Dear Prudence: Much to my delight, I am marrying a wonderful man next year. I have a very dear male friend whom we want to be in the ceremony. The problem is that he is dating a woman who refuses to speak to me because she is convinced I am going to jump her boyfriend. (She feels the same about all his female friends, most of whom are no longer his friends because of her.)

Although I try to make an effort to be kind to her to reassure her that her jealousy is unfounded, she constantly rebuffs my efforts. I realize I cannot get my friend to stop dating this psychotic woman, but I do not want my small wedding invaded by this nastiness. So must I ask this wretched woman to come? —Bride (Fit) To Be (Tied)

Dear Bride: In a word, yes. If you want your dear friend to come, the green-eyed head case comes too. Short of excluding your friend, you are stuck. however, think of her in the category of "and guest."

The upside is the fact that you say this woman refuses to speak to you. Silent hostility is much easier to ignore than the vocal kind. And a small strategic suggestion: Try to imagine the discomfiture suffered by a woman who thinks every female within radar range is after her boyfriend. The poor girl will probably be wishing the champagne were Mylanta —Prudie, festively

Gabby's Reply

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Hi Bride: Congratulations! You have brought to light what I believe to be the cause of the distancing of most high school friendships. It's a relationship-destroying pattern that began for most during childhood with incident number one. Perhaps it began on the playground, when, for whatever reason, a child named X, whom you didn't know, treated you exactly as Y (your friend's girlfriend) does now. You did your best to make friends to no avail. Then you discovered that your closest friend, Z, was having a friendly playful relationship with X. Most of us did not handle that first incident through to mutual satisfaction and now we spend our lives recreating the drama, so as to complete it. In communication coaching jargon, that incident is called a "number one incident," an incomplete, a communication, an interaction that did not end mutually satisfying.

You are also dragging around another childhood incomplete, one that left you with an inaccurate understanding of responsibility. To put it bluntly, your "friend" is as abusive as his partner, yet you seem to have no problem with the fact that he unconsciously supports his loved one in abusing you. In fact, you take his side and blame Y for driving away his other friends ". . . because of her" when in fact he has masterminded the whole drama, driving away all his female friends."

This bias, your inability to see that your "friend" (however unconscious he may be) is enabling her to abuse you, stems from an earlier similar incident in your life. This one is a bit tricky. Sometimes children take on the valence, the positive or negative characteristics, of the winner of a communication observed during childhood, and at other times they assume the roll of the loser, believing the loser was the better more noble person,  and so they adopt the behavior of the loser—for life. In other words, you could be trying to be like, or not like, someone you know—either someone who was abusing or someone who was setting it up to be abused.

An actualized woman, one who is whole and complete, would have automatically brought the two together (your friend and his girlfriend) and asked, "Hey, what's going on, do I have bad breath? The way you two are communicating with me doesn't feel good."

Whenever two are at odds, (you and his girlfriend) you'll always find a third party (your friend), pretending to be an ally of both, who in fact is fomenting, usually unconsciously, the friction. Part of this problem stems from the fact that you supported him in driving away the first girl. No doubt there are earlier incidents with him in which you compromised your integrity so as to maintain the relationship. What we do know is that you supported him in abusing another as Y is abusing you.

You see, your friend also did not handle that playground childhood incident through to mutual satisfaction. No one told him that he was supporting a friend in abusing another. He's still looking for a light under the bushel, someone to tell him the truth.

What will work is for you to arrange for a sit-down with both of them. The communication skills it will take for you to bring about a resolution are the same ones it will take for you to have your marriage work. As long as you go into the meeting totally prepared to not have the relationship with either if you can't effect a mutually satisfying supportive relationship with both, things will work out as they should. Your position must be what's known in sales as a "deal breaker," him alone or not at all.

It appears that your fiancé is unaware of the positions he is supporting. He also is a "third party" in this triad.

To be clear: I can't imagine why I would invite anyone who might possibly vibe me, or any of my other friends, negatively. To do so would be inconsistent with an abuse-free celebration; keep in mind you're not the only one she treats abusively. Thanks Gabby

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Check back occasionally for minor edits (last edited 2/17/22)