My partner and I were really close with another couple (let’s call her F and him M). I was especially close to M — we’d been friends for years — but over time their relationship has got very messy. There were arguments, jealousy, and some pretty big blow-ups. Recently there was a night that ended with us being called by F at 1am, and comforting her late at night when things went very very wrong and blew up.
We were only ever trying to protect and support her, but we found out more and more about things M that sounded terrible. But we couldn’t confront him for it because she asked us to keep them secret. Fair enough.
I spent a whole day with F, encouraging her to have more self respect for herself and do her own things. I thought I got through to her.
F does have a tendency to over exaggerate things though, so we don’t really know how much is true.
But then after things calmed down she suddenly started spending every minute with him again and saying she “never asked for our opinions.” She sticks up for him all the time now too. That stung, because she’d been the one calling and leaning on us when everything fell apart.
So my partner and I took some space and distance.
Since then, both of them have been cold toward us. They show up at social events acting like everything’s perfect, but it’s awkward — she gives me death stares, and apparently they’ve been telling mutual friends that we should have reached out. They’re upset at us for “ignoring them”. The thing is, a) they haven’t reached out to us either and b) I can’t confront him because we’ve been put in this horrible position of keeping secrets from M.
It’s been weeks now. I still care about them, especially M, but I’m tired and don’t know if reaching out would help or just drag us back into the same drama.