[TW: suicide mention, bad mental health, sex mention] My friend cheated on their girlfriend and I don’t know what they’re expecting me to do.

I have never been in a relationship. I don’t really desire to engage with anyone in this way at this stage of my life, and I honestly doubt I’ll ever will. Since I’ve never had a partner, I never had the opportunity to be cheated on as well. I think I know a thing or two about betrayal, though, if my parents’ fights were anything to go by. My dad is some sort of pathological cheater. Always has been. He flirts a lot, he texts women other than my mom a lot, he has sex a lot. At least that’s what I’ve heard from my mother (and they’re both really unreliable about their faults).

Anyway, one of my close friends has huge abandonment issues and heavy depression, with lots of mood swings, panic attacks and everything.

They’re a bit older than me, and I’m mentioning this so you know, that I don’t have as much life experience as they do and can’t really help them in this particular case.

Psychologists/therapists are really expensive in the city they live in. They’re still studying so they mostly live off of their parents’ money. They claim starting therapy would be too expensive as they would probably have to attend the sessions at least once a week to make any progress. So they just don’t. They saw a few therapists, but no one fit their tastes. The last guy they worked with was the one who said he’d like if they’d come at least once a week, because otherwise they won’t be able to actually help them. So they stopped going entirely. They’ve never been consistent with therapy mostly fue to some trauma from the past – the therapists they had gone to as a teen weren’t really amicable.

Now, it’s important that you know that their parents would absolutely give them money for therapy. They’re middle class, and they have already assured them that they will give them the money if they start putting themselves ahead of their friends while buying stuff. they obviously didn’t listen because they’re too kind for their own good. So the parents don’t want to give them the money, because they’re afraid that they’ll just loose it on something completely unattached to therapy. And since they don’t really want to go to therapy (they aren’t really sold on the idea that it would actuslly help), it doesn’t really bother them that much…

Recently, they’ve been having a rough time. They suspect it’s their meds – they need a bigger dose, or perhaps to change them entirely, no one’s really sure.

And now, because they were sad, and their girlfriend’s ex (they remained close after the breakup – which was provoked by the ex-gf cheating on her…) was also a bit under the weather, they had sex.

Now, they understand that what they’ve done was wrong. However, that obviously doesn’t stop them from having a full-blown mental breakdown because they’re afraid said girl will leave them, which is a given for me. obviously, i don’t blame them for how they’re reacting to it. I just don’t know, how am i supposed to support them? I know they screwed up. I managed to cheer them up a bit, we even cracked some jokes, but I have no idea how to talk to them. I told them that it’s great that they’re self-aware and came to the conclusion that it was bad on their own and so quickly as well. But aside from that? I have no idea what to do.

I can’t really say “obviously she’s gonna leave you omg you did that to yourself” because that would probably be a little inappropriate if we take into account their abandonment issues. But… it’s the truth. They knew it wasn’t a good idea to sleep woth th ex-gf. They’ve actually dissmised her a couple of times in the past, when things got too kinky between them. What should i do? They’ve been suicidal and generally unwell lately. I’m afraid that they’re going to do something to themselves if I tell them how I feel about what they’ve done. I’m the only person they can really talk about it to, since their parents have been on the verge of divorce for years and are very touchy about cheating (which is understandable, since the mum repeatedly cheated on the dad).

(this hasn’t been covered in any of my social skills class, please help)