A friend of mine is going through an ugly divorce, and other than his two young adult children and my brother, I’m the only one he can talk to about his situation (he is Novus Ordo and also talks to a conservative Novus Ordo priest, I guess).
A lot of the things he brings up in the conversations are certainly detractionary and harmful to the reputation others.
He has been calling me to unload for 5 months, sometimes 3-4 times/day if I don’t pick up. But now I’m afraid to pick up, knowing that he’s only calling to get stuff off his chest and give me the day’s latest ugly developments, for fear that despite wanting to be there for him, I’m enabling his detraction (which he might not even know is sinful, thinking he can tell me whatever as long as it’s true).
Do you guys think I’m sinning by continuing to take his calls? He seems totally desperate and I’m a little worried that if he can’t vent, he might go off the deep end, and so the last couple weeks I only take his 45 minute calls about once/week, but even that much is sure to contain detraction.
Am I winning by taking his calls?
What would you do in my position? Just explain detraction to him, and stop him when he does it?
Topic: Enabling detraction? (Read 4816 times)