Woman tells friend-with-benefit's new partner about their recent hookup on Christmas. AITA? UPDATED.
"AITA for telling my FWB's girlfriend we've been intimate since they have been together?"
So I (f25) met Ray (m40) on Tinder last year. We got along amazingly well and had a ton in common. However he wasn’t ready to date because his wife had recently passed away. After a few months he admitted he was attracted, and he wanted to sleep with me, but he still didn’t feel healed enough to date.
We started seeing each other in addition to our friendship, and all was well for months. He took me to Vegas, a Metallica concert, we had some amazing trips. I’m not going to lie, my feelings were definitely involved, and I guess I thought maybe with enough time he would decide he wanted to date me (important for context later).
We last hooked up a week before Christmas and things were amazing. I spent the night at his and left in the morning. Christmas Day comes around and I texted him Merry Christmas and he sent me this extremely curt text “merry Christmas from me and my girlfriend-it’s so nice to be in a relationship."
This was absolutely odd and I suspect that his girlfriend was the culprit. So I texted back “oh when did that happen--you didn’t mention a girlfriend when you went down on me last week."
A few days went by and I got a nasty text that I was such a C word for trying to ruin his relationship. I mean I definitely said what I said out of spite but a) it was his phone and b) he lied to me and I assume his girlfriend too. So AITA for responding like I did?
EDIT:
So a few people have brought up his “right to date multiple people." I agree that dating can be weird, and people do often see multiple people at one time. However, for context, when he and I entered into our agreement, I did let him know I wasn’t comfortable with being one of multiple people he slept with.
I asked that should he find another partner, even if it's just a casual hookup or one night stand, that I be informed, because I would choose to go back to being just friends if that were the case. He knew my boundaries.
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
throwitaway3857 said:
NTA. Kudos for the quick comeback too! He’s the ahole, not you.
Lilac-Roses-Sunsets said:
NTA. Block him he isn’t worth thinking about.
psychocookeez said:
NTA. I can understand how hurtful that was in the moment and it is clear that the initial response to you was intended to be hurtful on his/her (whoever it was) part.
For future reference...men who tell you they "aren't ready for a relationship" are implicitly telling you they don't see themselves with you, for whatever reason. Never play wifey without the wifey title. You're a placeholder until their ideal one comes along.
sidbena said:
NTA. It doesn't sound like you were trying to be flippant or mean-spirited. You just tried to probe for an answer in a somewhat crude but still appropriate and direct manner.
South_Front_4589 said:
NTA. He took away your informed consent by not telling you he was dating someone.
BoilsofWar said:
NTA. Given you said you didn't want to be sleeping with multiple partners, he should've discussed dating a new person with you prior to sleeping with you.
UPDATE:
Tonight I went to dinner with my former FWB’s best friend’s wife (sorry that’s a mouthful). She and I have become close over the last year and she’s a lovely lady. We finally got past normal small talk/pleasantries and then the real drama came out.
Turns out Ray doesn’t have a girlfriend, not really. He hooked up with her daughter who is 18 and her daughter blackmailed him into a relationship. They don’t know how long the hookups have been going on, just that since she turned 18, she turned it into a demand for a relationship or else she would tell her father/mother.
I guess after Christmas when the daughter sent the texts, she told her parents because she demanded he go public with the relationship after realizing she wasn’t the only person he was with. She also was who sent the C text after. Ray lost two friends over the whole ordeal and likely more as his other friends all have kids in their late teens.
She tried to tell me Ray kept telling them he wanted a relationship with me for months prior to this incident but they also knew he cheated on his wife before and she felt bad that I didn’t know that and thought I was too good for him. I told her I am glad that things ended and it didn’t go deeper with him. They had no idea at least part of the time he was sleeping with their daughter.
She kept apologizing to me and I’m like you didn’t do anything wrong. Like Ray is gross, I feel bad for your daughter, and I feel bad for her and her husband as they have been friends with Ray basically since they were kids.
Apparently their daughter is “broken up” with Ray for now under threat of losing her college funding (she was home on winter break but has been going to college several states away so I have only met the girl maybe three times).
We parted dinner with a hug, and promises to keep in touch and an invite to her 45th birthday party next month, which I think I will take her up on.