Has anyone had any experience with the following type of thing? It's a guy who doesn't want to ask for help so, I told him about PC, and he's still chicken so, I figured I'd ask for him.

A friend of mine has been with his children's mother for 10 years. They have never been married. It's a bit of a long story so if you don't want to read or respond that's cool - just thought I would throw it out there. Let's just call my friend "Joe".

Joe was best friends with Jeff. Jeff was married to Beth and and they had a child. Joe was married to Patty. Joe and Patty were unable to have children. This ended up ending Joe & Patty's marriage.

Joe went about life dating here & there, working, etc while he was waiting on Patty to consent to divorce.

Jeff, Beth's husband and Joe's best friend went back to his home town for about a month to find a job because he and Beth had discussed moving back to Louisiana (where they were both from). In the meantime, Beth starts calling Joe saying she is lonely without Jeff and wants to know if she can go to the drag races with him. Joe, thinking that this is a best friends girl and he's being a good friend to his best friend, says, "Sure".

He notices that Jeff's wife is very friendly. Inadvertently in that week Jeff's wife starts telling Joe about the awful relationship between her and Jeff and how lonely she is. She tells Joe how all along she wanted him and that she doesn't know why she married Jeff. Inadvertently she is seducing Joe. Joe gives in because he's young and dumb and wants a family. Just before Jeff is about to come back home to Louisiana, Beth finds out she is pregnant. With guess who's child? Yep, Joe's. Joe and her had sex two weeks into the thing and BAM she was pregnant. (the child in no doubt is Joe's - he looks identical to him.) Joe, trying to be responsible takes in Beth, all the debt from the previous marriage, and decides to talk to Jeff. Jeff is upset but also understands that he and Beth's marriage was never right. He is in the end just grateful that he & Beth's child will not be partially raised by a stranger step-parent.

Joe and Beth move in together in that month. For the first two years, things are good. They enjoy hobbies together, mud boggin, racing, hanging out with friends. Etc. However, Beth is never much of a socailite and Joe is a social butterfly. Two very different personalities. One day Beth tells Joe, "I don't want to do any thing with your friends anymore, the woods are dirty, and I don't like those things." And that's it. She just stops. All she wants to do is stay home. No more interaction with people and places. Just shut down. This rocks Joe's world. He loves taking the kids to events, and places, and sometimes going out without them. He thinks - what happened? In addition to that their sex-life becomes non-existent. He told me that at night laying in bed when he tried to get romantic she would simply turn and say, "Hurry up and get it over with so I can go to sleep?". I just said WOW.

So, in a bad way, Joe makes a bad situation even worse. He starts going out with his friends and hanging out at bars and drinking. He becomes borderline alcoholic. For the next 8 years, Joe continues to go down hill. Just recently he gave up drinking. (thus one of the reasons we have become closer friends). He now sees much more clearly but wants to know what kind of affect all these years may have had on him. He feels like he doesn't deserve to be happy.

My personal opinion is that his self esteem has been in the gutter for 8 years. He used the alcohol to cover it up.

He has been separated from his ex for a little over a year. He dated for a while but it did not work out with the girl because of his drinking and staying out at all hours of the night. His ex is already remarried. She remarried to another guy exactly a year after they split.

What do you think?

He's open to all opinions? He just wanted to put feelers out there to see what others think of the situation.