Woman shares saga of her fiancé's best friend; 'He's making my life a living NIGHTMARE.' UPDATED 2X

When this woman is at a loss for how to deal with her fiancé's best friend, she asks the internet:

My fiancé’s best friend is making my life a living nightmare (New Update)

My fiance has the biggest heart, would literally give you the shirt, pants, and hat off his body if you asked for it. He’s a recovering people pleaser, and I get it because I also used to be a people pleaser. We’ve been together 5+ years.

A few months ago, I started picking up on his best friend making some not-so-nice comments towards me. I’m trying to be vague but let’s just say this friend is the type to read who in the room would be most affected by being picked on, and then he picks and picks and picks on them until they can’t take it anymore.

Nobody ever really holds him accountable for this, and unfortunately I have somehow become his favourite target.

I tried to put up with these comments, but it started getting really elaborate. The friend would make up lies about me saying things I never said, he once called me in front of all our friends (my fiance included) just to yell “you’re a bad friend!” into the phone and then hang up.

There’s so much to it that I can’t share because I’m trying to be somewhat anonymous. It started having an effect on me and my mental health, and I ended up having a full breakdown where I told my fiance how much this was all starting to hurt me.

The first time I broke down over this, he said he would talk to his friend about teasing/messing with me less. He then told me his friend was sorry and that he’d be keeping an ear out for any other comments and he’d jump to my defence if it happened again.

A few weeks later I had a second breakdown over all this (the situation itself is hitting a very specific childhood trauma/trigger for me) and he admitted that his friend didn’t actually apologize… he actually said he was sorry I was “too sensitive” to understand his humour.

At that point I told my fiance my friendship with this person is over and I want zero contact from here on out, even if it means I have to miss out on events and parties that I’d otherwise love to go to.

He agreed with me that all of this is being done with the intention to get a rise out of me, and that even if we tried to get through to this friend he’s SO diabolical that we could never fully trust him to not treat me at least a little bit shitty. My fiance kept asking if this meant he had to quit the project they’re working on.

I told him I would never tell him he had to because I know how much it means to him, but in all honesty, the fact that this person is treating me SO poorly that I’m having physical stress reactions isn’t enough for him to WANT to cut this person off does hurt a lot.

The fact that it isn’t a dealbreaker for him is probably always going to sting a little. He’s not confrontational at all and I always knew that, but it’s not about confrontation. It’s about standing in my corner. And I can’t spend the rest of my life with someone who isn’t in my corner.

This friend is getting married to my best friend in a few months, and we’re both supposed to be in the wedding, but I really have no clue how. I get a literal knot in my stomach anytime his name is even mentioned now. I have seen this friend one time since all of this came to a head, and he was so over-the-top nice to me that it came off as cocky.

I had the second breakdown a few days afterwards because I realized I’m possibly going to spend the rest of my life on edge and on guard anytime this person is even somewhat in my vicinity, even if they aren’t actively fg with me.

I don’t know how to come to terms with the fact that my fiance was willing to lie to me on his shitty friend’s behalf, but he’s not willing to stand in my corner against him. I think it’ll always hurt.

This guy was supposed to be the best man in our wedding, and as a result we haven’t been talking much about wedding plans. I think if he’s still planning on this friend being in our wedding I may have to call it off for my own sanity, and that sucks so bad.

This is eating me alive. I love my fiance so much. I love his big heart and the way he loves with all of it. But he loves some truly wretched people and I don’t know if he’ll enforce any boundaries with those people before the lack of boundaries becomes too much for me to handle.

I’m just hurt. And hurting. And I just want whatever outcome to play out so I can stop feeling so guilty and awful all the time.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Has OOP's fiance defended her in any way

Not necessarily. He’s non-confrontational but he knows the behaviour isn’t sustainable. He agrees with me that this friend is awful with the intention of being awful.

They have a project they’ve been a part of together for over a decade and it means the universe to him and that’s the biggest factor in all of this; he’d more than likely have to give that up. This entire situation is dog shit and there are zero winners, except for the asshole.

What does her best friend say about this behavior

I have my own feelings towards what she’s going through. I think she’s being love bombed and gaslit, and I’ve seen some proof of it with my own eyes. She was there for the bad friend comment and kind of defended him.

I know she’s so lovestruck that she’s probably going to choose him and it kills me but I’m trying really hard to step back in a way that doesn’t totally burn my bridge with her in the end. When he gets that ring on her finger I have a feeling he will be a different man to her and she’ll need support. I’ll be there when she needs me.

When told she should walk away

Don’t think I’m ready to make my peace with this comment quite yet, but I hear it and I’m trying. Right before I met my fiance I had just cut out a vast majority of people, including one of my closest friends and a blood relative, for making me feel the same shitty small way my fiancé’s friend makes me feel. It’s so much harder to burn those rotten bridges when they’re not yours to burn.

That’s a lot easier to say when you have no stakes in this, my guy. I’m in love with my partner, and I know that this is eating him up just as much as it is me.

Trust me when I say he holds himself accountable for his role in this and we’ve had many in depth conversations about how his friend will forever be this way so long as everybody in his life enables him to be. It’s hard to cut someone off even when they deserve it, I’m trying to show my fiance as much grace as I can because I know how hard it is to give up on someone you always hoped would grow out of their awful behaviours.

Asked if there's any unresolved conflicts

No, my friend and I haven’t ever really had any conflict. Me and her were hanging at my place while our partners got ready to head to hers, and they ding-dong ditched us twice.

I heard the door a third time and ignored it because I assumed it was them again and then the asshole called me (speaker phone from my friend’s phone) and told me it was a mutual friend that lived in the building and was looking for them for support.

I tried to jokingly call them out for ding-dong ditching but that was when he yelled “you’re a bad friend!” into the phone and hung up. I was really embarrassingly distraught by this and expressed how it was affecting me and my friend left an hour or two later after we sat in silence.

I found out later from my fiance that all our mutual friends (including him) were in the car and heard that conversation, and everyone felt tense but nobody said anything to him.

It wasn’t a joke and wasn’t taken as a joke by anyone involved, not just me. After the friend who was knocking on the door went to find them, the asshole called me just to make me feel bad for not opening the door. I could hear the friend that knocked saying “hey man, not a big deal, it’s fine” real quiet in the background but no one else spoke up.

Trust me, I know these examples seem like they shouldn’t be getting to me, but this guy is poking every spot he can on me until he finds one that gives him a reaction, and then he digs and digs. It’s hard not to be hurt/triggered when his literal intention is so hurt/trigger me. I know this isn’t going to go on much longer.

Update 1:

Never thought I’d actually update this account out of sheer fn embarrassment, but I wanted to share this for those who encouraged me to put myself first.

I want you all to know my partner absolutely came through and protected me in this. We spent all this time since my last post up until last week communicating and trying to find a resolution, and walking through how it got this bad. He took a lot of accountability for that.

This is not a case of me giving in. He understands fully that this is only got so bad because it’s never been handled correctly, and he had a major hand in that.

There were so many more layers to this than a reddit post ever could have conveyed. The bottom line is we are closer than ever and after a lot of talking, we decided on my partner sending a firm but not unkind message to his friend explaining the behaviours, explaining that they were hurting his partner, and that it needed to stop.

He asked to write up the first draft and we could go over it together to try to perfect it. Reddit, please know the first draft my partner wrote was so spot-on what I needed to read that it instantly shifted us into “us vs the problem” mode when we’d been stuck butting heads for weeks.

He laid everything out so clearly and in ways that we hadn’t discussed, so I know it came from him. We had to tone down a lot of the big emotions. We really truly gave the message its best shot to address the situation without being hostile.

We knew the response would be bad no matter what, but I don’t think anything could have fg prepared us. This man went full scorched-earth and blew up everything almost immediately. He insulted my partner. He told him these events didn’t happen the way I claim they do.

He demanded they meet up alone with a mediator. He even threatened to reach out to my partner’s parents to fill them in, which is probably the moment we stopped taking his responses seriously.

All of us are almost in our 30’s. If once wasn’t enough, he threatened it twice. We actually had to call them and warn them that he would be showing up at their place later this week and not to open the door. There’s still a good chance he’ll attempt it.

We stayed respectful throughout all of this, which I feel good about. We didn’t stoop to his level. We didn’t insult anyone. We asked for basic human respect and somehow it blew up spectacularly.

In the end, we both received a massive wall of text from my (now ex) best friend, fully backing up her man and telling her side of the story, which is so insanely far off from what actually happened that all I can do is laugh.

We’ve been shifting from crying to being dumbstruck to just straight up laughing because of the absurdity. I went into this thinking she was brainwashed, but it turns out I was wrong. They’re a perfect match. I wish them all the best.

I am sending them one last message setting the record straight (which my partner and I decided together was the best approach apart from just ghosting) before moving on from this entirely.

I’m going to make it very clear this is done. Zero contact indefinitely and I will never look back. My partner and I both deserve way better friends and we both see that so clearly now.

I am so so so glad I learned my friend’s true colours before we dropped $800 on a hotel for their wedding.

Thank you to everyone who was kind. Not only did I put myself first in the end, but my partner did too. We’re going to take this week in stride and process it all, grieve the friendships we once thought were forever, and at the end of the week we have a conveniently timed vacation to my partner’s family cottage. I think we’re gonna come out of this stronger because we already feel it.

Again, thank you to those who had something productive to say. And I’ve made my peace with all the rest. I guess if the guy does something else outlandish maybe I’ll update but for now, this chapter is closed and I’m so ready for it to start collecting dust.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

When told victims of abusers do a 180 in their behavior to explain why her best friend is acting the way she is and chose the exfriends side

Ya know, I definitely went into this thinking exactly what you just laid out. But I refuse to set myself on fire to keep her warm, and the shit she said in her message about my partner is irredeemable.

She can never be a part of our lives again after what was said, out of respect for me and my partner, even if any part of me wanted to hold out hope for her. I hope this is a wakeup call for her but it won’t be me on the other line.

Appreciate you and your kind words, friend. This has been hell but I think we’re both just glad to have an outcome.

I’ll always have love for her, but it will be from a very large distance and even if by some miracle we reconnect, we will never be as close as we once were without some intense conversations and a lot of growth, maybe not even then. I don’t see that being the case for a very long time. I’ve made my peace with that.

How is the fiance handling the business with the exfriend

As well as he can. He stepped down. He is going to find another project eventually, I know it. This has been so impossibly hard on both of us, but I know it’s hitting him a bit more than me right now and I’m making sure to prioritize him and remind him he can feel that pain and mourn what was, and it’s not an insult to me at all if that makes sense.

I know what this meant to him. He did give it up. I’m so so sad he had to but I’m grateful to him for putting his foot down. He’s going to be okay, just needs some time to grieve and process.

Update 2:

hey all. told myself i wouldn’t update again but there has been a pretty massive development. not sure if anyone is really that invested in this shit show but it’s actually helped me to type it out the first couple times so maybe i’ll feel a bit better if i do it again. sorry in advanced for how disgustingly long this is gonna be lol.

a few weeks ago the asshole showed his entire hand. he sent my partner a message at 11am on a monday and it is the most unhinged shit i’ve ever read. i’ll sum it up for you:

the asshole said he believed my partner is in an abusive relationship and he should leave me ”for his own happiness.” he claimed he has evidence to support this. he admitted this was the big message he would have given had they met in person in the very beginning. he also told him he was worried sending the message would “make things even worse” for my partner if i saw it.

he said i am someone he can never forgive and he will never want to associate with ever again. he ended it by saying he hopes he’ll leave me so my partner can apologize for breaking up the band (yes, it was a band) and they can start to repair their friendship.

obviously a whole lot to digest. i know y’all don’t know me, but i am obviously not abusing my partner lol. i shouldn’t even have to clarify that but i will anyways. this guy is 100% excommunicated from our lives indefinitely, not that he already wasn’t at that point.

in light of this new info, i’d like to share some of the things the asshole has done over the past year or so that made me realize he was fg with me, but i didn’t clock at the time because, much like some of you, i thought i was just being sensitive:

my partner and i joined some pals (including asshole) to play a game together online, Lethal Company if you’re familiar. i have many many hours in the game and know the monsters quite well, so i was pretty confused when i was slaughtered by a bracken 3 game days in a row, almost immediately upon entering the facility and splitting from the group.

i mentioned at one point that i’d be having a lot more fun if i wasn’t dying so quickly every time, and the asshole mockingly said it must be a skill issue. after a few more deaths, this time with me at least getting to explore a bit before getting my neck snapped, i asked if anyone had the Control Company mod installed, which allows the server host to play as the monsters.

suddenly the asshole had to go, and the lobby conveniently disbanded. i never brought my suspicions up to anyone because i knew it would be my word against his and i had no solid proof so i wasn’t positive, but when i finally mentioned it to my partner a couple of weeks ago after that text was sent he told me he remembers the asshole staying on the ship and secretly going AFK multiple times in the game, which lines up pretty perfectly with my in-game deaths.

when i said the asshole was being “too nice” the time we saw him after my partner called him about his comments affecting me, i don’t think i explained it right. my partner and i were sitting at a table at a local show and the asshole sat next to ME, not my partner, and wouldn’t stop touching my arm and asking me if i was enjoying the show.

multiple times he would just stare at me and grin as wide as he could. if i had just been told something i did hurt my friend’s partner, i don’t think i’d be all over them the way this guy was to me. hell, if it were me i’d at least throw a “sorry about the other night” their way.

it felt like he was gloating that he got away with it. it was comically over the top and made me and my partner very uncomfortable, we talked on the drive home and we both felt the same about it.

i was hanging out with my friend at her place and asshole was there, so we all decided to head to my place and hang with my partner as a foursome. right before we left the asshole asked if i knew our mutual friend’s big secret.

i did not. i’m also not very close with this friend. my friend already knew and told him they should just tell me because i wouldn’t be that invested, but asshole told her MY partner didn’t know yet and they couldn’t tell me until we all got to my place and told him. he kept going on about how big the secret was and insisted that i’d freak out once i knew.

i made a comment about how we were taking different cars and there was a chance my friend would just tell me on the way, so he looked her dead in the face and told her that he’d be genuinely upset with her if she told me before he told my partner. we respected that. when we got to my place, it was obvious my partner already knew. the “big secret” was simply that our friend was dating someone.

i found out later that the asshole had called my partner the minute he got to his car and told him that both me AND my friend didn’t know and they should put on a big show of telling both of us together. my partner had known for weeks and the friend group had openly discussed it a few times, and it hadn’t come up with me because, as i said, i’m not very close with this friend. i got baited lol. truly exhausting behaviour.

my partner had no idea what happened until i told him about the conversation at asshole’s place and my friend didn’t say a word in my defence. i typed out exactly why this was ridiculous once all this came to a head and they both refused to even acknowledge it.

i dyed my hair blue, my first outing with the new hair was with the whole group. i went all out on my makeup and outfit and was pretty stoked on it. i’m not exaggerating in the slightest when i say the asshole made 20+ jokes about my hair in the span of about 15 minutes, it was pretty much every time he interacted with me, which he seemed to go out of his way to do specifically so he could make jokes about my hair.

if you’ve ever had blue hair then you’ve probably heard most of the jokes he was making.

i laughed along for the first few, i can definitely handle banter as it’s a huge part of almost all of my friendships, but after about 20 jokes i finally said it was getting old and asked if he had anything nice to say. he responded by making another 5 jokes with a big grin on his face and implied i was too sensitive. there truly was no off switch with the guy.

anyways, just wanted you all to know to know i’m not crazy, the asshole has literally been trying to drive me mad for at least a year, and it almost worked.

my partner and i have had many conversations about all this, and i know a lot of people had a lot to say about him, but please know this was eating BOTH of us alive. he wanted to make things work so badly, he wanted to at least try to salvage their 20+ year friendship.

but he understands now that was never possible, and he knows neither of us deserve to be treated the way the asshole treated us. this was never just about me. if he was a good friend to my partner maybe things would be different and we could have tried harder to get through to him, but this is just who he is at his core. he’s known for being a prick for no reason and lying about it. and there’s no space in either of our lives for that.

anyways, i doubt the asshole can top that message so this is the last update i’ll give. my partner and i are coming out of this way stronger, the asshole has completely brainwashed my friend, and i’ve made my peace with it. she can have him lol. godspeed to the both of them.

thanks to all who showed understanding. hopefully this is all going to be behind us very soon, once the dust fully settles.