Bree, being a woman of honour and upstanding morals decided to inform a woman within her circle about her husband's escapades with Andrew during the period he was homeless.
Bree made the decision motivated by concern for a fellow woman. She herself had found out, after 18 years that she had been married to her deceased husband, that he had cheated on her with a prostitute who lived within the neighbourhood.
But the woman was of a different opinion. She wondered if Bree would have wanted to be informed of an indiscretion that involved a family member, to which Bree responded affirmatively.
In accordance with Bree's response, the woman then informed Bree of the latter's daughter's affair with one of her teachers.
It turned out that Bree did not want to be informed of any intimate indiscretion concerning her family. She left the woman's house mortified and humiliated.
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The reason behind an action will always be more important than the action itself. Motives set us apart.
Motives tell you those who are acting out of true love, from those who are acting out of negativity.
Back in the day I had this friend who would always tell me not so nice things that people had said about me behind my back. Some were particularly nasty. Then I sincerely believed that she was doing so out of concern. What I couldn't understand though was why she hated it when I confronted these "haters". It then occurred to me that she didn't want these people to hate her.
After we parted ways, I sat down and reflected on my relationship with that friend and it came to my understanding that there was never truly a friendship. And if there was, it wasn't the kind of friendship two people who sincerely cared for each other should have had.
Why did people feel confident enough to say negative things about me in her presence? And why would my friend later report these things to me and expect me to just deal with it?
Her motives were impure. She didn't feed me with those hurtful backbiting because she was trying to warn me against these people. She did so because she was trying to hurt me, and I still don't understand why.
When some friendships come to an end, you ought to sit down and take a trip down your memory lane. A friendship never ends just like that. There are always patterns of behaviour which you ignored for a long time, until you couldn't ignore them anymore.
In my own case, I came to the realisation that my friend wanted people to take care of her, but that she herself wasn't capable of taking care of other people. She ignored the true definition of "friend". The only roles she knew how to play were the scripted ones. The ones that she was told were vital to her, like being a daughter, a girlfriend or a wife. Roles in which she simply had to what she was told and in which she hardly had to make any decisions on her own.
She never learned how to be a good friend because she never learned how to be true to herself, and that lack of authenticity reflected in every aspect of her life.
If I ever get to the point where I have to question the authenticity of your motives, it means that those motives do not seem genuine.
And if there is one reasonable doubt that it could be so, then most certainly it is so.
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