I (25m) originally met my girlfriend (26m \[together for 1 year\]) when she was going on dates with my best friend (25m \[friends for 10 years\]). We’ll call my girlfriend Kate and my friend Ron to make this easier. It was nothing serious, Kate and Ron went on 4 dates and hooked up, but they didn’t quite click and decided to see other people. A few months later I matched with Kate on hinge and we ended up chatting for a while. After two or three weeks of talking we wanted to go on an actual date, but I wasn’t going to do that without bringing it up to Ron first. I wanted to make sure there would be no hard feelings or anything like that. He had absolutely no problem with it, he even seemed sort of happy for me.
About 4 months later my friend was getting serious with a girl (23m), we’ll call her Robin. Around this time Robin began hanging around at the house and we were all getting along well. There was a period where me, Kate, Ron, Robin, and our two roommates (both 25m) were all enjoying each other’s company and it was great! But, from the beginning, Ron told us that Robin does not know about his past with Kate and that it must stay that way. He believed that it would cause them to break up. We all agreed to keep quiet about it and figured it would never be an issue anyways.
One day my girlfriend planned a birthday brunch for me and made a reservation at a nice restaurant a couple towns over, everyone was going. The day started out great, brunch was delicious, and we all enjoyed a nice meal together. But at some point during the event Robin told Kate that she had a feeling my friend was hiding something from her and asked if she knew what it might be. Maybe it was satire, her basis for suspicion was based off her cat not liking Ron, but it seemed like genuine concern. My gf lied and said she had no idea what she was talking about in order to cover Ron’s ass like we agreed.
None of us really like lying to another person, and this whole situation made Kate upset. She believed that Robin should have known this in the first place, it’s wrong to hold the information from her and the act of doing so makes it a situation. It made me realize the moral complications of what was going on here. If I were in Robin’s shoes, this is information I would want to know. Lying about it only makes it all worse. But at the same time, this is my best friend. I always defend him, but this situation was too personal, and it all seemed wrong.
Over the next 3- or 4-months Ron and Robin were fighting. According to Ron these fights happened almost daily. Sometimes they were about something new, other times it was about Ron not wanting to move in with Robin after a year of dating. Robin claims that if Ron moved in with his ex after a year, he should love her enough to do that too. They have been fighting about this for MONTHS. Robin also isolates Ron regularly. She’s told him multiple times that if he wants to hang out with his friends instead of with her that means he doesn’t love her enough and he’s just going to break up with her. Because of this Ron doesn’t really hang out with us anymore.
One of the roommates, let’s call him Scott, started teasing Ron calling him “Inmate” and Robin “Warden” because he’s always locked up in his room with her. This deeply upset Robin, so she stopped speaking to Scott and decided the best thing to do is throw shade and ignore him when she was over at our house. This went on for a while and the situation never got any better. Eventually I got sick of the many talks Ron would have with me about how troubling his relationship is. After months of this behavior, we all thought it was clear that he should get out of this relationship, he can do much better. But we are men and don’t communicate emotions well all the time. I elected to join in on the teasing, Kate joined me. This got us both on Robin’s shit list.
Last week was probably about 1 month into being on the shit list. I didn’t care if Robin didn’t want to talk to me, I just knew that she was manipulating my friend and constantly fighting with him. By now, literally everyone who cares about Ron has told him it’s been going this way long enough. I wanted her gone, but I wasn’t going to start anything again because I didn’t want to feel like I was going against Ron.
Last Saturday Ron and Robin were watching a movie in our living room when Kate and I came home with my other roommate Cody, entering through the adjacent dining room. They both greeted Cody and ignored Kate and I. We took notice.
It was a late night and we were bringing home McDonald’s for dinner, so the two of us sat down at the dining room table to eat. The living room and dining room share the same space, so there isn’t any privacy. Across from us at the table was Robin’s bag which Robin snatched shortly after we sat down. She put a little bit of effort into making it a dramatic grab, letting us know she was still upset. Kate chuckled, I paid it no mind.
After a few minutes I walked up to ask Ron something about a game we were playing. For a few seconds, they both just gave me a blank stare and Ron looked to Robin briefly then back to me until he finally responded. The whole time Ron spoke Robin was staring into him, like she was upset he was talking. This was the first time Ron ever treated me so differently around her, so I drew a line to the bullshit there. Something had changed.
Kate and I both were upset, and I didn’t like how much Ron had changed and I whole heartedly believed that Robin was going to ruin his life. So, we decided to stir the pot a little. Kate texted Robin asking her why she was so upset with us and if she was upset because someone told her “The Truth”. The text was sent 20 minutes after Ron was on a plane for a 3 day work trip.
Now Ron is mad at me claiming I never liked Robin anyways and that I was always out to get her. I don’t know if they broke up yet, or if she knows about Ron and Kate’s past. Ron hasn’t said anything to me in a couple days, but he could just be busy with work. Was this totally wrong? What should I have done in this situation?
​
TLDR: My best friend’s abusive girlfriend has been constantly manipulating him for months and my girlfriend and I decided to stir the pot to nudge them into breaking up.
1 comment
1) It is true that Ron should have told Robin about his past relationship with Kate. It wasn’t your place to tell her about it though, but it was your place to tell Ron to pull himself together. And well if he didn’t after that, it’s his problem
2) The “Inmate”/”Warden” joke seems very accurate… Ask Ron what he finds in that girl, because he should be able to find a woman that’s at least as nice to him. Also I’ve seen a lot of the “if you don’t do this you don’t love me enough” game, it was a red flag from the start. To me it just looks like Ron learned from his past mistakes and didn’t want to move in with a girl too quickly, which is… perfectly understandable to any normal human being.
3) “Stirring the pot” is not something you should have done, as it has caused Ron to resent you. He not only resents you for breaking a promise with him, but probably also because Robin has been really annoying since then. Just know these kinds of leeches don’t come off so easily. All it has managed to do is make life a bit more difficult for Ron. Will it probably end up with him breaking up with Robin? Yes. Will he think it’s your fault that he had a shitty life for weeks and months? Yes.
What you should have done was talk to him, and tell him the following:
– you can still be friends and you will support him whatever his choice
– this girl is toxic and he needs to break up, it’s piling up as stress and makes him irritable when he could be having fun with friends like he had before meeting Robin. Also finding a girlfriend is not a competition, and he will be able to find another one at a later date
– tell him to ask himself if he can live with that girl for long, because he certainly won’t be able to put up with her more than a few year
– tell him to pull himself together
And you can still tell him all that. Just make sure to add that you’re sorry for the behavior you had that may have made his life more difficult, and certainly don’t tell him that he should have talked to Robin about his relationship with Kate from the start… What he needs right now is not another person to annoy him.
Also I don’t know if you have any contact with his family, but I hope that they try to help him the best they can, because she’s probably annoying him about them too.