When your girlfriend pulls a Denise Richards

I got a few emails along the same theme recently and thought it merited a blog to all. Sadly, like me, many of you have been in this unfortunate place of betrayal: You’re dating a guy or in a committed relationship, or worse, you’re married to him, and a close friend makes a move on your man. Oh, of course she defends herself and says “It just happened” or “He came on to me” or “I thought you two were over...” Blah, blah, blah.

What do you do? You take care of you! Most likely you’re devastated at the betrayal and need to learn to trust again. In order to do that you’ve got to accept that these two individuals are no longer “safe people” for you. It doesn’t matter who made the first move. If they got physical, they are both guilty.

If it’s a dating relationship, the guy has got to be let go, no two ways about it. Consider yourself blessed that his lack of loyalty came out before the ring. You deserve better than him! If you’re married it is time for marriage counseling to find out how your relationship deteriorated to this.

As far as the friend in the scenario, girlfriends don’t betray girlfriends. If they do, they are not really your friend. Can you, or shall I say should you, keep this friend in your life? That depends on your wishes. It also may depend on whether you have a choice. Is she a neighbor, co-worker, church or family friend or relative? If so, it may not be so easy to cut her out of your life for good. And besides, you want to focus on healing, not spending energy avoiding someone. Therefore, rather than getting into a vicious confrontation, you are simply going to put boundaries in place. Your friend has shown herself to be unsafe and no longer deserves to be let into your inner circle. Thus you are going to pull way back, stop initiating contact and don’t rush to take or return every call she places to you. You don’t have to avoid her, you’re just not keeping her involved in the details of your life any longer.

A friend of mine made the mistake of "pulling a Denise Richards" to several of her friends (even made a move on one of my boyfriends who promptly let me know). I pulled way back but chose to stay in her life more as an advisor rather than close friend from that moment on. She never knew I knew about her move on my man. However, we had talked about times she got involved with her other friends’ men. Her excuse was always "they came onto me first, what was I to do?". Guess what? Her girlfriends dumped the guys who cheated and are now married to others. The guys never stayed with her. In fact, she is still single ten years later. I feel bad for her. She's a pretty girl who’s very sweet, but she’s not a true friend. And what you put out comes back (that’s in the Bible by the way).

For those who want to defend Denise Richards because she got together with Richie Sambora only after he and Heather Locklear had split, it doesn't matter. It was still not okay to do. The split had JUST happened. The couple deserved time to try and work it out. And Heather's "best friend" had no business consoling then dating the ex the minute he moved out. So please don't write me back and defend Denise Richards action. She still did not behave as a friend of Heather's.

I’m sure Denise Richards is very sweet too, she seems to be. But Heather Locklear would be wise not to let her back “in” to her personal life. Same for you in your if this happens to you.