CAROLYN HAX

Hi, Carolyn: I’ve been friends with a married couple since college, about 10 years now.

They’ve seen me through some tumultuous relationships, and I’ve always considered them both some of my dearest friends and best protectors. I’ve known his brother for almost as long as I’ve known them, peripherally.

Recently, all four of us were at a bar — outdoor dining, COVID rules! — and the brother and I really hit it off. I thought nothing of it at first, but after a couple weeks of talking through text, he and I ended up grabbing pizza and had a great time. We both realized we had romantic feelings for each other.

I told the wife, who I’m closer to, about the date. She immediately went into what she called “crisis mode to protect her family” — this is her brother-in-law. After talking to both of them without the brother present, I realized that they don’t want me to date their brother; if I date him, they don’t want to see us together, don’t want to talk to me, and don’t want to see me; if this happens, I have irreparably torn the fabric of their family. They said they know too much about me and I know too much about their brother, and it would put them in too awkward a position to see us two together.

So many things hurt here. I have lost the trust and respect of — and for — people I considered my closest friends. I have been betrayed and gaslit to think I am an evil force intruding on a safe family.

I feel terrible for the brother, who now feels he has to put his family over his own life decisions. I feel like a beautiful, fresh, fragile new relationship has been stripped from me before we even got to decide if it’s a Thing.

I have nothing left for the two friends and I’m not interested in living in their warped reality where I’m a bad person, but I don’t know how to move forward with the brother. What can we do?

— Pizza to Chaos

Dear Pizza to Chaos: They haven’t helped you bury any past boyfriends, have they?

Kidding, kidding. But I can see their hesitation if their inside knowledge about the “tumultuous” romantic history they’ve had to “protect” you from is objectively really bad.

Even in that case, though, and even if you deliberately left that history out of your letter — just for the sake of argument — their reaction still seems bizarre and extreme. Not only are you all adults, with no right to impose yourselves on each other’s choices to this degree, but you’re also adults who think enough of each other to keep frequent company for a decade. Their reaction suggests boundary and hypocrisy issues.

One rational way to handle puzzling behavior is to reality-check any blame you’ve assigned to others that more appropriately lies with you. Then adjust your own logic as needed, then have the integrity to live by it — by making amends, standing firm, dating a man you like who likes you back, backing off, whatever.

Obviously, dating the brother is still an option only if he remains willing to date you.

You ask what “we” can do, right after saying he “has to put his family over his own life decisions,” which suggests there’s no “we” left for us to discuss.

But you can still signal a continued interest in seeing him, if that’s what you come to; give him enough room to form an answer without pressure; and conduct yourself with grace and self-respect regardless of how he responds.

Wherever you land on this, it’s OK to leave these friends/“friends” to figure things out for themselves.