Game night host torn between loyalty and fairness in friends’ breakup aftermath. AITA? + UPDATE
"AITA for choosing sides in a breakup at my game night?"
I don't think I've done this, but the offended party thinks that's the case. All names changed. I hosted a game night with my husband, inviting four of our friends. It was semi regular, every other week or once a month at the same time due to some of the participants work schedules being tough to work around except for this one night every other week.
Larry is my husband's best friend from childhood and earned the first invite. He brought along his girlfriend, Jessie, who has since become a good friend of mine, and also invited his co-worker, Rob. Our friend Ella also attended.
We had lots of fun! It kept up for a good year and a half of camaraderie. It's become one of the few things I enjoy during my week (I'm a newish mother of a 1 year old and struggle making new friends). I genuinely credit this game night with friends with part of my healing with my mental illness.
Then, Larry and Jessie broke up. It was nasty, with lots of hurt emotions, shouting, and the like. It had lasted almost three years by the time it was done. (For the record, they're better off broken up; things had gotten so toxic for both of them.)
Larry took things especially hard. He was clearly worried he was going to end up socially isolated, and myself, my husband, and Rob did our best to assure him he was our friend no matter what.
But then game night came around. I wanted to be fair, so I invited Rob and Ella and sent a separate message to Larry and Jessie, explaining they were both invited but if they wanted to come they had to commit to being civil with the other party. If they weren't comfortable doing that, we would hang out some other time.
Jessie said "Yeah, I'm okay with seeing him, I can be polite." Larry said, "I don't want to see her," and I replied, "okay, I'll make sure we grab lunch sometime this week to make up for it."
Larry believed he should have been given some kind of preference because he's been my husband and my friend longer than Jessie. He complained about feeling abandoned. And even when Rob decided he would go over to hangout with Larry one on one after game night, Larry bitterly remarked that it was a 'pity visit'.
Jessie is disabled on multiple fronts and has very limited opportunities for socialization, plus I had genuinely become close friends with her - she's my daughters godmother. I couldn't just invited Larry and not her; it wasn't fair.
But part of me wonders if I wasn't fair to Larry by basically hanging out with his ex while he sat at home alone, even if he was the one who decided he didn't want to see Jessie.
It's been about four months since this went down, and not knowing if I did the right thing has eaten me up inside. I've stopped hosting game nights entirely because I feel so conflicted. Help me out so I can finally move past this and maybe get back to having fun with my friends...
EDIT: thanks for all the feedback guys. My takeaway: I'm going to check in with Larry to see how he's feeling now that it's been a few months. If he's ready, we'll give things another try.
If not, I'm gonna restart game night while alternating invites between Larry and Jessie. I'm also going to encourage Larry to start his own game night and tell him I'd love to come for it.
Also, to clarify on the godmother bit: I had to choose somebody who practiced the same religion, and my husband and I are converts, so we don't have any family that qualified.
Our congregation is quite small, only around 75 regular attendees, and Jessie and Larry are the ones that are our friends and our age. But just because I chose her because she was on a very short list of options doesn't mean I don't consider Jessie a very close friend. We really have bonded over the past few years separate from our significant others.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
NTA. You didn’t choose sides. You invited them both and Jessie accepted respectfully and Larry got butt hurt over it. You even said you’d get lunch with him to make up for it.
OP is NTA but I am not willing to condemn Larry either. He's hurt, it's raw, he's going to say some unfortunate things. Borderline NAH unless he keeps it up.
NTA. You gave them both the option to come, with the caveat that they had to treat each other civilly. She was willing to put her baggage in her pocket. He wasn't. He chose not to go.
You actively didn't choose sides in the break up. Sounds like Larry wanted you to, but Larry needs to understand that's not how the world works with adults. Sometimes, your SO becomes friends with your friends, especially after several years. Just because his relationship with her ended doesn't mean yours did, nor that it's going to.
A month later, the OP returned with an update.
My daughter's birthday has happened since this. This was way different from a game night, because both Larry and Jessie are close to her and have babysat her, before and after their breakup.
I talked to my husband, who said we should invite Larry first to see how he felt, especially after how hurt he was by the handling of the game night. Larry said he was fine seeing Jessie at my daughter's birthday - remember, Jessie is also my daughter's godmother.
The birthday went without a hitch, until we were eating cake. Jessie brought up a tricky topic in conversation that has caused some tension in the past. Larry, who had been in the restroom, came back to the room, listened for a minute, and then chimed in with an aggressive comment. Jessie responded in kind with similar aggression...
And I cursed everything in the blue sky, because now not only was my game night ruined by my friends break up, but now they were about to make my daughter's second birthday awkward because they were fighting over something stupid.
My husband was actually the one to tell them both to cut it off, and if they were going to fight they could leave. Larry shot off a quick "fine" and walked out the door, just like that. Husband chased after him.
The two of them were gone for well over an hour and a half while they talked over a lot of old resentments. By the time my husband came home, our daughter was in bed and everyone except Jessie had left (she stuck around so I wouldn't be alone).
Jessie was very apologetic, admitting that she shouldn't have risen to Larry's 'bait'. But the whole experience left a sour taste in my mouth. I still haven't gotten around to actually hosting another game night.
My own birthday was yesterday and I wanted to buy a new board game with my gift money, but ended up talking myself out of it with a bitter "who am I gonna play with if I buy it". So, I guess the takeaway is: thanks for helping me get a better view of all the fun things going on with my friends.
I'm trying to lean on my other friendships from my hometown (three hours away), as well as work on my own marriage and making sure we have healthy communication so we don't end up in the kind of bitter cycle that Jessie and Larry are stuck in. I appreciate all the feedback I got, including the brutal honest stuff.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
Larry is truly TA. Storming out of a two year old's birthday? Who does that? All that aside, I wouldn’t get too down about it! People are fallible, and have negative, self destructive traits sometimes, which has nothing to do with you. What about your other friends? What about alternating game nights between Jessie and Larry? You got this OP, you can totally have fun and keep the peace!
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Okay, it’s a commendable idea for everyone to stay friends and everything, but that is a thing that can *maybe* happen *after* your two friends have processed their breakup. If they could be civil and get along, things wouldn’t have gotten toxic between them and they wouldn’t have had to break up in the first place. It’s unrealistic to expect them to be in a room together and not spar.