Compassion for one person should not require blindness toward everyone affected by them.

Sympathy for one person tends to shrink the frame around them. Their difficulties become vivid and the people affected by their behavior fade into background. This is not malice; it is what closeness does to attention. But it means that the more you care about someone, the more deliberate you have to be about seeing who else is in the picture.

When you are defending someone you love, name the other people involved out loud and what the situation costs them. You can stay on your person’s side while holding that clearly. If the defense only works when the others are invisible, it is not a defense.