I went to lunch with a friend today. She's a great woman and I adore her to pieces. I told her about something some people have been saying about her behind her back -- refering to her husband. There are people whispering and saying just plain mean things. They just don't like him so they are making things up and sort of improvising things they's imagine he would do.

She was appalled. One of these people babysit her daughter for her (I'll just call her Ann). She said she wanted to know so that if Ann does disapprove of her husband so much, she doesn't want Ann babysitting her child. As for the other people (we'll call them the Noseys), she has no clue who they even are... and the Noseys are the people who were especially vicious in their appraisal of her and her husband. I really thought she knew the Noseys since they felt so strongly of her, and spoke with what sounded like intimate knowledge of things!

I told my hubby about the conversation and he got so mad at me. He told me I should have kept my mouth shut. Should I have? Now I feel lousy because I'm sure she feels lousy that people are making up awful things about her family. Truly, if people were whispering about ME behind my back, I'd surely want to know so that I can find a way to confront them and in a painfully polite way set them straight. Almost kill them with kindness so to speak, just so they got to understand me a little more.... and if afterwards they still hate me, at least then they'll have reason to do so instead of making stuff up!

I'm not normally a "gossip". I usually let people find out things like this on their own, but the stuff was so vicious that I felt she had a right to know about it.