Ugh, more crappy friends.

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

My husband broke his marriage vows and cheated on me last year. We started going to a family therapist. I will never forget what he did, but I decided to forgive him. I knew he wasn’t perfect when we got married, but I still love him. A few months ago, I told my best friend “Jill” about what he had done. Last week our mutual friend “Patricia” told me that Jill told other people about my husband. She said that Jill made a “meme” of me by combining me with a TV character to make fun of me and send to everyone. This doesn’t sound like something Jill would do, but Jill is the only one I told. I don’t know how Patricia knows. If I confront Jill, I risk shooting the messenger and making Patricia look bad. Deep down, my instinct tells me that Patricia somehow found out about this and that it was she who made the meme. What should I do?

climbingsingle

Damn, that is super fucked up. 

kerbohl

climbingwife said:

Damn, that is super fucked up. 

SIB

Right?  What friend hears her friend's pain and then goes around behind her back mocking her?    Goodness!

Isn't there a way to get more info?  And why does she suspect Patricia?  LW needs new friends.

charlotte989875

LW needs new friends. 

ETA: Can’t the LW ask one of the other people who received the meme who sent it? 

short+sassy

charlotte989875 said:

LW needs new friends. 

ETA: Can’t the LW ask one of the other people who received the meme who sent it? 

A little more investigation with this.  But, even  if Jill is innocent of sending it, I would ask her if she knew how people found out.

If she is the one who sent it, that would be a friendship-ending move for me and I'd tell her that.

Not nearly to this level, but I had a similar "mystery" in college that I never found out the answer to.  My b/f at the time had not given me a Valentine's Day card or gift or anything.  I didn't expect a gift because I knew he was the typical cash-strapped college kid.  But I had told him I would really like a card.

I mentioned to my roommate that I was disappointed he hadn't at least given me a card.  I wasn't mad.  I didn't say it angerly.  I was just a little sad and disappointed.  But she was the only one I told.

The b/f comes to me a few days later to talk to me about the card.  Because he was having lunch with some of our mutual friends and they all knew about and told him that I was upset and mad he hadn't given me a Valentine's card.  None of those people were my roommate.

It really wasn't a secret.  I just hadn't said anything to anyone but my roommate.  I told her about it later, more out of curiosity if she had mentioned it to anyone, but she said she hadn't.  I believed her.  Maybe she did and didn't remember.  That was the only thing I could think of.  I also wracked my brain if there was someone else I'd told and had forgotten, but I was positive I didn't.

Certainly not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things!  But I just always wondered how it had gotten out, especially with the exaggeration that I was "upset and mad".

As an aside, there were many, many ways over the course of our relationship that this guy proved himself to be a major a$$hole.  But, even after he confronted me because he felt bad he had hurt my feelings, he STILL neve got me any f**king card, smh.

kerbohl

short+sassy said:

charlotte989875 said:

LW needs new friends. 

ETA: Can’t the LW ask one of the other people who received the meme who sent it? 

A little more investigation with this.  But, even  if Jill is innocent of sending it, I would ask her if she knew how people found out.

If she is the one who sent it, that would be a friendship-ending move for me and I'd tell her that.

Not nearly to this level, but I had a similar "mystery" in college that I never found out the answer to.  My b/f at the time had not given me a Valentine's Day card or gift or anything.  I didn't expect a gift because I knew he was the typical cash-strapped college kid.  But I had told him I would really like a card.

I mentioned to my roommate that I was disappointed he hadn't at least given me a card.  I wasn't mad.  I didn't say it angerly.  I was just a little sad and disappointed.  But she was the only one I told.

The b/f comes to me a few days later to talk to me about the card.  Because he was having lunch with some of our mutual friends and they all knew about and told him that I was upset and mad he hadn't given me a Valentine's card.  None of those people were my roommate.

It really wasn't a secret.  I just hadn't said anything to anyone but my roommate.  I told her about it later, more out of curiosity if she had mentioned it to anyone, but she said she hadn't.  I believed her.  Maybe she did and didn't remember.  That was the only thing I could think of.  I also wracked my brain if there was someone else I'd told and had forgotten, but I was positive I didn't.

Certainly not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things!  But I just always wondered how it had gotten out, especially with the exaggeration that I was "upset and mad".

As an aside, there were many, many ways over the course of our relationship that this guy proved himself to be a major a$$hole.  But, even after he confronted me because he felt bad he had hurt my feelings, he STILL neve got me any f**king card, smh.

LOL -  how did he apologize for hurting your feelings without remedying why he had hurt them?  He couldn't have gotten a blank piece of paper and drawn you a card?  For pete's sake!

MyNameIsNot

Even if Jill didn't make the meme, she did share the news. That's not the sort of secret you just spread around. Maybe in high school, but not when you're talking about adults and marriage. Betraying confidence like that is a friendship ending move. 

I'd probably dump all the rest of them too. WhoTF gets a meme like that about a friend and doesn't warn their friend? 

banana468

There's so much of this that is screwed up.

With friends like these....

short+sassy

kerbohl said:

short+sassy said:

As an aside, there were many, many ways over the course of our relationship that this guy proved himself to be a major a$$hole.  But, even after he confronted me because he felt bad he had hurt my feelings, he STILL neve got me any f**king card, smh.

LOL -  how did he apologize for hurting your feelings without remedying why he had hurt them?  He couldn't have gotten a blank piece of paper and drawn you a card?  For pete's sake!

I know, right!  A Valentine's card even would have been 50% off at that point, lol. Puh-leez.  A hand-drawn card or letter would have been even more amazing, but he'd never go to that kind of "trouble".  The whole "after the fact" conversation...and he still did nothing...just made it even worse!

I still look back on that relationship and think it was one of my most important ones.  Not because it was good, but because it was bad and toxic in some ways.  I learned valuable life lessons from it young and for lower stakes.