Gonna be long as I don’t want to drip feed…
An old high school best friend of mine recently got back in touch and I am unsure if it is wise to re-open that can of worms (for want of a better phrase)
We were best mates in high school, got on like brother & sister (honestly never thought it would go any further than that, e.g. we often joked how we would be Best Woman or Man of Honour at each other’s weddings). But he and his family moved out of the area and so he went to a different college. He only moved an hour and half away so we still met up frequently at weekends and texted/skyped all the time.
A week into moving into the new area he met, his now pregnant wife, and they soon started dating. We hit it off also, she said it was great he kept in touch with his friends back from high school and she even invited me to birthday party / house parties etc.
But not long things turned sour between us, she said she didn’t believe girls and guys could just be friends and she frequently would send odd messages, internet stalk me, try and trip me up using my friend’s social media accounts.
Obviously, I tried to just ignore this all, but then she confessed to me she cheated on my best friend (she seemed so sincere and genuinely like she turned to me for help). I didn’t know what to do (I was only 17 at the time!) so I told her she should tell him or I would. I foolishly confided in a mutual friend for advice about whether I should tell our friend. Of course, this friend just went ahead and told our friend what had been said.
Turns out it was all a lie, another trick that I feel for this time. The girl hadn’t gone near this guy who she told me she cheated on, in fact he hadn’t in been in the country. So, I wiped my hands. My friend did seem happy with this girl (they are married now so clearly worked out well!) so I said I’ll say goodbye to them both as it was taking a massive toll on my mental health and wasn’t fair on anyone (I had lost most of my other friends back at home because they all believed I made the cheating story up!)
To cut a long story short, throughout college and uni this girl continued to online stalk me and occasionally she, or one of her friends/sister, would give me a bit of social media abuse. Now and then I would even get a phone call, despite changing my number multiple times. My mental health seriously suffered from all this. I think what made it worse too was that I really needed a best friend, like the one I had, as uni was a shit experience for me.
Roll on to now, a few years out of uni. The social media harassment has died down. But I did get them both following me on my new Instagram a year ago. I didn’t think too much of it, just hoped if I ignored them no drama would happen. But then rolled in the facebook requests. (FYI reason I didn’t have these blocked was because in past I found it just caused more drama). I accepted them and no further contact was made.
Occasionally they would like or maybe comment something nice on a post/image. Having a look at them, they both seem very well settled and have grown up a lot.
They’ve recently announced their pregnancy and so I commented “congratulations and good luck” which I think has sparked my old best friend to get back in touch with me.
We have been chatting a bit, here and there over messenger. But I just feel so worried it might all back fire.
DH doesn’t want me to talk to him due to the mental health issues the girl has caused in the past, so I haven’t told him I replied to his first message. Now I feel like I am lying to my DH!
But I do recognise people grow up and change. I think back to the way I behaved when I was with my Ex and just cringe! These two have been together nearly 10 years now so surely they are comfortable with each other that me and my old best friend could reconnect?
Then again, I have amazing friends now, a great DH and DS too so do I need more people with potential drama in my life?