To still feel angry

[onefinedayinthemiddleofthenight]

Background:

I met a friend (Dave) through a sport I do. Me and him met up for coffee once every couple of weeks. He had various MH issues and I attempted to support him. He also had narcissistic tendencies so there was absolutely no romantic interest. Just friendship. We are both married. I felt a bit sorry for his wife as he is clearly high maintenance and could be really difficult.

Turns out 10 years previously Dave had an affair with the childminder of their DC, and although his wife (Betty) forgave him, she clearly didn't trust him. She became obsessed that Dave and I were having an affair, stalked us, often made crazy accusations. We always invited her for coffee but she always declined, and we often had the kids with us too.

She would track him on his phone, turn up in the coffee shop and start shouting accusations at us. She started making online posts about me, accusing me of chasing her husband and tagging mutual friends in.

She would then apologise for being ridiculous but then the obsession would start again.

Eventually I had enough. Dave was very draining (whatever I did to try and help him was never good enough) and the bad times and his narcissistic tendencies started to outweigh good times. I decided it was time to call the friendship quits. I then got lots of abuse from Dave about how I was yet another person in his life abandoning him so I blocked him and his wife.

The AIBU bit:

Betty was still obsessed I had chased Dave. She took my contact details from the sports club database (she was a sport leader so had access) and used my email address to sign me up to various marital affair websites. She had also used one of my social media profile pictures and filled in ALL my personal details (name, age, job, address etc...). I was FURIOUS. I got the profiles deleted and flagged up the GDPR breach. She then used a different email address and even a year later a friend has just notified me of yet another dating site with my details on.

I have no idea how to get these removed, and feel my privacy has been totally violated for trying to help someone.

AIBU for being really angry with Betty?

Oh come on op
You know you are not being unreasonable feeling “angry”

but you seem to be doing squat all about it. Namely contacting the sports centre
and in future don’t meet married men for coffee when you don’t really like them 🤷‍♀️

So you felt a bit sorry for her and yet despite her clearly signalling she had huge problems with your strange “friendship” you persisted in meeting her husband? She stalked you, she made shouted accusations in public places and she started making online accusations and tagging in mutual friends? And you STILL continued to meet up with her husband until in your own words the bad times started to outweigh the good ones? Utterly bizarre. YABVVU not to have bowed out of that situation long ago, hard to feel sorry for you as you come across as complacent, selfish and totally without insight.

She became obsessed that Dave and I were having an affair, stalked us, often made crazy accusations. We always invited her for coffee but she always declined, and we often had the kids with us too.

why on earth did you continue to meet him when she was behaving like this?

YANBU to be angry, but you should have just stayed out of their marriage when you realised you were causing problems.

I think YABU for not having already reported her for harassment, and not having told the club to report the continuing serious GDPR breach to the ICO themselves and have it properly investigated.

And took the kids along! Beggars belief, really.

Please come back op!

Keen to know why you continued to meet this man multiple times despite knowing his wife was stalking you and him and serious problem with you meeting

Clearly she has issues you have cut contact and called time on your friendship she needs to fuck off and desk with herself people having affairs don't invite the wife along that's just weird

If this is true why on earth haven't you contacted the police?

You could tell Betty if she doesn't stop you will contact police. What she is doing is illegal

This is harassment and you need to involve the police now.

As for "flagging up the GDPR breach" how did you do this? You should report directly to the ICO.
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

You knew that meeting Dave was causing his wife significant distress. Why did you carry on? I hope you've at least learned never to get into this sort of situation again.

For now, let Betty know that stalking is a crime and you will be reporting her if it continues.

Definitely a Police matter for harassment and push for a non-molestation order. Report her to the governing body of the sport and get her barred. Report the GDPR breach again.

You need to contact the companies the profiles are on and give them your IP details so they can flag those that aren't yours as harrassment and fake.

Report to the police, obviously.

Interesting username, I haven’t heard that line/poem in years…

The ICO investigated and ruled it as a GDPR breach. Other than someone more senior apologising to me, I'm not sure Betty faced any repercussion and she still works there.

Is it even worth flagging to the police? These would have been posted over a year ago (or at least I don't think it was recent) so I didn't think the police would be interested. I just happen to have it flagged up to me by a friend on a dating site.

Sorry for slow replies - kids being demanding!

Dave and I were friends. Nothing more. Betty would apologise for her outbursts and be fine with us being friends. She told me she was quite pleased Dave had a friend to talk to about his issues and I think she felt it took the pressure off her a bit. I encouraged him to seek MH help and not bottle things up.

I think his MH issues affected her as I think he is probably quite nasty to her (narcissist). Although we got on well as friends, I very much disagreed with the fact he thought it was OK to treat people like sh*t as he believed that because he also did really nice things that made it ok. It was something we did not see eye to eye with!

Betty had “outbursts”
The very first bloody “outburst” you should have said to “narcissistic” Dave… see ya!!

but oh no… you thought it would be a good idea to carry on. And on.

I very much disagreed with the fact he thought it was OK to treat people like sht*

and you like this man
you met him multiple times
you met him with your children

odd

It’s harassment, go to the police

I don't understand what you mean by the last bit.

I don't see the being married bit an issue. I have lots of married friends, male and female. They're friends. We go out for coffee.

As I got to know Dave, I guess he let his guard slip a bit and expected more of me in terms of help with his MH. e.g. if he wanted to chat through something and I was busy with work/kids he then got pissy about it, and said if I was really a good friend, I'd drop what I was doing and help him. I didn't like that side of him, and when this became the side I saw most I ended the friendship as from my point of view that isn't a friendship.

Not really... as I cross posted with your post:

As I got to know Dave, I guess he let his guard slip a bit and expected more of me in terms of help with his MH. e.g. if he wanted to chat through something and I was busy with work/kids he then got pissy about it, and said if I was really a good friend, I'd drop what I was doing and help him. I didn't like that side of him, and when this became the side I saw most I ended the friendship as from my point of view that isn't a friendship.

You said he was a narcissist. You say he treated people like shit. You felt sorry for his wife. His wife had “outbursts” at the meet ups. His wife “stalked” you.

and yet… you thought “hey I like this guy, yep I’ll meet him one to one for coffee multiple times”

You really must be scraping the barrel for friends op if you thought all that about Dave but still persisted on meeting up with him

One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other

I loved that made up nonsense when I was a kid. Now I just read Mumsnet.

You can’t change the past , with hindsight you might have left the situation sooner. But Betty is carrying this too far. It’s harassment and I’d take that to the police. If you’d rather keep them out of it pay a solicitor to write a forceful letter to her ( has a name, cease and desist?)