"AITA for not telling friend that I have her location?"
My friend Kate is a single mom with a 6 year old daughter from her prior marriage. Earlier this year, Kate sent me her location as she asked me to pick her up from a friends house.
Over the summer, Kate asked me to babysit her daughter as she took care of various errands, went out to dinner or work a second part time job. However, she is never back home on time. She often blames traffic or other factors such as family calling her for last second favors as to why she’s often late.
So one night while going through my phone, I realize that Kate never turned off her location sharing and that she’s been sharing her location since the party. I use it to see that she’s at a restaurant when she tells me she went out.
However, after being late one night and when I asked her where she was at, she answered with “just got here. Still haven’t ate yet.” which is suspicious seeing how her location shows her being there for nearly 2 hours now. She didn’t get come home until 3 hours after that. I decide not to confront her about this quite yet.
As the summer goes on, I use her location to spot more lies or suspicious things. When asked to watch her kid while she gets an oil change, I then see she’s at the beach.
Another night she said she was at a restaurant and waiting for a friend when her location shows her at someone’s house. Another case is when she tells me she’s almost home when her location shows that she’s in her parking spot at her apartment but is just sitting there for some reason.
Lastly, she told me that her brother was overdosing on drugs and she needed to get him to the ER so I came over to watch her kid. Well her location showed her going to her brothers house but never the hospital. I asked her if she went there and she tells me “yeah we just got here to the ER” not knowing that her location shows her at her brothers place.
I finally confront her when she gets home at nearly 1 am that night. I tell her that I know she’s been lying and went to these different places when she said she went somewhere else.
Kate now responds that the pressure of having a second job has caused her to need to go and cry and be alone. She claims that the beach has a special place on her heart and she goes there to think and be alone. She then claims that her brother's overdose wasn’t as bad as they thought it was so she never ended up going to the ER.
But now Kate says that me having her location this whole time is so creepy and wrong. The fact that I’ve been secretly tracking her location without telling her that she forgot to turn it off is very deceptive and although she knows she’s wrong for lying about where she’s was at, I’m wrong for not telling her about this sooner.
Am I wrong for not telling her that I was tracking her? She has since asked me for to babysit again and promises that she’s being honest about where she’s going but I told her that I can’t trust her now.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
She's been using you without explanation, so you've been looking for answers. There's no secret here, she shared this with you. I'd tell her that, as a condition of watching her kid, and this nonsense how she is places where she says she isn't, that if she wants to continue using you for help, she needs to be back when she says she is.
Otherwise, she's the problem. Tracking is, meh, but she clearly has issues that need to be addressed instead of being taken out on you as she is doing now.
Or you could have just started saying “No" when she’d ask you to watch the kid after catching onto her antics?
OC_Original (OP)
I decided to let it slide the first time but when I saw this becoming a habit, I wanted to gather more evidence before putting her on blast so she wouldn’t have much of an argument.
Tell her to find a therapist and a new babysitter. How long do you think an oil change lasts that she got a trip to the beach out of this excuse? Find a therapist for yourself. Learn to say NO and set boundaries. Learn you don't have to earn others' love and acceptance through being of service to them.
You're wrong for not simply making a decision to either put up with this and continue to help (because it's not going to stop), or to stop helping. You can't control what she does, even if what she does is completely unreasonable. You can control what you do.
OP, she is taking full advantage, and it's unacceptable. You have the evidence, and yet she is still unable to accept accountability. I would not continue to watch her child, especially knowing my kindness is being taken advantage of. If she needs this additional time, then it's also time she seek therapy and childcare. I will say childcare will not tolerate her behavior.
To add to this, yes, you were tracking her, but she openly allowed it. She is only upset because her lies caught up to her, and she is incapable of accepting accountability for her screw ups.
I would no longer help her, especially when she used me to justify her own needs. If she had been honest, that would have been different. Not to mention, using an excuse that your brother was overdosing is wild to me. I would have also addressed this after I realized this was a pattern of poor behavior.
She is using you and now she is gaslighting you. I wouldn't watch her kid anymore she obviously doesn't see you as the type of friend to go out and do things with only as the type of friend she trust to watch her kid so basically a babysitter.