My [35 F] close friend [35 F] makes life choices that I abhor and it's making me want nothing to do with her, but she has never mistreated me or been a bad friend, so I feel incredibly guilty and confused

I've been friends with Jasmine for almost 15 years. We have been through a lot together; she has always been EXTREMELY supportive of me, and kind, and honestly a good friend. We became closer at a time that a lot of my more youthful, toxic friendships were ending and I realized what a good friend looked like.

Hoping my post will not be removed for political content, but it's relevant. She is very much a "social activist" type, made even more rabid about it since 2016. I agree with her on these topics, but I do not wave a flag about it on Facebook, social media, or shove it in people's faces unless it's relevant. She is what you might call "performative" about it. Like starting enormous fights on social media, posting inflammatory things while staying "friends" with family members of the opposite viewpoint who OF COURSE are going to comment and start shit, which then turns into a huge disaster... It used to rub me the wrong way but I tried to let it go.

However, the issue for me is, she is married to someone who is the polar OPPOSITE of her supposed important political and social views. She is married to someone who you might say is a bit of a "bro," thinks reading is for "girls," is firmly anti-intellectual, this type of person. I have personally witnessed him using heinous racial slurs though he now keeps it more zipped up around her. He also is not one to never use a slur against LGBTQIA people either, though my friend always excuses him by saying "he's not hateful, he just doesn't know you're not supposed to say those things."

Their relationship has gotten super weird over the years. She basically admits she "tolerates" him but she also does whatever he tells her, despite claiming to be a huge feminist and again, shoving it in your face at every turn. She admits she assumes they will lead separate lives, but admits that she is dependent on him financially, and she doesn't really work full time (and doesn't seem to want to work at all) so she just puts up with it. He pays for everything even though she is more than capable of getting a full time job, she just doesn't want to...

In the past couple of years she got really obsessed with getting pregnant. I just did NOT understand why you'd want to have a baby with this person. I also will admit for the sake of transparency that I'm adamantly childfree, and don't get why you'd have a baby in a situation like this just for the sake of having a baby. She even admits he won't be a very involved father. She also has said things like she's worried he'll influence their future children to be like him and his family, who are similarly ignorant and throw around slurs, disgusting racial language, etc.

Well, she's pregnant, and very obsessed about it. She also said her husband said it would be best if she stopped working totally for "tax reasons," so I have to listen to her justify this action even though it really again, goes against what I thought I knew of her as a person. Part of why we bonded so much is we were both very ambitious people and very career driven, so to hear her decide to quit her career and become fully dependent on the husband she "tolerates" just really confuses me.

The thing is, I basically blew up my life and comfort at 22, leaving my wealthy-ish family and privileged background, spending most of my 20's hanging on by a thread financially, and I'm certainly not "poor" now but I will never have the privilege and comfort I could have easily had, if I had tolerated my parents' increasing racism and hatred towards my boyfriend (now husband) of a different race. So maybe I just have my own hangups about it? I went through a LOT by becoming estranged from my family in a post-2008 job market, I mean like near homeless kind of shit. But to me, it was about my principles and belief system.

And I'm certainly not perfect nor some social justice saint, but... obviously her actions deeply deeply bother me, but she is a good friend TO ME, but the more I listen to her talk, the things she brings up, the way she accepts the things she claims to be against because they seem "easier" in some way... I don't even know how to bring this up to her, or how to talk to her, because criticizing someone's husband or home life is never easy. And she's pregnant, so what the hell is there to do now anyway? She's basically made her choice.

I don't know how to navigate this friendship, if I should say anything and how, or how to explain if I do put my distance between us. I feel so guilty and confused, and judgmental but also extremely angry. What would you do in this situation? What can I even say?

[tl;dr my friend married a closeminded dude, is now having kids with him, I completely disagree with her lifestyle and her performative wokeness]

Submitted December 05, 2021 at 08:08PM by guiltypellegrino https://ift.tt/3xVThge