Thanks for listening to my call of the day podcast. You can hear my live radio program Monday through Friday from two to five PM Eastern time on serious XM triumph 11. Cassie, welcome to the program.

Hi, Dr. Laura. Thanks for taking my call. I have a question about my relationship with the girlfriend of mine. I've known for about 15 years.

She's been there for me a lot and she's a really good listener, but she is right now her second husband. They're having sort of a rocky time and she shares a lot of this with me.

She sends me like screenshots of their text messages and calls me a lot to tell me about like sort of abuses behavior on his part and we've told her gently that I don't really want to hear about this because I don't like the way he treats her and I don't like being around him, but then inevitably they patch things up.

They have a good session with the mayor and counselor and then the expectation is just that like everything's back to normal. So my question is like, is it fair for me to ask her not to talk to me about this and my further question is, is it fair for me to just tell her that I don't want to be around him at all.

Yes. And the reason is fair is because you have a right to determine your life.

And whining and bitching about a guy who is in any way, unless she's dramatic, we don't know how much of that is accurate because we go to a therapist and they were all kissy again.

Your girlfriend has some problems of her own, but just to say, hey, I like when we hike, I like when we go shopping, I think in talking about our marriages, maybe we ought to avoid that.

And you don't, there's, you don't have to go in advance and say, I don't want to see him when you make arrangements to see her to take a bike ride or whatever it is. It's just the two of you anyway.

So you don't have to ask me at all. Laura, that's actually we started hiking early in the morning before work. And it was just the tool. And then she started bringing him. And I don't know how to ask her.

You say, you know, you've given me so much information about how he mistreats you. I would rather not spend time with him.

Sorry, you put it back on, you put it is, you put it back on her. You have given me so much information about how bad he is to you.

So she'd have to admit that she either lied, fabricated or exaggerated. But you've given me so much bad information about how bad he is to you. I really don't want to be around him.

So can we just hike by ourselves? Please. And if she says, no, I want to hike with him, then you move on to other friends.

Right.

Okay.

She's taken a new path in her life.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's hard to, hard to listen to.

And I don't want to be part of it.

Right. Well, that's what that's your moral obligation to yourself.

Thank you for the permission to just be honest and to know that it's fair to just prioritize myself, I guess.

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