When close friends socially mix with abusive exh

daraghdecember · 2024-12-08T02:51:20+00:00

How do you manage this situation as I'm struggling. Close friends, who've been nothing but supportive when I went through a really bad divorce with exh (who'd been emotionally and financially abusive/had an affair/refused to co-parent and only had them once a week despite not working whilst I worked full-time) have been invited to a small gathering where he and his new gf will be. I'm really struggling with the fact they will be making pleasant small talk to someone whom they know has been the cause of so much hurt to me these past few years. I don't seem to be able to get over this - them drinking and laughing with my twat of an exh. It feels disloyal. I know he wasn't abusive to my friends but they saw the devastating impact on me as a result of his actions. I would love not to care but I'm really struggling with how to get to this point. How do I process this to move to a position where I don't give a fuck? What steps do I take to get there?

StrawberryWater · 08/12/2024 03:11

Well if they're close friends you could ask them how they got to the point of not caring about what he did.

Personally, I would find them disloyal too and I would seriously reconsider the friendship.

Yes they can be friends with who they like but so can I.

LOpportunityCestFuckingEnorme · 08/12/2024 03:24

They can't be close friends if they are happy to do this.

Lurkingandlearning · 08/12/2024 04:17

Are you sure they will do that? Maybe they will barely acknowledge him and move on to another guest.

If they are going to be having a grand old time with him I think that would be very disloyal. If they’re going to ignore him as much as they can without causing a scene then I think they might have decided that he isn’t going to dictate what invitations they can accept.

AnOldCynic · 08/12/2024 04:19

Who's the host? Have you been invited but declined to go because of ex?

Edingril · 08/12/2024 04:26

You don't have to be friends with them but you don't have the right to control them or lecture them, they are adults and can interreact with people how they chose too

Sure if you chose not to put up with it then don't that is up to you

Pinkbonbon · 08/12/2024 04:49

I'd be giving it 'Why is he invited? Do you think its OK that men abuse women? Even if it wasn't me, your friend that he hurt, you shouldn't entertain people like him. I don't know what you are thinking! Are you condoning abuse or just a chicken? Because frankly mate, dick move'.

Absolutely call out abuse and anyone who knowingly associates with abusers. They should be ashamed of themselves.

kittybiscuits · 08/12/2024 05:00

I think it really matters whether your friends have actually chosen to put themselves in this situation, ie one of them invited your ex, or whether they have been unavoidably put in this situation by a third party. I would find it hard too.

When I was in a similar situation to you, I moved away from anyone who was trying to actively keep a relationship with my abusive ex, and that included my family. Real friends do not hedge their bets . Hopefully they are true friends and will just smile and wave at him and his lucky new gf and mutter under their breaths about what a cunt he is and how glad they are that you no longer have to put up with his abuse.

LilyJessie · 08/12/2024 05:02

I've experienced this, and tbh, I just stopped being friends with the people.

NeverAloneNeverAgain · 08/12/2024 05:17

Who invited them and what sort of gathering? Presumably they don't have a say on the invite list so it's not their fault if your ex is invited. Maybe it's a family Xmas event and they feel obliged to go even if they don't want to.

Just because your ex will be there doesn't mean they will interact outside of basic social pleasantries . You're understanding feeling a bit thrown by the situation but you say they are good friends and were a good source of support and help. Maybe talk to them about how you feel? It doesn't have to come across as an ultimatum or negative.

Copperoliverbear · 08/12/2024 05:50

You can't expect your friends not to go to places just because he might be there, how do you know they will even talk to him, ?

You have to talk to him sometimes and don't like him, the same can go for others.
Personally if I was your friends I'd go but ignore him.

JoyousPoet · 08/12/2024 09:28

I really feel for you. I have stepped away from friends who have been supportive of me, yet still see my ex. It’s passively condoning DA and that is unacceptable to me.

In this situation, it’s tricky because they have been invited and he will be there. They’re not actively soliciting spending time with him. To me that feels a bit different.

Personally, I wouldn’t expect them to not go to events he is also going to. That might seriously impact their social life! But if they were inviting him, they’re gone! Xx

Thatcastlethere · 08/12/2024 09:35

Are they actively choosing to pursue a friendship with him or is it just that they aren't starting drams when they see him out and about?
My ex was incredibly violent and also raped me.. but I don't expect other people to confront him about it or start drama on my behalf. People have other things going on in their lives.. I don't expect everyone to have the energy for a stand off.
I totally understand if people see him out and about they might just ne polite to him. Especially if it's at someone else's event. It's the height of rudeness to kick off and create drama with someone at an event which isn't your own.
I'd be hurt abd pissed off if any of my friends were actually inviting him places or genuinely trying to be friends with him..
But just being polite to his face whilst out and about?.... I sympathise with them. I wouldn't ask them to confront him on my behalf. I know life is hard. I'm a shy non confrontational person myself.. I do jot expect everyone to have the energy to be hostile all the time. There are shitty people everywhere.. you have to pick your battles. He's a piece of shit but he didn't hurt them.. and I'm sure they've all got their own battles to be fighting. So as I said, as long as they aren't being actual mates with him, I do not expect some kind of show down.. being vaguely polite to him in public, I understand that. It doesn't hurt me. It doesn't mean they like him.

HardlyLikely · 08/12/2024 09:41

Thatcastlethere · 08/12/2024 09:35

Are they actively choosing to pursue a friendship with him or is it just that they aren't starting drams when they see him out and about?
My ex was incredibly violent and also raped me.. but I don't expect other people to confront him about it or start drama on my behalf. People have other things going on in their lives.. I don't expect everyone to have the energy for a stand off.
I totally understand if people see him out and about they might just ne polite to him. Especially if it's at someone else's event. It's the height of rudeness to kick off and create drama with someone at an event which isn't your own.
I'd be hurt abd pissed off if any of my friends were actually inviting him places or genuinely trying to be friends with him..
But just being polite to his face whilst out and about?.... I sympathise with them. I wouldn't ask them to confront him on my behalf. I know life is hard. I'm a shy non confrontational person myself.. I do jot expect everyone to have the energy to be hostile all the time. There are shitty people everywhere.. you have to pick your battles. He's a piece of shit but he didn't hurt them.. and I'm sure they've all got their own battles to be fighting. So as I said, as long as they aren't being actual mates with him, I do not expect some kind of show down.. being vaguely polite to him in public, I understand that. It doesn't hurt me. It doesn't mean they like him.

I think this is a wise, realistic and compassionate post. I’m sorry that happened to you@Thatcastlethere. It’s a club with way too many of us as members.

crackofdoom · 08/12/2024 09:48

I have, in the past, assured friends that just because I smile and say hello and have a superficial chat at the school gates with their abusive exes it doesn't mean that I don't know what rotten cunts they have been, just that I want to maintain a pleasant atmosphere for the DC.

Original poster

daraghdecember · 08/12/2024 15:48

I wasn't invited to the social gathering but that doesn't surprise me as the couple hosting it have sided with my exh. I wouldn't have gone anyway even if I had been.

I think so many people mustn't think like me. I would like to think I'd make it known to an exh who'd treated a friend so badly that I wanted nothing to do with him. He would certainly know that I knew what he'd done by the way I looked at him but I think people these days must just want an easy life and so draw their boundaries differently.

I know for a fact that if they chat pleasantly to him, he would read that as supporting and justifying any past behaviour. It would facilitate his rewriting the narrative history. He's already parading his new girlfriend around town to say 'I can't be that bad if someone else loves me'

OP posts:

HardlyLikely · 08/12/2024 15:51

daraghdecember · 08/12/2024 15:48

I wasn't invited to the social gathering but that doesn't surprise me as the couple hosting it have sided with my exh. I wouldn't have gone anyway even if I had been.

I think so many people mustn't think like me. I would like to think I'd make it known to an exh who'd treated a friend so badly that I wanted nothing to do with him. He would certainly know that I knew what he'd done by the way I looked at him but I think people these days must just want an easy life and so draw their boundaries differently.

I know for a fact that if they chat pleasantly to him, he would read that as supporting and justifying any past behaviour. It would facilitate his rewriting the narrative history. He's already parading his new girlfriend around town to say 'I can't be that bad if someone else loves me'

Or he just has a new girlfriend and is going out socially with her?

Marmitethedog · 08/12/2024 16:26

This happened to me with a neighbour whose home I ran to one night after my exh had pushed me and scared me, the woman who helped me and who said her exh had done the same but now invites him to parties, not me. I think perhaps because I have since managed to coparent amicably with the exh maybe the woman assumed I had lied about the abusive incident instead of what I actually did (which was to treat it as a one-off but prevent a repeat by stipulating I’d press charges if it ever happened again, instead of getting into a high conflict divorce with restraining orders and costly child arrangement battles). I will never know. I do know that if a woman had come to me clearly terrified after an abusive incident I wouldn’t be asking the man round for drinks!

Janpoppy · 08/12/2024 17:06

HardlyLikely · 08/12/2024 15:51

Or he just has a new girlfriend and is going out socially with her?

Show quote history

If the OPs relationship hadn't been abusive, then sure. But OP has stated it was an abusive dynamic.

Abusers manipulate onlookers to see/treat them as benign which makes it harder for their target to be believed or be/feel supported.

It's a documented behavior in post-separation abuse where children are involved.

www.researchgate.net/publication/341484418_When_Coercive_Control_Continues_to_Harm_Children_Post-Separation_Fathering_Stalking_and_Domestic_Violence