When can you "dump" a friend?

First of all, don't worry, none of the people who read this blog are in danger of getting "dumped"!

I was catching up with a friend today that I hadn't talked to in a few years. No, she's not in danger either. Anyway, she asked me about a former friend of mine and how he was doing. I told her that I had chosen to stop talking to him a few years back, and her reply surprised me.

Her exact words?

"Wow Molly...I don't mean to upset you, but did you ever reconsider that? I know you always trust your gut and everything, but one of the things I admire about you is that you're very loyal to your friends. It just doesn't sound like you."

Wow.

I should back up and tell the story. This friend, who I won't name by name, and I had dated for a while in college. If he reads this, so be it - he probably should. Our breakup wasn't anything hairy or bad, in fact, we kept in contact for almost four years after that. He was even one of the first people to come visit me when I moved to Philadelphia. Neither of us ever wanted to get back together or anything, we were just good friends. However, when I went back to Athens, a mutual friend of ours told me something that was really disturbing - my friend had started dating a girl that had been married to one of his good friends.

I don't know the details of the story of how they started dating. Frankly, I don't really care. Even if the husband was cheating on the wife, if my friend waited until after the divorce to start dating her, whatever - the reality is that he owed more to his friend than to go after his former wife. I know, if she had been burned, she might need a friend as well and that might have been how they got together. But in my experience - and I've had a bit, coming from two divorces in my family, as well as two difficult breakups in my post-college life - even the worst cases of adultery or cheating are just symptoms of a relationship already gone down the tubes. Cheating, in my opinion, is simply a symptom of an already inherently flawed situation. People that are happy in committed relationships just don't cheat. I'm not saying that it absolves someone of it, but I think that his close friend deserved a little more than for his friend to go after his ex-wife. There's 2.5 billion potential partners on this planet - he should have picked another girl to date. Yeah, she's beautiful, I understand the temptation, I just don't think it was his place to burn his friend like that.

So. Yeah, I was surprised at him. I deleted him from my phone that night, and I was so upset about the whole matter, I called my mom the next day to ask if I had done the right thing. I may tell my mom what I'm doing, but I've never been one to ask her opinion on what I should have done. She actually agreed with me - that sometimes you have to take a stand for what you believe in, and if someone disappoints you in the way they treat their friends, you may not ever know when they may do something similar to you.

I thought about this today and realized that I still feel the same way. I don't know if they're still together, and again - frankly, I don't really care. They could have gotten married, have kids now, whatever. I hope they're happy, and I know that deep down he's either changed or he repressed some sense of integrity when he got into that situation. I don't think there's room for us to be friends again, I think that even if he came to me and said that he made a mistake and was sorry, I wouldn't feel any differently. Don't get me wrong, I've already forgiven him, but I think that he owes his friend the apology - not me. I think I had reason to "dump" this friend, simply because if one of my friends did that to me, I'd be extremely hurt. As for my friend's comment today, I know she meant well, I think she didn't really know the context of it all, but I think it still makes me a loyal friend - I just don't like giving that loyalty away when someone has been callous with that loyalty with their own friends. I'll admit - this is a bit different because he's NOT a girlfriend. If one of my girlfriends did the identical thing, I don't know what I'd do. We've all made mistakes, I know. But for the record, if any of my friends were to (God Forbid, and I've just knocked on wood) run off, leave their spouse and find another, I would be worried, first and foremost, about my friend. The spouse - they'll get support from their own friends and family. I would be concerned for my friend - if they had been going through rough times that I didn't know about, whatever - because that's my job: to be there for them when the world is not. I'm not married to the friend, after all, so they're not cheating on me. But if someone demonstrates - in a very big way - that they aren't such a good friend, then yes, it might cause me reason to reassess our own friendship.

Anyone think I did the wrong thing? Do you think that there IS a time when you can "dump" a friend - even when they haven't wronged you specifically?