DEAR ABBY: Our friend's adult daughter has been dating a guy my friend does not approve of for about three years. The daughter moved in with him, and afterward one evening, told my husband and me. We are friends of her mom, but we agreed to say nothing because we didn't want to get in the middle, and it wasn't our news to tell.
The daughter recently told her mother (our friend) that she and the guy are living together and that we knew. Now her mom is no longer talking to us or to her daughter. Is there a way we could have handled it differently? Is there any way I can repair the situation? -- MISSING OUR BESTIE
DEAR MISSING: Your friend's daughter may be an adult chronologically, but she doesn't act like one. She should not have kept her living arrangement from her mother and shouldn't have asked you to keep the secret. Then she compounded it by betraying you.
In hindsight, you should have told the daughter immediately that the way to keep a secret is to tell no one, especially a close friend of her mother's, and encouraged her to level with her mom. And as to how to repair the breach -- all you can do is continue apologizing and hope that eventually your friend's fury will dissipate.