I’m terrible at making things concise and digestible, so sorry in advance. Sherry (33F, not her real name) was my (34M) best friend for the last 15 years. We had our own “language”, nearly identical senses of humor, and shared everything: gaming, movies, and we talked almost every day. She was the one person I could feel the most “myself” around; no topic was off-limits, no opinion was too weird. It felt genuine. So, of course, I fell in love with her. It was kind of hard not to. I never had a relationship like that before, and it wasn’t a secret. She knew, but didn’t feel the same way about me. Behind closed doors, however, we did things “normal” friends wouldn’t do: Hours upon hours of talking nearly every day, sneaking me over while her husband wasn’t home, and off-and-on sexting she (unilaterally) started and stopped. I felt like I had no agency, and the time we spent was all on her terms. Anytime I wanted to hang out, I got ”’let me check my schedule”, “maybe next week”, “we can’t do that because my husband would give me shit”. What sucks more is that others got easy access, even people who HAD been in actual romantic relationships with her before. And of course, her partners always hated me, accumulating with her aforementioned husband after their (supposedly reluctant) marriage.
We had a very particular cycle:
- We get intensely close, becoming part of each other’s daily routine.
- Something would happen (typically her going back on her word) and she’d withdraw (always starting with an insistence that we were just “normal” friends, “I don’t treat you differently” and that my expectations of her were too high)
- I ask what’s wrong, she escalates, interrupts me when I try to clarify, threatens me with a “maybe we shouldn’t even be friends”
- I beg, spill my heart out, and have to shift from being upset over whatever I was bringing up to having to defend the relationship
- She discards me, always with a “this doesn’t work for me anymore. Goodbye.” message. I get blocked and unfriended everywhere. These discards usually lasted several months, with the last one being a whole year and some change. She always returns, claiming that she realized some things in therapy, promising change, and then we’re back at step 1.
The last two years “worked” only because I stopped defending myself. I’d put an invisible asterisk next to the days she said she wanted to hang out or talk to me, knowing full well she would probably come up with an excuse to not do it and delay it a couple more weeks. I tried to change how I brought these issues up, being more direct and trying not to type a whole lot (unlike what I’m doing now). She’d twist my feelings into it being me “overthinking” or that I was just somehow reading too much into things. If I distanced myself, she’d reel me back with uncharacteristic (for her) platitudes, telling me how much our friendship meant to her, how much she was worried about me, ending with a punchy “I love you”. It made me feel extremely guilty, but it also made me feel extremely wanted and desired, so much so that I would just drop whatever made me distance myself in the first place.
In June, her husband accused her (again) of cheating with me. I had always been a sore spot in their marriage, but he had barely been mentioned for the last two years. Sherry was fed up, saying she was going to finally divorce him, but entered marriage counseling instead, supposedly still intent on divorcing him at some vague point in the future. She started to withdraw, only messaging to vent about her husband and their counseling, and ghosting me otherwise. These were punctuated by curious mentions of a new “friend” I had never heard of before. “Oh, I would call, but I’m hanging out with [new friend]”, or “Yeah, maybe tomorrow, I promised [new friend] we would VC tonight.” I felt the signs of the cycle starting again, despite reaffirming that she wasn’t like that anymore and that we had moved past it. I told her point-blank that these things felt like the lead-up to another discard. She replied that she was frustrated, “You don’t trust me and think I am suddenly just going to stop being friends with you.” So I dropped it. After all, I wasn’t her only friend, so it ultimately felt like I was making a big deal about nothing.
In July, we had a 15-person river float (organized by some former co-workers) that I had invited her to months prior. The group included my two roommates and two other friends; the rest of the people were the aforementioned former coworkers and their friends, so mostly strangers. On the 3-hour drive up, she dropped a bomb: She was having an affair with that “friend” she was talking to so much. I agreed to secrecy, but I told her how much it sucked that she made it easy for everybody else except me to get access to her. It was hard not to be jealous. All these years of putting our friendship in a box because she didn’t want to anger her husband or whatever, and it turned out she was cheating on him anyway, just not with the person he thought.
When we got to the cabin, I overheard her inviting her “friend” (now upgraded to “girlfriend”) at the behest of one of the trip’s hosts. Later that night, I asked her if she actually did invite her “girlfriend”. She snapped back, “Yeah, why, should I not have?” In the space of two minutes, I tried to explain everything I had told her on the car ride over and how it felt like she ignored it all. She walked out, and later that evening, her partner arrived. Sherry spent the trip glued to them, holding hands, cuddling openly, getting the full “relationship” treatment. I felt like I was watching myself get replaced in real time and getting sidelined at an event I invited her to. I couldn’t sleep that night.
The next day was the river float. Each raft could hold up to six people, so Sherry could no longer fit on our raft since she brought her guest. That fucking sucked. During the float, Sherry came by during a stop to ask if I was feeling okay, since I wasn’t making eye contact with her and hadn’t talked to her since the day before. We got into an argument with all the same talking points, with her main point being “it’s a group activity”. The argument was short, again, maybe a couple of minutes in total. She stormed off and told the rest of the group (outside of my roommates + friends) that I was “in love with her” and “trying to control her.” In return, the rest of the group showed instant hostility, eye daggers, whispering anytime I’d walk by, the works.
I tried to talk to Sherry that night, asking her if she wanted me to pack the car so we could be ready for tomorrow. She told me that I wasn’t riding back home with her. I told her that my roommates/friends did NOT have space in their car for me. She told me to “figure it out”. That night, the entire group outside of my friends slept in the living room away from me. It made me feel like I was trash.
I didn’t want to be there in the morning for everyone to glare at. I didn’t even know if the ride situation would work. I started to panic and tried to order an Uber back home, 300 dollars for the ride. The cars kept canceling due to our being in a remote area, and I kept trying to reorder, a $300 temporary charge was added to my account over and over. I was trapped and humiliated. I also couldn’t sleep that night.
I worked it out with my friends the next morning, offering to throw away anything of mine that wouldn’t fit in their car. Sherry had apparently “begged” my roommates to drive home with her, so they could get home without being crammed into one sedan. Little did I know, Sherry used the ride home with my roommates to show them private Discord messages where I’d vented (with her encouragement) about feeling insecure or left out by my roommates months prior. It was an issue that I had already solved at that point, but the lack of context and what I imagine was peppered with color commentary from Sherry did not do me any favors. Days later, she blocked me everywhere, the usual. Her final message ended with “This whole situation has caused me to see you in a new light and I have seen a person that I don’t believe has a place in my life anymore. I have no desire to talk this out and I don’t owe you any conversations or explanations just because we have been friends for so long. Your feelings are yours to deal with and not mine, I am not going to continue to bear the weight of your feelings for me because you don’t know how to. Good Bye.”
Last week, my roommates confronted me about the messages, apparently wanting to give me space after Sherry’s latest discard. I apologized, explained the context (my insecurities, other issues)… They seemed understanding, and I even talked further with one roommate about feeling my privacy was violated. They agreed it was a fucky situation. A couple of days later, that same roommate comes to my room and says they’re glad we made up and cleared the air, but that we need “separate living situations.” No clear timeline, just…get out.
I hate that I still love her. I feel loyalty to what we had. Calling this “abuse” feels alien and wrong, but after 15 years of control, public humiliation, discards…what else is it? I hate that I still care if SHE’S okay. I haven’t opened up to a lot of people about what happened. I feel ashamed for missing her. I miss my best friend. But here is where I’m at.
I desperately need advice:
- Was this emotional abuse? Am I stupid for trying to give it a label? Am I actually the secret asshole here?
- Can I salvage my home situation? Should I fight to make amends with my roommates? I don’t want to come across like I’m begging, but at this point, I’ve been humiliated enough already, so what is a little more on my plate?
- How do I heal? How do I move forward when I still care about the person who destroyed my life?
TL;DR my weird fucked up situationship/friendship exploded after she invited her actual affair partner to a trip without telling me, leading to her humiliating me, stranding me, discarding me for the 7th or 8th time, and purposefully showing my roommates messages so they would kick me out of my house.