on a frequent basis. We talked about the curve balls life had thrown us and our affiliation became less frequent to non-existent except on an absolute need to basis (weddings, funerals, confirmations, etc.). We talked about how we developed our own “faith,” if you need a name for it, through introspection and meditation. We talked about how it was more important to be a good person and live your life with dignity, responsibility, rectitude and a sense of what is right. We talked about how we didn’t need to attend a religious service to feel a connection to a higher being or to feel good about our life.

In the meantime, his boss was taking an extremely hard line with him and was making his job miserable. His boss was trying to put obstacles to prevent him from publishing a research project in the period that was agreed upon with the research partners. BFNM was succeeding in making sure everything was done under budget and on time. His boss decided the only way to “stop” the process was to fire him.

BFNM had taken off the week to take the new/old girl for vacation for her birthday. I found out that BFNM was going to be fired when he returned to work. I found myself in a very precarious situation. Should I call him while he was away on a romantic week and inform him of what was going on? I didn’t want to be a spoiler of a romantic getaway. Would the information send him closer to the new/old girl? Should I wait until he returned to work? Should I even tell him because it might have meant me being fired (which then happened 6 months later because the same boss became CEO and didn’t like me and wanted to get rid of me anyway)? I would be breaching confidential information by telling him and yet he is my friend. I struggled for 3 days. It helped that he was in the mountains and didn’t have cell phone service so I had to wait until I knew he would be closer to the city. I sent a cryptic text message.

He called. I asked him where he was. He said he was driving back to the city. He sounded strange. I said I needed him to pull over to the side of the road because I didn’t want him driving while I told him the news. I prefaced it with my struggle and then I told him. I hurt. He hurt. I did the right thing regardless of what it meant happening to me (being fired and sending him into the arms of another). Yet another defining point in our friendship.