Friend telling me she mocked my abuse to partner

[blatant111blatant]

I was in a marriage for over 10 years where I was abused.
in the last year of it I was in touch with Women’s Aid and other DA organisations.
I never told anyone anything until right at the end. I told my mum and a friend what had been happening.

The friend hasn’t always been a good friend but she was a ‘constant’ person in my life. She had treated me badly in the past but she was one of my only friends.

Anyway, I told her several things that had happened.
one day she told me that she and her husband use a sentence together to laugh about (calling each other) which is something my ex used to say to me that was very humiliating and degrading. She laughed and said “sorry I know I shouldn’t laugh but it’s so funny when he does it”. I didn’t really know how to respond.

Then another time we were meeting up and an old school friend I haven’t seen for years (who my friend is still in touch with) was meeting us also. Just as we walked into the cafe my friend said “by the way I’ve told her about your ex”. So I asked “what about my ex? How much? What have you said”. Her response was “that your ex is a psycho and what happened”.
so I felt uncomfortable because I had no intention of revealing anything to this old school friend but now she knew everything as my friend had told her.

Although she seems to take what happened to me seriously in some ways, these things have stayed on my mind. I don’t know if I’m being over sensitive but i wonder how many people she’s ‘gossiped’ about to me. And I feel hurt she could use something I told her as a joke between her and her husband. And honestly, telling her the sentence in the first place was completely humiliating and I haven’t told many people apart from a couple of close friends and my therapist.

I'm so sorry that happened to you.
This person is not your friend

The friend hasn’t always been a good friend but she was a ‘constant’ person in my life. She had treated me badly in the past but she was one of my only friends.

She's not a friend, in any sense of the word, and she keeps and keeps on proving it to you. Pay attention to her appalling behaviour. It's much better to have no friends than frenemies.

That is not a friend, by any stretch

I’m sorry - I’d say please remember that it’s not only sexual partners that can be abusive as it sounds like she’s not a very nice person and not a friend to you x

You are right, she isn’t a good friend to you.

Mocking you with her husband, “I know I shouldn’t laugh”… no you don’t laugh about your friend who has been abused, Gossiping about your situation to others, the fact she told you as you were walking in to meet your other friend, that was done deliberately to unsettle you.
Step away from her, she’s not a nice person, but you know that already. You can do better and deserve better.

You’re not being dramatic at all, I completely get what you mean. I’m estranged from my family and a few years ago I had a friend who supported me through some horrible things. I thought she was a good friend.

One day during a phone call, she casually mentioned another friend of hers who was also estranged and said to me, “You think your family are bad, you should hear about hers!” And she said it in a jokey, almost laughing way.

Because I was in a bad place at the time, I didn’t call her out on it, but afterwards I just thought… WTF. You don’t joke about someone’s trauma or use it as entertainment.

It told me everything I needed to know about that friendship. She wasn’t someone I could trust.

Your “friend” is showing you the same thing. You’re not oversensitive, she’s shown you a huge lack of respect and empathy. Step back from her and protect your peace.

She is not your friend OP.

Her behaviour is despicable. She should be totally ashamed of herself.

You should distance yourself from her OP.

Just because you’ve known her for years doesn’t mean she is friend.

Shes a horrible woman.

So the abuse moved from your ex husband to your friend.

Please make her your ex too.

Absolutely disgusting behaviour, im so sorry

Come on girl, you know what to do

Be brave and have no friends if you need to. She isnt worth your time. And i'd tell her exactly why I am cutting her off and never want to speak to her again.

Can you trust your mum? Will she respect you cutting this friend off?

This.

I'm so sorry. She is appalling and absolutely not your friend. Hard to hear when you've been through so much already, I know.

💐

That person is not your friend.

I’m sorry for what you have been through.

She seems to be more of a frenemy . Not nice.

She sounds like the psycho. But as an aside, often people in abusive relationships seem to kid themselves into thinking no one knows about it. But usually everyone around you knows because it's obvious and you are usually the last one to realise.

It’s better to have no friends than such a bitch of a friend.

Why do you value yourself so little that you still associate with her? I blame these TV issues which make women think they need to accept terrible behaviour so they could have a friend or group of friendd.

If that’s all your friend said to be discarded, I’d say that’s a massive overreaction

Your past relationship is most definitely not a source of entertainment or gossip.
She's an utter bastard.
Time to let that friendship drift into oblivion.

Work on your self esteem, and sack this bitchy friend off. Trust me she is no friend, she uses you for her amusement. Her and her knobhead husband deserve each other.

That’s disgusting! She is no friend and she’s not a nice person at all. She found your abuse funny? She makes jokes about it? What the actual fuck? No one needs people like that in their life. Wishing you all the best OP, well done for getting away.

Time to get rid of this awful shit.

This person is not your friend. She has absolutely no empathy or compassion for the trauma you may be experiencing due to that abuse. She has added to the humiliation by telling you that her and her DH joke around using a term that was used to humiliate you, and she calls it funny. She has betrayed your trust and privacy by sharing something so deeply personal and private.
She is not your friend. She has no respect for you.

It’s not “all she said”, it was the context and the tone. When someone uses your trauma or family situation as a joke or compares it like it’s entertainment, that’s a breach of trust.

People have different thresholds for what they’re comfortable with. For me, someone laughing about something that was genuinely painful crossed a line. It’s not an overreaction, it’s a boundary.

@OhRight7
i agree. I felt very disrespected. And embarrassed that it was used in a lighthearted joke which she then told me about. I can’t believe she told me actually. I don’t know if it sort of slipped out and then she carried on “husband said (did the impression while she was laughing)..” then said
“sorry, I know I shouldn’t laugh, I did tell him what you’d told me about it and it just seems so funny (still laughing her head off)” then said “we sometimes do it where one of us will just say it to the other to make each other laugh”.

and I just didn’t know what to say really. I felt stunned but didn’t feel strong enough at the time to pull her up on it.

It was humiliating when my ex used to say it and I felt mortified that she’d used it in this way with her husband.

this was a few months ago but it is still on my mind along with a couple of other things that’s happened with her. I’ve been distancing myself over the last few weeks and seeing her less.

You’ve found another abuser not a friend

Fuck me, who needs enemies with friends like her? What a rat. She sounds almost gleeful about what you went though, so disrespectful.

OP I say this as someone who has also been in an abusive relationship so I'm not trying to teach you to suck eggs or anything - but when you've been abused you become susceptible to further abuse from other people because you normalise a lot of behaviours which are not normal, and it can take years to psychologically recover from and relearn how relationships are supposed to be, both romantic and friendships. I'd be distancing myself from this person if I were you, she's worrying.