Friend cheats on gf, I get blamed

I’ve always wanted to get this story off my chest. Using fake names.

Back in high school, and into the early years of college, I had a best friend. We’ll call him Marcus. He was in a long-term relationship with a girl named Alice that started all the way back in middle school. For context, Alice and I weren’t on good terms. I dated her cousin for a while, who ended up cheating on me, and Alice knew the whole time but said nothing. So yeah, we weren’t exactly close.

Marcus was a terrible boyfriend to Alice. When our friend group found out he was cheating, we called him out immediately. He didn’t care. They went to different schools, but Alice had friends who went to ours, and they would tell her everything Marcus was doing. She knew he was cheating. They broke up a bunch of times because of it but somehow always ended up back together. I remember one night, Marcus called me and asked who he should choose: Alice or another girl he was messing around with. I told him to stop playing games and just break up with Alice. Even though she and I weren’t cool, she didn’t deserve what he was doing to her.

Fast forward to freshman year of college. They had been broken up for about a year. Marcus was out here talking to any girl who showed him even a little bit of attention. He was super sexually active and constantly bragged about it. At one point, he got a girl pregnant and convinced her to get an abortion. And honestly, that wasn’t even the worst thing he did, but that’s a story for another time. Our friend group watched him spiral and slowly started distancing ourselves from him.

The breaking point came when he started getting close to a girl one of our other friends liked. Our friend had been into her long before Marcus even noticed her. We told him to back off, and he said she was just a “friend.” Yeah, that didn’t last long. Marcus ended up hooking up with her, fully knowing how our friend felt. That was it. We cut him off completely. Later, that same girl exposed Marcus for being a creepy stalker. She posted receipts—photos, screenshots, everything—on Facebook. Friends, family, everyone saw it. His reputation, whatever was left of it, was completely gone.

After that, no girl would give him any attention. So what did he do? He went back to ole reliable, Alice. And somehow, SHE TOOK HIM BACK. After everything. The cheating. The drama. Being exposed online. She still let him back in. And almost immediately, he got her pregnant. We found out before anyone else because Marcus told one of our friends, word for word, “Yo, I think she’s pregnant. I nutted in her by accident. So will you be my best man at my wedding?” Very romantic, I know. Our friend said no and told him how shitty of person he was. Not long after, Marcus and Alice posted on Facebook, claiming the pregnancy was planned. Sure it was.

Now they’re married with three kids. And somehow, Marcus blames us—our whole friend group—for his cheating. He says we influenced him. Make that make sense. Should we have told Alice everything when it was happening? Yeah, probably. But the truth is, she always knew. Her friends told her over and over to leave him. She chose to stay.

And what really blows my mind is that out of everyone, I get the most blame. Alice says I had the “most influence” on Marcus. Which is funny, because I’ve been in a 12+ year relationship, never cheated, never been cheated on. I fully trust my partner, and she trusts me. If Marcus and Alice want to make me the scapegoat to feel better, be my guest. I genuinely don’t care.

Only Marcus and our old friend group know the full truth about everything that went down. We saw the lies, the manipulation, the toxicity. We moved on. Meanwhile, they’re still pretending none of it ever happened.