Exactly like the title says. I (30F) have two best friends who are engaged (31F and 29M) we’ll call them Meg and Ryan for the sake of the story.
Meg is away for a business trip so Ryan and I decided to go to the local watering hole for some day drinks. Nothing big, just to get out of the house. Us going out was NOT the issue (like I said; we’re all best friends) it was what happened next that blew up the situation.
I had sent her a little update pic of him with a funny caption along the lines of “I haven’t lost your finance yet!” And her immediate response was asking why he wasn’t responding to her. I didn’t know why so I said I’d give him grief about it. It quickly turns to her sending us both extremely mean messages because he’s left her dogs alone for too long (they’re not bad dogs, simply elderly) and that I need to send him home ASAP. I tell her hey idk what arrangement they have going on regarding the dogs and not to be mad at me. He’s grown and I can’t make him leave an establishment.
When Meg is upset, it immediately turns into accusations, extreme insults and spam messages and calls. I chose not to respond to the majority of it simply because I don’t do well with someone yelling at me, I shut down. I told her it wasn’t my fault and that was met with accusations of betrayal (you don’t care about my dogs or me, you’re a terrible person etc). I decided to make my way home and let them deal with their issues. She relentlessly sent me extreme messages and would not stop calling me. I left my phone in another room because I couldn’t explain myself again. She said that she had checked her cameras at home and he wasn’t there so I MUST be lying. I reiterated that idk where he is and that I was home and no longer involving myself in their personal issues. She’s since blocked me, not before sending us both a message about how she’s kicking him out and he can come stay with me.
The advice I’m looking for is how to salvage the friendship without letting her off the hook for being verbally abusive? I am terrible with words and have a tough time sticking up for myself. But the things she said were out of line.
TL;DR my (30F) best friend (31F) was extremely verbally abusive to me because her finance was out later than she approved him to be.
38 comments
What are you looking to salvage here? I think the “best” you can do is wait for her to cool off and then just tell her that tirade was upsetting, it hurt you and it’s an unacceptable way to treat a friend and you will not stand for it. But like seems like you know she’s a bully and it was just fine until she got around to bullying you.
You want a perfect solution here. She’s volatile and mean. You want to salvage what, exactly? Because this person is only your friend when things go her way.
You can’t even do a small innocent thing without her blowing up. How do you think she’ll respond to efforts to make her understand what she did “wrong?” This ain’t happening.
The best solution is to let this one go. She’s mean, and you don’t need this in your life. I’d reach out to Ryan and see if he’s ok.
Have some self respect is my advice.
I would never put up with something like this. There are plenty of people to be friends with that aren’t abusive
Why the fuck are you friends with this person
Don’t try to salvage it.
Find your boundary – mine would be “I don’t spend time with people who talk to me that way.”
Then it is up to your friend to behave in ways that doesn’t break that boundary. That should be REALLY EASY to do, it is not difficult to think “oh, maybe I shouldn’t yell abuse at my friends”. The bar is on the floor. So she had to clear it.
If she doesn’t clear it, your job is to keep your boundary. In my example, that could mean saying something like “oh, I actually don’t stay in conversations where people talk to me this way, contact me once you’ve calmed down” and then hanging up.
Or it could mean just hanging up.
Best of luck, OP
Are you smoking crack ? Why the ever loving fuck would you want to “salvage” anything with someone that unhinged?
Well, let the downvotes begin but my god just give her exactly what she asks for. If she wants to lose her cool and act like a reckless Ahole give her exactly what she asks for.
If she kicks him out let him stay with you. Tell him he should stay until she apologizes to both of you. Don’t relent at all. If he takes you up on the offer then tell her why you are letting him stay and that when she spologizes you can talk about it. Until a proper apology happens you will just ignore everything she sends because she isn’t worth the time until that happens.
My solution may sound petty but honestly you can either just cut her out of your life forever or you can take a stand. Any middle ground of waiting for her to cool off and dealing with it then without an apology will just lead to her assuming she was partially right and her actions were ok. Don’t fall into that trap.
Doormat-in-recovery here. This behavior is familiar to me.
Sounds like she’s been abusing people in front of you this whole time, and the only reason you care now is because it’s your turn.
I think…maybe you should be putting some more thought into that. Why are you friends with an abusive person? Why were you able to ignore it this long? Why is your instinctive reaction “help me salvage this relationship”? Are you a people-pleaser in other ways?
This could be a useful thing to try to explore a little further.
Also, it sounds like your friend is an asshole, don’t be friends with assholes.
My best friend in high-school was like this. I thought her attitude problem was so punk rock…until I became the target. I refused to apologize for perceived disrespect when I’d observed her treat others (and I later realized me as well) with such blatant disrespect over and over unapologetically. It was the last time we spoke because she finally didn’t have the upper hand and couldn’t take it. Neither of us apologized and I’ve never missed her.
Verbal abuse .. damn I have been dealing with this my entire life. I admire people who are polite and respectful.
Best way to tackle this is to discuss this matter with her when she is in a listening mood. She will most probably attack you .. or will not take responsibility at all . But you have to make this thing clear to her as it’s necessary for a healthy and long lasting relationship.
“You either fight one day or keep fighting for the rest of your life ” as they say .
Gurl, what the fuck – you said it yourself, she’s verbally abusive. Do you *like* being berated by this person?
How do you stand by and watch your supposed friend be abusive to anyone, let alone her partner, and still want to be friends? That’s on you and it does reflect on your character that you’re friends with, and *want to continue* yo be friends with an abuser.
Tell Ryan to get the fuck out of dodge for one, and then decide if you’d wanna continue being a doormat.
Seriously – TELL RYAN TO FUCKING LEAVE. Maybe he just needs someone to tell him it’s ok to go, so do that.
I’ve had friendships before where I saw that they were volatile and mean toward other people, but they always got along well with me, so I chose to accept it and be friend anyways. After all, they were an awesome friend to me. I always had a concern in the back of my head that eventually I would get on their bad side somehow and that anger would turn on me. Sure enough, eventually, it did, and it caused a huge amount of distress and conflict in my life.
You’re currently learning the same lesson I did- someone who’s like that to other people will eventually be like that to you. Just gotta live and learn, and understand that when a person is a jerk to other people, that’s really not someone you want to be around. I’m sorry this has happened to you. I hope you are able to get through it as well as possible.
I wouldn’t try to salvage this friendship, if you have to walk on eggshells around your friend, then that’s someone you don’t want in your life.
Sometimes you just can’t come back from what you say, if she crossed a line then that’s it for her.
this is a different permutation of r/LeopardsAteMyFace……. “my best friend lashes out and verbally abuses people she is upset with, which is fine cause it’s usually not me, but it WAS me this time, and i didn’t think she would lash out and verbally abuse ME, but she did and it sucked…. so how do i let her know that she needs to apply critical thinking and emotional regulation insights to her relationship with ME, even though she has clearly failed to ever do this in her other relationships???”
something has to change here, and i don’t think it’s going to be your friend….
This is completely unhinged behaviour from her. She’s totally fucked in the head. Dump her and remain friends with Ryan to support & help him exit his engagement to this abusive POS.
Uh…I know this isn’t your question, but is Ryan okay? It sounds like he’s in an abusive relationship. Camera surveillance? Silent treatment? Explosive arguments? Kicking him out of the house? All for something that shouldn’t be an argument?
I think you need to stop focusing on salvaging your friendship with Meg and try to help Ryan get to safety.
If you don’t have the strength to completely cut her out, at the very least, you need to block her on everything for a few days until she calms down.
Do you have other friends? Try spending more time with them and growing your social network. You will naturally spend less time with toxic people if you have better options available.
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Why would you want to salvage this? One wrong move and it’ll be this all over again.
What is there to salvage? Why would you want to be friends with someone who verbally abuses people?
Why do you want to salvage the relationship? She sounds toxic.
Sorry I don’t have much advice to offer you personally since I doubt you alone can get her to change. I would stay away from her for your own good. Sounds like an abusive friend and spouse.
I am worried about your best friend Ryan who must be regularly on the receiving end of this. Does he understand what kind of a relationship he is in and his options for escaping from it? Can you help him at all?
This is not normal or healthy behavior at all. Completely unacceptable. I would end the friendship immediately and encourage Ryan to get out of this abusive relationship.
Nobody should keep abusive people in their life. Be there for Ryan, and Meg can figure her shit out alone.
Tell Ryan to reach out to you or his family if he needs help. Be rid of this woman. She’s a ticking timebomb.
Not sure why you’re out with her fiancé. I’d ditch you both as well.
More like you need to help Ryan out and then both of you dump her as a friend. This is NOT ok. There’s nothing to salvage here.
If Meg were your boyfriend and yelling at you directly for this, if you were in Ryan’s shoes, people here would be telling you to safely get out of this abusive relationship. That her harassing you is a crime that you could report to police.
This *is* how she treats your best friend Ryan, which you were perfectly comfortable with. It’s how she treats everyone else around her.
Meg is an abusive person with no functional adult skills and you cannot fix her. You can’t “not let her off the hook” because she has no concept of being in the wrong. She has to be the one to know she’s hurting people she cares about and to want to change. You already clearly expressed that you don’t deserve this treatment (not that Ryan does, and it’s shit that you essentially said that this is a them problem and not a Meg problem).
If Meg gave a shit about how her behavior impacted you, what you already said would have been enough for her to be like, “you’re right, I’m sorry.” Normal, functional, safe adults don’t harass people brainlessly just because they’re the person they were talking to when they got upset.
Document everything. Save an emotionless, boilerplate message to send her when she unblocks you to the tune of “you are harassing me, I already asked you to stop, if you harass me again I will report it to the police” and if she does, follow through.
Look up domestic abuse resources and take Meg up on her offer to offer Ryan a place to stay. Support him. If Meg attacks you for literally just taking her up on her great idea, boilerplate again.
Stop being friends with an unhinged abusive person. Get individual therapy to figure out why you put up with this.
sounds like borderline
She is not only abusive, but that sounds like there’s serious underlying mental issues at play here. Not only is that abusive, but that sort of behavior is extremely abnormal. My advice would be don’t salvage the friendship. I’m 29 and I’ve cut people off for less. You will eventually deal with similar behavior in the future if you do salvage the friendship. That behavior from her is unacceptable and nobody deserves it. Fiance should leave her too.
why would you salvage the relationship, like it’s on you? Did you start sending verbally abusive texts at her over nothing? No? Then she can figure out how to salvage it with you. Why are you even friends with her? I am not friends with a single person who has ever treated me like youve described. Why are you?
that is not a friend. that is a very scared yet abusive individual that needs to seek counseling.
You don’t she’s mental and she will take you trying to be friends again as conformation she was right all along.
You are better off without her. I worked with a woman like this and by the end of it I was considering injuring myself to avoid going to work.
Does she have a habit of behaving this way? I’m going to guess yes. You cannot control how someone reacts – you can only remove yourself from being their punching bag.
I ended a decade-long friendship with someone like Meg in my late 20s. When things were good, we had a blast. But every time she was the least bit upset, she would completely fly off the handle. She would lose all control and yell, curse, send mean texts, you name it. It was even worse when alcohol was involved. At first it was just directed at the guys she was dating. And then it started happening with me too. Then in a week or so I would get an apology and a promise that it would never happen again (guess what… it did). I ended up distancing myself from her and the friendship essentially died out. I missed her at first but quickly realized how much I did not miss walking on eggshells wondering when she would explode again.
>The advice I’m looking for is how to salvage the friendship
NO.
So I don’t want to diagnose, but look up borderline personality disorder. Its not an excuse but maybe she has a personality challenge. If you’re able to come to her in a neutral time, maybe ask her about if she’s ever noticed a pattern. I dunno, it’s not your job for sure, but I have a friend like this. She’s my best friend in the world and this has never gotten to me much (because I know it’s about her and not me). It’s not easy but it happens rarely now, and there are so many plusses to being friends with her! She’s a lovely person! When we were teenagers (we’re early 30s now) it was a lot worse.
If she’s able to reflect on it with you at a neutral time, I say give it another shot. If she’s not willing to grow, I think you should distance yourself.
She’s not your friend. That’s abuse.