Honest but sensitive opinion of relationship is warranted

I have a friend who announced that she is a lesbian and moved from a creepy husband (alcohol, very parental, controlling) straight to a live-in girlfriend with a similar personality.

I know that my friend’s choices are not my business, even if it makes me worry. But lately, every time I see her, she asks me whether I like her girlfriend. And because I don’t, I’ve evaded the question or lied outright.

I don’t think I should insult my friend’s girlfriend. But now she’s reminded me that her friends never liked her husband, either, and didn’t say so until after she’d broken up with him; she’d never have stayed with him if she had been given honest feedback. Should I give her my opinion?

Yes, absolutely — about everything but the girlfriend.

You don’t have to like your friends’ mates. But you do like your friends, and for that reason alone any friend who seeks your opinion deserves more than your careful evasions.

Plus, as a friend, you’re in a position — close, but not too close — to see things she might have missed. Useful things, such as her being in a live-in lesbian relationship with her ex-husband.

The trick is to skip the pointless “nope, can’t stand her,” and stick to what counts, which is whether she’s happy.

If she were, she wouldn’t be fishing for feedback. You can say that to her — and that you’re worried, and that her love dynamic seems awfully familiar, and that you’re deliberately not saying anything about her girlfriend, because you’re right: It isn’t your business.

Which brings us to the sum of all honest opinions: She shouldn’t count so much on friends to form her opinions. How does she know “she’d never have stayed” had her friends been honest? Because she already had major doubts of her own, apparently.

It’s one thing for her to solicit outside perspectives; it’s quite another to grill people she knows till she gets the answer she wants.

What’s wrong with asking a girl out when she has a boyfriend? Two girls I know seem to think it would be inconsiderate. But I see girls going out with losers all the time — because they’re afraid of being alone or think that they can’t do any better. If the relationship is worth it, she’d simply decline, right?

Right. But then you’d have a girl who’s insecure, desperate or naive. That’s the real problem — unless you plan to (swoon) rescue her, which is worse.

Otherwise, go for it, but with a nod to her status: “If it’s not inappropriate, I’d like to ask you out.”

— Seeing a Pattern — Dan