talon | Update on Friend in Need

So, I heard directly from him (cost me $10 in LD charges).

Seems he is indeed married, and had an argument with his wife for - of all things! Having an affair with me! I admit I held his hand 31 years ago, and I hugged him 30 years ago, but I haven't seen him since. We re-connected via FB 6 or 8 months and that has been the sum total of our "affair" - the closest we've physically been in 30 years is him being in NE and me in OK. We talked on the phone once just before he was married and once when he was a cross country drive and he'd talked everyone else to sleep during those 30 years.

She took out a restraining order on him and no one told him, so when he went home yesterday, he was arrested for violating the restraining order. His brother posted bond, he asked if the restraining order had been removed so he could go home, the officials in the jail told him it was and he could go home, so he went home, where she waited until this morning to have him arrested for violating the restraining order (which was still in force).

I don't really want to get into the middle of a domestic dispute.

I have no idea what her problem is, but it's not that he is having an affair with me. She needs to figure out what her problem is and pursue that. I, apparently, am playing the role of a red herring.

Not my happiest moment.

Now, I'm torn. Will helping him fuel the fire between them? Should I go through another of our mutual friends to help him, or would that be seen as "shady"? Should I just forthrightly help him out? He does, he assured me, have someplace local to stay at when he gets out.

I have no clue what the terms of the bond would be, but traveling out of state probably violates it. I don't know any mutual friends in CO, but I know of several he could stay with in Texas...and he still owns the house in NE, so he could also go there - assuming, of course, he could leave CO.

Now, I have no doubt he probably deserves some of what he's getting - he did choose to marry a women he knew has jealousy and abandonment issues (I picked that up from their FB page), and he chose to leave his nice house and well paying job in NE to move to CO for her, where he's been unemployed since. I'm sure money problems are the root of the arguments, but his eye for pretty young things probably isn't helping.

It still comes down to I don't want to get into a domestic dispute that really has nothing to do with me beyond a tenuous 30 year old stale connection but I can't just leave him in jail. He can't fix his problems from behind bars.

They can't resolve their issues and repair their marriage when they aren't facing the real problems, and lying to themselves about it.

If I knew where she lived, I'd be tempted to drive there and shake some sense into her pretty, vacuous, little head. I have no doubt she's young, pretty, and not too bright because that's his preference.

So, should I pay his bail through the bondsman (I'd only be out $100 or so) and give them a chance to fix their marriage, or would paying it irretrievably break his marriage?