Friends, Frenemies & People You Should Never Trust

The importance of properly vetting friends, and who you should and shouldn’t allow into your inner circle of trust.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who started following my work in 2019 while going through a divorce. Six months after it was finalized, she came back and wanted to get back together. They did, and he brought up double dating with a good friend from high school and his wife. She told him that his high school friend wasn’t a good friend, because he tried to sleep with her and cheat on his wife when they were divorcing.

He asks if he should confront his friend, forgive him and keep the lifelong friendship, or walk away forever. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

I had an experience like this when I was younger. He was actually the best man in my wedding. I wrote about it in 3% Man, and I think I wrote about it in Mastering Yourself as well. I confided in him what I was thinking and feeling about my marriage, and how I was going to have a talk with my wife. And when I sat down to talk with her, she already knew everything. I was like, “How did you know all of this?” She wasn’t surprised at all, and I was like, “Well, that’s kind of weird.” Then she tells me my ‘best friend’ informed her everything that I had shared, supposedly in confidence, with him.

Later on down the line, when we were further along in our divorce, I was having lunch or dinner with my ex-wife at the time, and we were shooting the shit and hanging out because, even after we split up, we had a good relationship. Then she proceeded to tell me that he basically tried to fuck her. I was like, “Oh, that’s just great.” There were other things that happened that I wrote about it in Mastering Yourself. He worked for one of my business partners, in his division of the company, the guy left on really bad terms, and I didn’t talk to him for a long time.

A few years ago, he got back in touch and wanted to get back together, and then just jacked me around trying to make plans to get together. It was like, “This guy hasn’t changed in twenty years. He’s still the same dude.” And Andy, who you may have seen on some of the podcasts I’ve done, called him and he was telling him what he was doing in real estate these days. Then he hung up and the first thing Andy said was, “He’s still full of shit.”

You may have heard me say this before, but people don’t change. They may become a better version of who they are, but they basically don’t change. A tiger does not change it’s stripes. It’s just the way it is. Like Maya Angelou said, “When somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Viewer’s Email:

Hello Corey,

I started getting into your work after I was going through a divorce with my wife in 2019. During this tough time of divorce, I tried confiding in a friend of mine who I thought I could trust.

I know what that’s like. I feel your pain.

We have been friends since high school and have done many things and trips together, as friends do. After being divorced from my wife for six months, she came over in tears wanting to get back together. Mind you, I didn’t want to get divorced in the first place, but it was her decision because she felt like she wasn’t happy and had many difficult situations she was dealing with from her family, which I think contributed to our drifting apart.

I don’t really want to get into the reasons for divorce, but I am glad to say that we are back together and remarried happier than ever. Our 15-year-old daughter is also thrilled.

Well, congratulations to you guys. Everybody loves a happy ending. Not many people have happy endings where they go back to their wife who divorced them in the first place, but it doesn’t mean that not a single one of those will ever work out. The odds are not in your favor, but maybe, just maybe, you’re one of those couples that will make it.

After we were seeing each other again for a about a week or so, I asked her if she would want to get together with a friend of mine and his wife who is also married with three kids.

Married with three kids. So, one thing I would say is if you’re trying to work out things with your ex-wife who you split up with from a divorce, two weeks in, I would not be going on double dates with anybody. You should be just focusing on you, your wife, and obviously your baby girl, who’s not such a baby girl anymore, she’s 15. But the point being is you focus on your family, your child, the three of you.

She proceeded to tell me that he is not my friend. Of course I questioned why, and she told me that during our separation he had reached out to her…

He’s being so helpful, such a helpful friend. This is basically what my ‘friend’ did as well.

…and basically asked if she would hook up with him. I’m thankful that she told me this, but at the same time it really disturbed me.

Yeah, I wasn’t happy either. I was thinking “that motherfucker!” I remember sitting there with my wife. I can see the day like it was just yesterday. We’re sitting in our bed and we’re talking, and I have this thing that I had agonized over for a long fucking time. I finally get the courage and the balls to tell her what I was really thinking and really feeling, and she already knows everything, because my friend had been puking up all the details, trying to ingratiate himself to her. You know why? Because he was trying to get in her pants. That was it.

He didn’t care, he just wanted to fuck her. I think his pickup line to her when they were hanging out at lunch, he said, “So, do you want to fuck, or what?” I think it was something along those lines. Which can work if there’s mutual interest, but he was trying to be the ‘friend’ and fly under the radar, because he was a little slimy. That’s just the way he was, and I was naive. It was funny, even my parents didn’t like him when I was hanging out with him in high school. They were right. Mom and Dad were right.

After thinking about it, it really doesn’t surprise me, because he has always hit on any girl that I have ever been with.

Oh, look at that. So, we have a track record. That’s just dickish. This old friend of mine, his attitude was like, “Hey, all’s fair in love and war and, quite frankly, you don’t deserve to be with those girls. I’m better than you, and I should have those girls.” That was kind of his attitude. He thought he was better than me. Well, he found out the hard way, he wasn’t.

Since we have been back together, I have cut off all contact with that friend and I haven’t heard from him either, and I’m assuming it’s because I told another friend about what he had said to my wife and that It got back to him. My question is, should I reach out to him to save the friendship? Or should I cut it off forever? 

He belongs to the streets! He’s out of there, gonzo! See you later, sucker. Look at that beautifully modified mug. You can get these at Spring.com in the Coach Corey Wayne store. Obviously, it’s “She belongs to the streets!” Maybe I should make one up that says “He belongs to the streets.” I’ll have to get Jennifer to do that.

I’m leaning towards never speaking to him again for the rest of my life.

One more time… he belongs to the streets! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, sucker.

Thanks Corey. I would appreciate your insight on dealing with close friends, (supposedly close), who betray you.

Bob

Well, this guy betrayed you over and over. And, in all fairness, so did my friend. He did it many times. This was also the guy that wrecked my Lotus Esprit that I wrote about in “Mastering Yourself.” I had this fucking car two days. I was like 28, 29 years old, making multiple six figures for the first time in my life. I buy this exotic car. We were roommates and we were living together, and he’s like, “Oh, let me take it to work.” So, he takes it to work. Dude’s hot-rodding around, showing it off to one of the other guys, one of the realtors that he knew. And the dude wipes out, hits a concrete light pole, snaps the pole in half, causes like close to $20,000 worth of damage.

I didn’t get the car back for almost six months because the factory was closed. In the UK, the company that made the Lotus Esprit, they closed down for a month and a half just for their holidays, so they weren’t making any parts or anything. So, literally, by two months we were just waiting to be able to even order the parts because the factory was freaking closed. Then it took a couple of times for them to get the car right so it was running right.

So, I save up my money, all excited I had this new car, I literally drive it to work one day, the next day I let him drive it, and he wrecks the thing. And then the attitude that he had towards me, he didn’t even want to drive down from Orlando with me to Palm Beach Motorcars to get the car when it was ready to be picked up. He was just a dick about it. The dude’s not in my life anymore, and good fucking riddance.

And the same thing with this guy. Good fucking riddance. He’ll do it again. It’s who he is. He’s hit on every one of your girls? Yeah, that fucker, he belongs to the streets! I would never call or talk to him again for any reason, because he ain’t going to change. It’s the way he is. The same thing with this guy. Even Andy said the same thing, “dude’s full of shit.” It’s still the same man, the same dude that my parents didn’t like all those 30-something years ago. It is who it is. And you’ll be much better without him. You’ve got to really watch who you allow into your inner circle, because they will fuck you over if you’re not paying attention.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.