As promised here is the third installment of what happened when my friend Lizzy got busted by her boyfriend for cheating on him. If you haven't read the first two parts take a moment out to read them before continuing on, if you don't mind. (You don't want to be lost, do you?)  Here are the links for parts I and II:

It turns out our “young man in question,” the three of us knew, had genital warts, probably for awhile. He didn't actually know it until he gave them to Lizzy, who in turn gave them to her unsuspecting boyfriend. Timmy was livid, he drew out confession after confession of infidelity from Lizzy, the argument ending in him being so angry he needed her to leave the house because he didn't trust himself.

“Can you blame him, Lizzy? I mean, you have seriously *&%^#$!'ed up the rest of his life.”

“I already feel bad enough, Nicole...”

Sheila backs me up at this point, “No, Lizzy, I don't think you do feel bad enough.”

I turn to Sheila and then to Lizzy, “Okay, none of this is helping at this point. Did you call “the young man,” and let him know what happened, yet?”

“Oh my god, no, I don't want to call him, this is so embarrassing, how many people have to find out about this?” Lizzy starts crying again and I have to put an arm out to Sheila to keep her from turning around and slapping our errant friend.

Now, don't consider us to be mean people, but we were both the kinds of people who took this sort of thing really seriously and after warning Lizzy so many times that her behavior could have these kind of serious consequences we were both a little fed up.

“Get your phone out, now, Lizzy.” I waited for her to get her phone out, listening to her make excuse after excuse as to why she couldn't call him. Phone out, she finally told us the granddaddy of all lies.

“I don't have his phone number anymore, Timmy made me delete it.”

Bracing myself against the dashboard, I wrestled with Lizzy in the backseat while Sheila pulled over into the Jewel parking lot we reserved for these kinds of arguments. (Incidentally, this was the same parking lot I let my first high school boyfriend get beyond second base with me. Fond memories.) As the car eased into a space I finally managed to snatch the phone away from Lizzy.

“How the hell does this thing work?” I hand the phone over Sheila who is adept with all forms of phone technology. She quickly finds the young man's number and hands the phone back to me. I take one last look at Lizzy.

“Are you ready?”

“Not like I have any choice, is it?”

I dial the number, wait for him to pick up... he does on the fourth ring. I hold the phone up next to Lizzy's ear to make sure she doesn't disconnect, talking to thin air, instead of informing him. With my other hand I motion to Sheila to be quiet, she nods, neither of us think it's a good idea if he knows we are listening. Sometimes I miss that kind of silent communication that can only occur between partners and friends who have known each other this long.

“Hey, I'm not so great,” Lizzy answers, “Timmy just got back from the doctor and this is really hard for me to say, but he has genital warts.”

There's an uproar of protesting on the other end of the phone where the young man tries to explain to Lizzy that he doesn't have genital warts and blah, blah, blah, when it dawns on me... The prick knew he had genital warts. Otherwise, he'd be freaking out that he could have them, instead of just trying to shift the blame off to a nameless somebody else. I suppress a groan and wait for Lizzy to get off the phone with Sir Spreads A-Lot.

They quibble for another ten minutes or so longer until he tells her that he has to go to work and that she should get herself tested, too. “That's probably the closest he'll come to admitting his part in this,” I say, while Sheila nods to me as I try to console Lizzy. We set up appointments for everyone, myself, Lizzy, Tim and my close guy friend, all at the same time. Sheila drives Lizzy and myself back to my place so Lizzy can get her car and I give Sheila a parting hug before Lizzy and I get into her car.

We drive around aimlessly for awhile, Timmy calling every few minutes, trying to get in touch with Lizzy while she ignores her phone. After awhile she finally picks up and tells him she's out and not coming back for some time. He was probably ready to talk about what has happened, but when he hears this, he blows up all over again. “Are you with that &^%$#!#$% guy right now?!?”

Lizzy tells him she's with me and I hear him ask her how he can believe her anymore... I pipe up, just for the sake of putting his mind at rest. “Hey, Timmy, I'm sitting right next to her, we're in the car.”

“Put Nicole on the phone.” As I talk to Timmy I begin to think that this is definitely a lot more than I should be doing for anyone. I agree to come home with Lizzy so that they can talk and she won't feel threatened with me there. He admits that he is still very angry, to which I reply, “Understandably so,” but that he's calmed down enough to start talking with Lizzy about what they're going to do next about all this. I agree to talk to her about it and tell him that we'll call him back shortly.

We confab about going back home, Lizzy has to go to work in less than a few hours, anyways. I call Timmy up and tell him to meet us out in front so we can talk on the porch. I figure that way things can't get too incredibly heated without the neighbors getting involved. I've seen Timmy's knife collection, I have no doubt in my mind he could carve both of us up like Thanksgiving turkeys if he really got it in his mind to do so.

Good gosh... I don't even know where to begin with the advice for this section, to be honest with y'all. First off, though... I got way too involved in this situation, some of you may agree. I think as a friend there is a certain point where it's needed to just back off and let somebody clean up their own mess. There may be resentment otherwise, in a situation which you really did not cause or could not prevent, which becomes unfair to you. It's important to protect your friends, but not from themselves. They need to learn to do that alone or you'll be doing it for them for the rest of their life, your life, or as long as the friendship lasts.

Secondly, if you find out that you have an STD, please, for the love of god, make every humanly possible attempt at informing any and all the partners you may have infected.  The phone works best for this, in my opinion, unless it is someone you genuinely care about.  If it is someone you genuinely care about, tread carefully.  Obviously, taking them out to eat and springing the big news between the main course and dessert is not the route you want to take, but try to make it somewhere semi-public.  (The back yard?  Front porch?  Next to the front door of their place so you can make a great escape if they decide to try to rearrange your body parts?)  I don't know.  I do know that you want to be as (again,) tactful as possible and genuinely apologetic without running yourself down too much.  Unless your partner was a virgin or tested when you first got together, who knows?  S/he could have given it to you, or you to them.  The important part to remember is that you deal with it together in a rational and safe manner. 

Remember, things won't be rational at first, though.

As a friend of a cheater this is really when you need to take a step back.  Let your friend come to you.  Be supportive.  Offer to be a sounding board, but don't take over for them.  They need to find a way to deal with this themselves.  If they're really having a rough time you could help them by finding a STD counselor in their neighborhood.  Most major hospitals have counselors that deal with this sort of thing all the time.  Be encouraging without being over-bearing.

If your friend's partner is the violent type, make sure that your friend does not deal with this person alone.  Do not put yourself into a dangerous situation, get the police involved, if necessary.  Some people seriously flip out when they find out they've been exposed to an STD or that their partner has been cheating on them.  It's the stuff the eleven o'clock news is made of, so encourage your friend to get their parents or the police involved if necessary, they will help your friend get her things back from a partner's shared apartment and offer a restraining order if threats have been made.  It's important to stress to your friend that s/he needs to leave the partner if their life has been threatened.