My heart was broken; we'd been together for so long; it was inconceivable that this could happen. She was my best friend, and she'd left me for someone else.

My brother Daniel and I both met Whitney at the same time; she was our kid sister Tina’s college roommate, and had come to stay with us for a weekend.

Tina told all of us how great Whitney was, and Daniel and I were both instantly smitten with Whitney (it probably helped that we were both equally smitten with our little sister Tina too, and thus, if she liked you, chance were good that we’d like you too).  The girls weekend that Whitney and Tina planned quickly morphed into a “Wilson Family Weekend” because we all so enjoyed the two of them (mom and dad quickly jumped aboard the Whitney fan wagon), and honestly, wouldn’t let them leave us to enjoy any of their planned girl activities.

I had a “friend” named Lisa. We lived right down the street from each other and met at a mutual neighbor’s summertime party. The fact that Lisa and I lived in the same neighborhood was only one of many, many reasons that we started a friendship. We also liked wine—okay, loved wine. And we liked to go out to dinner with our husbands, and we walked our dogs at about the same time each night, and we were at about the same level in our careers, and our children both went to the same elementary school and played soccer, and we liked to shop at the same stores … you get it, we had a lot of superficial things in common.

Sometimes, just when life is going along swimmingly and all seems right in the world, the waters get a bit turbulent. Two friends clash, two of your dearest friends, and your fun and pleasant world gets wavy. So what is the proper course of action when such unpleasantness occurs? Do you get involved or do you stay clear of the potential storm?