Was this such a terrible thing to do? AIBU?

[Kymmi]

This concerns my friend since childhood. We got together a few years ago but I ended the relationship late last year for a few reasons but also because my feelings were platonic rather than romantic. I initially pushed for us to have a break from each other, mainly for his benefit as he obviously still had feelings for me but he forcefully insisted we remain friends - according to him now because I’d said I wasn’t interested in dating which was and is true but he never mentioned this at the time.

A few weeks ago, after I’d done him a favour, he started interrogating me about my love life. I was honest and admitted that I’d hooked up with an ex which resulted in an unplanned pregnancy. As fate would have it, the abortion was booked on the day of a mutual friend’s funeral.

We had already planned to travel together so I messaged and explained I’d need to leave after the service as I had a hospital appointment and would therefore travel to the funeral by myself. He insisted that he could still take us and that he’d take me to my hospital appointment as well and that he hoped we’d spend the day together after (which we did even though I really wanted to be on my own to process). He asked what the appointment was for so I lied about the reason and explained he couldn’t come with me (which was true) but took him up on his offer of a lift, partly because I knew from experience that he wouldn’t drop it.

He’s furious with me for not telling him the reason for my appointment and said if he’d known I was pregnant, he wouldn’t have taken me or done a couple of other favours for me at the time. I’m really hurt that our friendship appears to be conditional on me not sleeping with or dating other people and I’m equally angry that he expected me to consider his feelings first at a very traumatic and upsetting time for me.

For context, shortly before we got together, I had another termination (same ex) and my friend was fully aware and insisted on taking me to my appointments so I assumed he’d be ok about it as he was before. However, he sneered at me that he’d now taken me to two abortions which really stung as I could hear the judgement in his voice, even after I’d told him I’d found the whole thing traumatic and was still processing it all. For further context, he’d been on a date and not told me about it but apparently that’s not the same as I don’t have feelings for him?! It’s true I’m fine with him dating but the double standards bother me.

Was IBU to have let him give me a lift to the hospital? I feel like he’s massively overreacting- it’s not like I was secretly having a baby and he was taking me to my maternity appointments, it was just a lift for a medical procedure but he’s acting like he’d done me a huge favour that I brought about by deception.

She wasn't asking for your opinion on her two abortions, she was asking about the way the 'friend' spoke to her. He was horribly judge mental as are you- what a bullying comment

Yup

Thanks everyone for the support. I’m really not ok. I had a couple of weeks where I started to feel stronger but I’m back to crying every day and feeling like nothing else matters but this.

I’m not doing my work and missing meetings etc. Work know and have been supportive but I don’t know how long that will last. Ideally I’d be signed off work for a while but I don’t want to let anyone down.

They were my two closest friends, I only really have acquaintances otherwise and I don’t feel I can confide in them about this. Most also know ex as well and I don’t know who he’s been speaking to.

I can’t shake the feeling that this is all my fault and I deserve it for hurting him first.

I can’t shake the feeling that this is all my fault and I deserve it for hurting him first

I don't mean to undermine the fact that it is obviously upsetting to lose your two best friends but honestly OP, please don't think like this. He is an utter arsehole, he's shown you his true colours and they've got incel written all over them.

This is NOT your fault. He is the problem.

"Friends" don't bully you into maintaining a friendship. This person is a controlling bully who will cause you more problems in the future. Stop sharing personal information about yourself. S/He thinks that they have part ownership of you.

I’ve received a handwritten letter from him and it’s absolutely infuriated me. I wish I’d never read it and binned it as soon as I knew it was from him. I really want to reply with the following (warning: it’s very long but I wanted to address most of what he’d said in his and I could have said a lot more but I’m not wasting anymore time or energy on him). Should I send this message though?

I wasn’t going to reply to your letter but I just can’t bare how unbelievably fucking deluded you are in being so fucking insensitive. Did the fact that I still have you blocked on everything not give you even a little hint that I don’t want to hear from you?

It’s none of your business who I was or wasn’t fucking then or now - our relationship/friendship has been over for months and I don’t owe you shit. Ditto with my hospital appointments, none of your fucking business. If you have a problem with any aspect of female healthcare, then don’t go offering lifts to your female friends. Thanks for dragging that all back up for me by the way - that is MY trauma and not for you to discuss. How fucking dare you. AGAIN.

I only told you because I thought you were my friend. You quickly disabused me of that position when you made something I clearly stated I wasn’t over, all about you and your hurt. God, you act like you were some kind of knight in shining armour for giving me a lift in your disgusting car. I didn’t need or want you to take me, you insisted and I took the path of least resistance because I was having an horrifically shit time. Just like you conditioned me to with your unbearable melancholy moods and manipulative tears if I ever tried to tell you how I really felt. Should I have not gone to the funeral to spare your feelings too?

I don’t know if you think you’re doing me a favour or think it’s a kindness to gush about my generosity and how amazing I am like this is some sort of fairytale rather than the ugly truth - that I have no boundaries and you were more than happy to take advantage of that. You write like I never tried to tell you how I felt when it was YOU who wouldn’t listen when I tried. You don’t even fucking know me because you couldn’t hear me over your own wants and unrealistic expectations of me.

God, your whole ‘lovely harmless Alan’ schtick comes over unbearably strong in your letter. No mention of the fact that you totally isolated me from my best and longest standing friend when I had nobody else and really needed a good friend in my corner. Couldn’t have turned to any of your hundreds of other friends, had to be the woman up the road. So utterly inappropriate to befriend the one person I had confided my whole life in. How vulnerable you both made me. You think you’re so lovely, a real Nice Guy™️ when you’re actually manipulative, controlling, bitter, jealous, sanctimonious and judgemental. Not saying I’m perfect but I can see my flaws clearly whereas you can’t even see the hurt you cause because of the rose tinted glasses through which you view your own behaviour.

I wouldn’t have minded as much but you told me yourself you couldn’t stand her and was only hanging out with her because you couldn’t bare to be alone. Well, I did fucking like her and appreciate her company. (Side note: I’m amusing myself at the thought of you reading this text to her, knowing you’ll have to leave that bit out. Prob best leave the next bit out too). Did you ever get to find out if you could indeed get it ‘anywhere near’? Did you ever do those ‘hilarious’ Keith Lemon’s Mel B impressions of her ‘pong’ or the chainsaw vibrator skits for her? Or were those another one of those ‘special things’ between us? I had to listen to her gush about you knowing you used to love ripping the piss out of her.

Now don’t get me wrong, I hold Mouse Boiler equally responsible for the inappropriate drama triangle you both created for me. I’m not as pissed at her though because I always knew she was selfish. Coincidentally she has been in this exact situation with her other close friend N, and C which was conveniently wrapping up around the time this one started. You though, I really feel you did it to punish me. Or keep your foot in the door.

You always told me you just wanted to be better than all my Dickhead exes but actually, I think what you and MB did is the worst betrayal I’ve ever experienced and I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive either of you for it. Never for a second thought you’d not only end up on my shit list, but you’d occupy the top spot. How things change.

In any event, I’m more or less over it now and the pain was similarly the impetus to me moving on and realising my worth. It was also the start of me finding my boundaries which is why I’m not taking your unwelcome butting in on my life, reopening old wounds so you could have your ‘closure’ without also getting mine.

I find it really weird that you’re so desperate to let me know how well you’re doing and is I suspect, the main purpose of this letter. Why would I give a fuck that the idiot who pretended to be my friend for 30 years just so he could one day get what he really wanted is now healed? How lovely that you can look back and reminisce fondly about all those times between us. Along with my memories of MB, they are tainted by your betrayal and I’m left only with regret that I ever let either of you into my life. I already know I’m amazing because I’ve thrived despite trauma whilst carrying all you clingers on too.

So yeah, don’t ever contact me or my family again. If you do, I will report you to the police for harassment. Oh, and if I ever bump into YOU, I’ll act like I don’t know you.

Ugh, OP, what a twat.

I wouldn't send that reply though.

I'd just write "return to sender" on his letter and stick it back in the postbox.

Don’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. Particularly not one that long, it will only add to the ‘drama’.

You are absolutely right, you shouldn’t have even read it. It was never going to be beneficial to you. But since you did you can’t allow it to affect you like this. Kindly, stop allowing him to live rent free in your head. He’s a twat and you already know it, this is just further evidence of that. Ignore and rise above it.

I'm sorry

I wouldn't send the letter either. He doesn't deserve the response

But hopefully writing it and getting it all out will have been cathartic. Now it's on paper. It's done. Burn it. Tear it up. Whatever you want.

You can close the book on this one. And you have the power.

Let him wallow in the doubt of not knowing if you got it/what your reaction is/why you've not replied.

Big hugs. Take care of yourself.

He's a twat. He's not going to change. Your letter will delight him because he'll know how much he's still in your thoughts.

Bin his letter. Or give it to a relative to keep in case he continues to harass you and you need evidence.

You're better than this. Don't give him the satisfaction of a reply.

It's good you've got that out of your system but I wouldn't send it to him. I think not replying at all will be the worst punishment for him. I'm sorry you've been treated so badly by him and by your best friend. It's really awful to find people aren't what they seem to be.

What did his letter say?

OP, neither of those two men are your friends. They're your exes. You're better off cutting them off and stop sleeping with either of them. They're exploiting the fact that you feel vulnerable and that you don't have many friends but zero friends is better than bad ones!

I get why you want to have your say. But every paragraph of your letter contains something he will feel compelled to respond to, and there is no way on earth he's going to read that and passively think, Ah well, now I know, I'll leave her be. He is absolutely going to respond at length with explanations, justifications, counter arguments, accusations, that in turn you'll feel compelled to respond to, and the drama continues.
If you really want this man gone, you mustn't fuel the fire or give him any way in. If you respond at all (and I wouldnt) just say 'don't contact me again' and leave it there. Telling him all of that might be satisfying in the short term, but ignoring him will get rid of him faster.

It will infuriate him far more if you ignore it completely. He will never know if you binned it without reading and it will drive him mad - did you never see his words, or did you read them and feel nothing?

Don't send it. Sometimes you can say more with silence than you ever can with words.

Don't send that. Don't let him know he's got to you that much.

Either ignore or the only message I would maybe send him, is, if you haven't already explicitly told him you don't want to hear from him: "Don't contact me again."

if you want to do as a pp suggested and "Return to sender" keep a copy as evidence in case he starts harassing you.

Do not respond to the letter, just burn it. Go no contact with him and your toxic ex and remain that way.

Don’t give these individuals mind-space, they are not worth your time and energy. This isn’t Karma, forgive yourself, you made the best choices for you and your family. You have done nothing to deserve bad karma or to feel guilty for. But you do need to start cutting toxic people out of your life. I wish you peace of mind to come to terms with everything.

I didn't see your thread when you first posted, but don't reply to that letter. Not replying keeps you in control. If you respond you are participating in communication.

I had planned to message him then immediately block him once it had sent so that he couldn’t reply. The fact that he’s contacted me in this way feels like a real trampling of my boundaries, something I now realise he did repeatedly throughout our friendship/relationship. He really prides himself on being a nice guy so I know it would hurt him to have it pointed out that he’s been incredibly cruel. I won’t send it though, I know the best course is dignified silence.

@determinedtomakethiswork, the letter started off saying he felt there were some things that needed to be said but we didn’t have the chance. Says he is doing this to give himself ‘closure’. He goes on to accuse me of cheating on him (I wasn’t) and berates me again for letting him give me a lift to my abortion. He goes on to make a load of excuses for why he was such an awful boyfriend and apologised for ‘not being the person I needed him to be’. Then he talks about how incredible I am, how much he appreciates everything I’ve done for him, how proud he is of things we’ve achieved together, lists all his wonderful memories of us. Then thanks me for hurting him because it was what finally changed things for him and goes on for a bit about how wonderful life is for him and how happy he is, all the wonderful things he’s done over the last few months, and that he hopes I’m just as happy. Reassured me that he holds no grudges and if we bump in to each other he will not ‘have a go at me’. Says he will never contact me again and goodbye.

Thats the main gist of it, there were a few things that also angered me that would be too long to explain the backstory for it to make sense. He makes reference to some things that he could only have know through exBF but plays it off like he worked it out for himself. Whilst he apologises for going NC with me (he didn’t properly) he makes no mention of exBF at all. My feeling on the letter is that he was basically letting me know he’s over me and is happy now.

It has annoyed me that he’s doing so well and I think he should have left that out because it just feels like salt in the wound. I am doing a lot better and feel like I’m making progress with my therapist on asserting my boundaries but still have a long way to go. I’ve been getting on with my life and have made some really lovely new friends. Even so, I’m still hurt over the betrayal and wonder if I will ever fully get over it as I’m a terrible grudge holder (hence the shit list). Sometimes I think about selling up and moving away to get away from them both but I’ve decided to stay because I love my house.

Honestly, the biggest win in this will be you not responding. It will annoy him more than anything else you can do.

If he thinks he's a good guy, he won't agree he's been cruel, so don't have that objective in your mind. These are the kinds of thoughts that will eat away at you and have no impact on him. Forget them.

Ignoring him says he's nothing to you more than any words could.