My best friends are sabotaging me
Me (23f) and my best friend “Jane” (23f) started hanging out with my now bf right after highschool. Another friend (23f) of ours, let’s call her Karen, confronted me and my best friend and told us that she felt really isolated and insisted in being included whenever we went out. Our trio became a group and I honestly had a great time in that period. The friend that insisted in hanging out together didn’t like my boyfriend. I knew from before their sense of humor, the stuff they are interested about etc.. wouldn’t match. She anyway started a victimization campaign saying that once again she felt isolated, that we were not protecting her from my boyfriend and his friends and stuff. Me and my best friend might have overlooked the situation since we both were having the time of our life in that group. At this point me and my boyfriend got together and the dynamics once again changed. My best friend started behaving “jealously” even though she always denied when confronted. She didn’t have any common sense as to when it was time to leave when invited; when it was right to complain for wanting to join me and my boyfriend; how much physical closeness she could have. I honestly think she is rather naive and a bit indoctrinated. She goes on all day saying that for her friendships are more important than relationships because she is modern. That’s however not how I see it and I think she should have respected my boundaries. We got in a huge fight where I told her that I really didn’t appreciate her offering his boobs to my bf and staying over uninvited for hours on ends. At this point the group broke and soon after, since I also consider my bf responsible, I broke up with him too (there are many other reasons too I won’t get into). Whilst we were not a couple Karen got surprisingly close to my then exbf. They hang out together 1:1 to mostly talk about the relationship since my boyfriend really wanted to get together again. Me on the other end was still in love but extremely full of rage (both because I felt humiliated for the way I was treated and because I generally am not good in dealing with emotions). Once I got way too comfortable with Karen and some other friends and told them what i though about my exbf. It was not nice and I know I was an AH here, but cut some slack it was my first break up. Karen obviously told every single word to my bf. Long story short a couple of months later we got back together and we are having a blast since both my bf and me have worked a lot on our insecurities and toxic behaviours. Karen obviously started acting up. As soon as we got together my bf told me that it was right for me to know what Karen was going around telling about me. I became really hated in my bf clique after Karen’s whistleblowing. I confronted her and she started crying and telling me I was cold and heartless for confronting her in such a difficult period of her life (she had just broke up with her bf), I left it there.
Two months went by, my bf’s friends still insult me and she still hates me for interfering in her friendship with my bf. I never asked him to dump her, since things got bad between us he chose to not seeing her anymore +we both work and our spare time is really limited. I am really on edge and can’t take all this hate anymore. Yesterday I confronted her and Jane, they told me and my bf only created problems in our friends group for the last two years, that I am manipulative and feel like I can give and take away from others as if people are puppets in my hands; and the best one that she and Jane were used in these years as scapegoats for my bad behaviours (?) towards my bf of which I can’t take responsibility. I really don’t know if I am seeing a different reality or we are playing gaslighting at the next level. From what I’ve lived and seen the situation it’s Jane and Karen that were not able to manage a more complicated clique dynamic which involved friendships and relationships, they have lacked common sense and respect for the boundaries I’ve chosen to set in my relationship (my bf was and still is the one that has any right to force or ask me to change my limits, surely not a third party) and are now extremely entitled. At this point I’m hella tired and honestly just want to live my relationship calmly, on the other hand I really do not want to lose my long time friends. What the hell should I do?
TL;DR: I have two friends. One insisted in being included in every single relationship I built creating a whole lot of tension especially with my boyfriend . She later went on screwing me up. The other one is at the moment siding with her saying I’m the one that should step back.
1 comment
I’m not saying you shouldn’t confide with your friends about how you’re feeling. But generally I think it’s a good idea not to share all of the intimacies of your relationship with people. Especially when you’re part of a intertwined friend group who’s all sleeping together.
As a friend, if somebody comes to you to vent about their relationship. It can be helpful, therapeutic just be there and listen to their problems, but I feel like it’s kind of trashy to turn around and gossip those problems to other people or try to manipulate the relationship.
These girls don’t really sound like they’re your friends, there is obviously alot of bad blood going around between them and you’re boyfriend too. Pretty suspicious that one of your “friends” hooked up with your boyfriend when yall broke up temporarily.
In the future if you need to talk to somebody about your relationship, I’d recommend a counselor, or just somebody who’s far separated from your friend group.