TL;DR My friend group is about to kick out my boyfriend (soon-to-be-ex) and I don’t know what to do.
I (F24) have been in a LDR relationship with my boyfriend (M27) for almost 9 months. After several months of pushback against my boundaries and walking on eggshells so as to not upset him, I didn’t feel safe enough in my relationship to the point where I wanted to break up with him. I felt that it was unsafe to tell him about my hurts and feelings (my previous attempt resulted in a horrible fight), so I confided in our friends instead.
It has been 2 weeks since I first opened up to our friends about my grievances in our relationship and I regret ever opening my mouth. As an unintentional side-effect of this dilemma, my friends discussed amongst one another and realized that they had their own issues with him, cross-referencing their own experiences with him and ultimately feeling being betrayed and incredibly hurt with their findings. In fact, one of us had never liked him in the first place. With everything in mind, they plan on kicking him out of the friend group after I breakup with him.
I personally feel incredibly guilty. I was planning on breaking up with him and going no contact in the first place, but I had the comfort of knowing he had people to turn to and support him. Losing me and then losing our friends is going to destroy him.
The reasons that they’ve decided to drop him are separate from my grievances about it our relationship, but knowing that I was the catalyst for everything falling into place like this has me feeling like a monster. I never expected things to go this way. I didn’t want to uproot him from our entire circle.
I was planning on taking my time to get ready and emotionally prepare myself to break up with him, but knowing that he’s literally about to lose everything has me hesitating and feeling remorseful. Knowing what I know and how this will affect him is breaking my heart, because even if I didn’t want to be with him, I still care about him. It’s heartbreaking seeing how much colder they are to him, how thinly-veiled their contempt is. I wasn’t even 100% sure that I was ready to break up with him or that I even wanted to. But now it seems like the best course of action if I want to avoid the terrible storm that is approaching. But then… wouldn’t that be any better than abandoning him in what is about to be his greatest time of need?
He already has abandonment issues from having been kicked out of previous friend groups before. Now I feel that I’m adding yet another scar to his life.
The dispute between him and our friends are between them and I shouldn’t intervene. But I still feel incredibly responsible. I feel like I should say something or warn him about what’s about to absolutely turn his life upside down (in a bad way) but that would violate the trust of my friends and reveal what I’ve done.
I’m so ashamed and I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared for him, and I feel like I’ve ruined everything for him. I feel so lost and I don’t know what to do. I feel torn between going forward with cutting him off or staying with him through these future terrible times, even as a friend.
I’m normally a “no contact after a break up” kind of girl, but these are special circumstances. At the same time, I worry that as a result of our unresolved feelings, my guilt, and his impending loneliness that we may be at risk of getting back together for the most codependent relationship of a lifetime. I don’t know what to do.