Forget The Bro Code: 50 Times People Did What Was Actually Right

Kinda a bro code. Never told this story before. My then GF was telling me her BFF's husband was beating her and cheating. I told her to have her friend come visit us for a bit. She did. During that time I called him and explained to him in a very blunt manner that if he touches her again I will end him regardless of the outcome for me. I also told him that while she is gone that he can file the divorce paperwork and be done and move out. Take what he wants as I will help her get back on her feet.

She stayed with us for a month and he moved out and filled for a divorce. My GF nor her friend know I called him.

I am friends with a number of by best friend's exes. He dated really intelligent, cool women. At one point he pointed out that I was spending more time with his exes than with him, but I pointed out that his exes called me to hang out, which he never did.

Around third grade, a friend told me a family member (not parent) had been molesting her older sister; the same family member would also lock them in the bathroom while he did this, and then beat my friend and her other sister to keep them quiet. She told me and I blabbed to the teacher and school guidance counselor. My friend was terrified and didn't want to tell anyone, scared of retaliation, etc. Eventually authorities, social services, and her parents were notified. The family member fled out of the country and then returned after a short while, then got sent to prison.

This was 35 years ago. We're still best friends to this day. I consider her family and vice versa. And she has thanked me for speaking up for her.

I remember I went on a date with this attractive friend of a friend. I was at the restaurant and she ended up being about forty-five minutes late. She sent texts saying that she was having trouble finding the restaurant. When she did show up, it was a so-so date but I was considering more. It was my friend who was like "I feel awful breaking the girl code here but she didn't have trouble finding the restaurant. She was texting me too, deciding what to wear, chilling, and generally keeping you waiting on purpose just to show that she could. It was a little game." I wasn't horrified but I was a little hurt and there was no second date. I think my friend helped me dodge a bullet there and I can appreciate that it was hard for her to make that call. I always appreciated that.

A "friend" of mine was always trying to cheat on his girlfriend—who I was also friends with. I stayed quiet for way too long, even though it didn’t sit right with me.

Then, one day, he asked to borrow money to take some random girl out on a date. I told him he’d have to get his girlfriend to text me and say she was cool with his “date.” Shockingly, he actually tried to make that happen.

He told her it was just a group hang, but she already had a feeling he was up to something. She called me and asked if it was a group thing or a date. I told her the truth.

She dumped him.

About a week later, she texted me something like, “I’ve decided that you’re going to love me. I think you’re already close, but it’s going to happen.”

We’ve been married for 14 years now. She’s still my best friend. She’s an amazing person, inside and out. Every day I get to watch our daughter turn more and more into this incredible woman, and I couldn’t be happier with the little family we have.

Best friend in HS was s******l during our early college years. I’d been up on the phone talking to him until 2am more nights than I can count, and it didn’t seem to be helping. So, eventually, I called his parents. He was put on a s*****e watch and was NOT happy about it, but I think it was the right choice at the time.

I felt selfish bc I was getting tired of these phone calls, and I totally betrayed his trust. His relationship with his parents was complicated too. I was just a college sophomore at wits’ end, though, and it seemed like the only way to help him. I spoke to him 3 years later and his life seemed to be going better, though,.

One of my friends is a notorious cheater. He got a new gf, she genuinely loved him, was cute, and just a good person. I "accidentally" made a mistake that revealed he was cheating on her and he talked her into staying so I called her and told her about his other other girlfriend just to make sure she understood he wasn't going to stop cheating. She left him for real and thanked me. .

Snitched on my bro boss because I found out he was sexually harassing our receptionist and it had been going on for years. Partners in the business dissolved, got laid off a year later due to the business decline from loss of clients. Doors closed shortly after. Our receptionist is a great person and she didn't deserve any of that s**t.


No regrets though. The person I snitched on had been a mentor to me and a friend but I realized deep down we are very different people.  Boss went off the deep end afterwards,  divorced,  sold house, turned into a bitter and hateful conservative and then moved to Thailand for some reason. What a creep.

I reject the part of the bro-code where I'm supposed to aid and abet liars and cheaters. I'll never need that kind of protection and I won't provide it for anybody either.

Telling a friend their partner was cheating even if it hurt at first, it saved them from worse later.

My 19 year old daughter asked me to pick up her girlfriend from a pub on the other side of the city because she was blind drunk and didn't know where she was. When I picked her up she mentioned that this guy was giving her pills and she didnt know what they were and took them anyway. I was lost for words thinking of her being roofied and r***d and then I told her how stupid she was and she said it's okay cause nothing bad happened..I had to stop the car and I told her that I am not sorry but I was going to tell her mum that she is getting non compis mente drunk, taking random pills from strange men and cannot see the danger. She never got blind drunk again.

Dating a close friend’s ex, with full honesty and everyone’s consent. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, but sometimes it works out when people communicate like adults and no one feels betrayed.

Best friend kept dating awful guys in high school into college. She'd been with one guy for nearly 6 months, and he was finding every excuse to skip on plans with her. She found evidence he was cheating multiple times. It was tearing her apart but she didn't want to lose him.

On their 6 month anniversary, he stood her up again. She called me crying and asked me to come over. I lied, said I had to run an errand first but would be there in a few hours.

Instead, I DM'd him, telling him to cut this s**t out and break up with her already, because she won't do it. He confessed that he was scared she would become s******l - which was a valid worry, she often told him he was the only reason she was still alive. I told him that this is worse, that stringing her along is t*****e. And that when it's over, he can leave and I would be there to help her.

He broke up with her a few minutes later via text, then blocked her. She called again, I acted slightly shocked and "dropped everything" to go to her.

She did fall into a s******l state. But she's still alive, and her life got immensely better after that. We are no longer friends because she nearly got me fired last year, but I do wish her well.

My first love's best friend told me he was cheating. Granted, he held back a bit too long, but he collected evidence in case I didn't believe him and told me. And it wasn't a ruse to try to date me instead.

20 (ish) years later and he and I are still friends. I made out of that relationship with a true friend. I don't think I could have broken free of my feelings in that relationship without his help. His friendship with my ex was never the same, he broke serious bro code by being a stand up guy.

Way back in high school, my friend was interested in this girl, but she was not into him and giving off big uncomfortable vibes that he wasn't reading properly (to give him his due, he wasn't ignoring them, he just wasn't recognizing them).

We were all involved in the same extracurricular activity, and I made an effort to be present (at first) when they were spending downtime together. Eventually that escalated to physically interposing myself because this friend liked to use casual (but not inappropriate) physical contact as a way to message his interest, and it clearly made her even more uncomfortable.

That girl and I are coming up on our 15th wedding anniversary and have been together for almost 25 years.

Did I mean to c**kblock him? Yes, I did, because I felt then and still feel now that it was the right thing to do.

Did I do it to try to "snake" his crush or whatever? Absolutely not. I wasn't interested in her at first, and I was completely missing the signals that she was into me.

I lost touch with that friend during college, but my understanding is he's happily married, so I'd say it all worked out in the end.

I simultaneously upheld bro code and broke girl code.

I'd just started dating my now-wife, and her roommate was not a particularly stable person. She was going on dates with this one guy (guy #1) who was head over heels for her, but she was really just stringing him along for free meals and attention. Her actual feelings were towards this other guy (guy #2)

One night, guy #1 came over to the apartment with flowers because they were supposed to go on a date and roommate is just sobbing over guy #2 who wouldn't give her the time of day. My girlfriend is in the living room with her trying to console her and guy #1 ends up with me in my girlfriend's bedroom. He asked me what he should do and, having had a picture of what roommate was like and having recently gotten out of an a*****e relationship myself, I said "honestly bro, run".

He was clearly spooked enough that he made some excuse, left ASAP, and I never heard from him again. Where I messed up was potentially putting my girlfriend in harm's way because if it had gotten back to roommate that I'd told guy #1 to run, my girlfriend would have been in a world of pain (so would I by proxy, but I didn't have to live with roommate).

Overall I don't regret my decision but I could have handled it better. Even though my girlfriend was a little mad at me at the time, she saw where I was coming from and still agreed to marry me down the line.

In college one of my friends was dating a girl for a few years. At one point I dated her best friend for about 6 months. A few months after my friend broke up with her, she asked me out. My friend said he was cool with it but I found a month or so into dating her that he wasn’t.
The girl had asked her best friend if it was ok. Her response was “thank god. Everyone else knows you guys are meant for each other and now you two are finally figuring it out.”
We have two beautiful daughters and will celebrate 22 years of marriage later this year. The best friend was the matron of honor in our wedding and we are still friends with her and her husband. The guy friend, not so much. It was worth it.

Before my wife and I got together she had dated one of my former roommates who was also a long time friend.
One day she and I were hanging out with a third mutual and it came up that he had been telling all of us they were "on a break" and she went ballistic on him over it.
Mind you we didn't develop chemistry until weeks later, but he saw it as a betrayal regardless.
Married a couple years now with a kid. No regrets.

Told my friends husband she was cheating and doing d***s with the affair person. Plus she was just starting to act real different. He confronted, had difficult times , turns out she was actually Manic and got help. They are still together. No one talks about it.

I used to have this friend who is hung up on an ex. At first we sort of trauma bonded as I also had a relationship that broke down which I was upset about. I moved on, settled down and just going through life. Friend didnt but I tried to listen whenever he brings up the ex. It took me time to realize it was a relationship he had back in highschool that lasted for a month. I assumed that it was an ex back when we were 20s. I had enough and started shutting him down everytime he brings up the topic. He liked me a lot less since then but I feel like im helping him move on from something that happened more than 20years ago.