Topic : Betrayal

Emma, I feel for you...17 is can be arough age.

Let me fill you in on some things...most of your "friends" now won't matter in a few years.

If you have an opinion you really don' want someone to find out... don't share it w/ anyone (other than a professional therapist)

I don't say anything about another person.. that I wouldn't say to their face.. it's easier that way.

Your "friend" should not have betrayed your trust, But sometimes it's hard to keep things like that in confidence and the "betrayal" may have started small and been considered harmless and then snowballled.

Maybe you should call all parties together and admit exactly what you said and explain why.. if they still hate you... well, at least you tried.

If Steph doesn't own up or apologize then, she' s not worth the heartache and you can find better

Emma I second this comment.  You really have to think about what you say to your friends about other people.  This my dear is just a life lesson for you and hopefully will teach you to keep your thoughts to yourself.  You see this doesn't change as you get older, people don't just stop treating each other badly we just  get smarter about whom we trust and what we trust them with.  I don't tell anyone anything that I don't want repeated.  Not even my Mother.  The only person I would trust is my husband, although I have been married before and did not trust that one.  So you see even the person you should be able to trust might betray you.

If Steph would do that to you once she would do it again so even if she apologizes does not mean you should confide in her again.  If you decide to talk to the other two friends and explain yourself and apologize to them, understand that they may never trust you completely.

Think about the fact that you were talking about them behind their backs and knowing that they are angry with you should tell you that what you did was wrong.  So you are just as much at fault as Steph was in telling them.

My advise take responsibility for what you have done, don't point fingers or say she should have never told them, say I should not have......  Apologize for your actions and promise yourself that you will not do this again, love people for who they are and accept that we all make mistakes and don't always do what others think we should or shouldn't do. 

Everybody has an opinion about others situations, but you shouldn't share it unless you are willing to back it up and willing to lose that friendship.

Keep your chin up and don't let this get you so down, this is just the first of many lessons in life.  You will have many more heartaches and things far worse that this to deal with.  If you can't get a handle on your feelings you should talk to someone.  Life is hard and don't let anyone tell you different.  You can make it easier in the way you handle these types of situations. 

Accept your responsibility, apologize without saying but, or blaming anyone else and never do it again.  If your friends can't accept that now give them time and in the mean time move on.

Good luck to you sweetie.

Just so you know I have two daughters of my own who are 18 and 22 so I have been thru all of this myself as well as with them.

just want to say hi and i miss tlking to everyone and want you to know things are better for me and my two so called girl friends arnt speaking to me and now i see they wernt my friends after all. I am bearly on speaking grounds with my guy friend i told you about butmy marraige has improved tremendoulsly  and i feel happy since im not hording any secrets, i have learned a few things about friends one being keep your friends close and your enimies closer lol, so jamie thanks for all your advice and everyone else good luck with your friends i have found that my husband is my very best friend and will always be their especially when every one else is gone...

                                                           lou lou22

Hi Everyone...

I am Happy to be here

I am addict to the show and i wish dr.phil be my father

cuz he can "understand" but my father doesn't

anyway, I really want to be a friend here

and have a good day all

I am not having one.

It is possible that your friend truly doesn’t know that you are upset with him; to me, this is one of the main differences in the way that men and women think. He probably didn’t even think of sending a card- he believes that saying supportive and encouraging words to you is enough. If you think he is not sending a card on purpose, to be a jerk, then you should be p*ssed; however, from what you describe, it sounds more like he doesn’t know that people do those kinds of things. If both of his parents are still living, then he hasn’t gone through what you are going through- and he doesn’t know that sending a card to say he is thinking of your family, etc., is a kind gesture. My advice to you is to remember that men do not think the same way that we do, and, he isn’t a mind reader; he will have no idea why you are upset with him.

Hi All!

I am writing for advice on how to stop feeling numb and deeply hurt by the actions of someone who has been a close friend.....

This is a synopsis:

I have been friends with a guy since meeting him thru mutual friends (He is a long time friend of the husband and I of the wife) about 5 years ago. He has been divorced since 2002 but has been holding out to get back together with his Ex. Over the last 18 months we have been spending time alone together ocassioanlly getting physical but mostly being there for each other, hanging out, and really getting along and laying a foundation of friendsship as we are both Christians with many similar interests. I would not 'date' him because of his still holding out for the Ex. He knew that if/when he was ready to move on I wanted to explore our relationship going beyond just friends. During discussions about that, he would say he was confused about having feeling for his Ex and me.... asked me to be patient with him...etc. The ex has been dangling getting back together with him on and off since their divorce.

Last October the Ex came here to NJ from FL to visit  "him" . Our mutual friends and I warned him that she was just coming because he was to be moving back to their (still jointly owned) house in OH in February (the annual lease was up on his apartment and their 26 y/o son who has been living in the house plans to move out for further college studies) and she wanted to visit NJ friends while she had a free place to stay and him as a chauffer. As it turns out, we were correct. She was nasty to him the whole time. Since then he seemd to finally be willing to see her for who she really has been - controlling, manipulative, $$ hungry, and emotional abusive to him.

His NJ friends and family (including me) did not want him to move but , considering the circumstances of his having to deal with the house, saw it as a step in his moving on and making a life for himself without being under the control of the Ex. In January, I said this in a letter of support to him in which I told him that I was proud of him for the sacrifices he had been making while here in NJ (living in a crappy apartment so he could send her $$$ while she lived in a new, paid for house....), reminded him of our previous conversations about giving our relationship a chance to be more if/when he was in a position to move on, and that he was always welcome in my home (where we had so comfortably spent so much of our time together).

Well, he never spoke with me again. Told our mutual friends (who were not aware of the deepth of our friendship) that I wanted more and that he was still in love with the Ex and always would be. Put our friends in the middle by having them return a bag of things to me saying he "couldn't do it" and having them have to speak for him.

As it turns out, in the last 6 weeks he: left for OH - stayed for less than a week, then went to FL for a week to see if the Ex would change her mind about them getting back together (She told him he hadn't changed enough yet for her.), came back to NJ to get his car and hooked up for a week with a woman he met in December (that no one knew about), went back to OH for less than a week before appearing on the NJ doorstep of our mutual friends saying he couldn't stand being in the OH house - too many memories of the Ex there (This is when he told our mutual friends that he had met someone just before Xmas but didn't pursue the relationship because he was moving and didn't know how this woman felt about him), and stayed with them for 5 days until the new woman returned from a trip to Europe. He has since decided to stay in NJ, go back to work, and live with this woman.

Last weekend, he took our friends out to dinner to thank them for letting him stay at their house and to introduce them to this woman. I was told she seemd nice, kind of quiet, and that things seem to be serious!? This past weekend they were going to OH to pick up more of his things so he could move in with her. When I asked our mutual friends what they think, there biggest concern right now is that he break away from his Ex (who keeps calling his cell) and take her back to court to get the $$ reduced. Mind you, he has never really dated this other woman.....

This is an inteligent, caring, financially secure, Christian guy who seems to go stupid when it comes to woman... lol

My feelings:  I am devastated about how he chose to treat me after getting my letter. We have been really good friends. The kind of relationship where we could say anything to each other. I am struggling to get past how hurt I feel. How he could just walk away from someone who was so very good to him.... He was really a good friend to me as well....

I am also very hurt that my girlfriend did not at least let him know that she was upset with him for how he's treated me. She had him alone in her house and didn't say a word. She tells me that she and her husband were so shocked by his turning up on their doorstep and about this other woman who seemed to come out of no where. She also said she didn't want to get in the middle. Accused ME of putting her in the middle.  I told her that HE is the one who put her in the middle by not dealing with and speaking with me himself.

My thoughts:  I agree he needs to get away from the Ex..... He is angry with the Ex and seeking revenge with this woman.....He couldn't come to me because we have an emotional tie that he doesn't have with this new woman..... This new woman is rebound bound....

Advise? Words of encouragment??

Thanks!

This problem has been ongoing for over a year now. It is a long story short we are all members of the same country club.  One couple has been our best friends for over 9 years. We have traveled together and spent lots of times away from the country club setting.  The new couple came onto the scene about 3 years ago. They had been involved with running another small social club that we belonged to but I reached out to them, invited them to my home for dinner and we hit it off. They soon became very close. Almost every occasion we sat with them and even began to begin taking small weekend trips together. They had another couple who was their best friends before meeting us. They are very wealthy and this impressed our friends.  Then we melded into a group of 8. The new couple and their best friends and us and our best friends.   Over time this couple I will call Jane and Bob became head of almost every organization we belonged to.  They became leaders of the Theater Group, The Fleet ( a boating club) as well remained head of the ballroom dance group where we initially met them.   Several incidents happened, usually with "Bob". He and I were almost like brother and sister. However he is sensitive and so am I. Several things I did in jest, he took seriously.  The final straw was that New Years Eve last year we spent with them although we wanted to do something with another group of friends.  Only the 6 members of our "group of 8" were going to be there. My best friends were ill and not able to go. The couple Jane and Bob arranged the whole New Years Eve party. When we got there while we were at the same table we were separated from them and their best friends   (but also part of our group of 8) by a couple of seats. I felt it was done purposely because "Bob" was still upset with me about something stupid that happened in Las Vegas when the 8 of us were there together. I was playing the slot machine and he came over and started pushing all the buttons and pulling the handle. I asked him not to do it because I was superstitious about my machine and I would lose if he kept doing it. He wouldn't stop, like a pesky little brother, he was playing like 5 credits in the dollar machine where I had put in $100.  I said to our other friend, their best friend, do you like it when people watch you play? He said he didn't like it either but told Bob to come over there. I play pretended to fight Bob away and pushed him towards his friends machine. Long story short, he became very hurt and angry and would not talk to me the remainder of the trip in Las Vegas. This was Thanksgiving and I don't think he ever got over it.

I expressed to them after NYE that I was upset about the seating and we had hardly spent any time with them, he told me they had nothing to do with the seating. I pretty much told him I didn't believe that and walked away. Well that was the final straw. They totally turned on us. The social group tables where we had always sat with them and our other friends, we were removed from. At all social clubs we were then excluded from the group of friends. Our "best friends" did not stand up for us and stop them from excluding us. Instead, I was told to make up to them..  Well, I tried. I explained why I felt like I did, but they would not discuss it with me.  I sent an email trying to apologize and ask if we could move on. I was told they could not continue such an 'abusive" relationship and reminded me about the times I had upset 'Bob".    This is very hard. My husband and I were always the "In Couple" at all of these clubs. My husband was on the Board of Directors of the Country Club, The Fleet club and the Ballroom Dancing club.  Now we are outcasts.  Now the other people in those clubs still love us and wonder why we don't participate.  Our best friends sold out and decided to stay with the "In Crowd". Other people that "Jane and Bob" had previously been against, now are in the inner circle where we used to be. They have a history of doing this to other people over and over again.

Now I have moved on with my other group of friends who by the way were never accepted by Jane and Bob.  We are very socially connected in our town. I was even a former Mayor so we know a lot of people.  The thing the hurts the most is that our best friends no longer have anything to do with us. Because I was often emotional when I saw them all together (my husband insisted we still had to go to all of these places and act like nothing happened) they decided I was having a nervous breakdown and backed away from me. 

In the meantime I have chaired charity events, continued to run my business of over 30 year and have built an even larger circle of friends away from those clubs. In fact the people we spent time with now are far nicer and interesting than the people we were with before.

The problem is my husband finds it hard to forgive me. He misses the interaction with those people.  We have been married over 27 years and always felt like we were still dating.  Now, I feel like he is not as loving as he used to be and it always gets worse when we attend a function at one of the organizations where we run into these people.   I prefer not to go there obviously because it always reinforces my send of loss.  How do I get over this? How do I get my husband to look at me the way he did before?  He hates change  and this has really hurt him. Aside from moving on and finding new friends, what more can I do? These people will never change their minds. I find them to be an adult version of bullies. They didn't like a lot of people and were always quick to provide gossip as to why they were bad people. They even took us away from other friends we had spent time with because they convinced us they were not acceptable. So we fell for their lies as well. Now I know why other people don't see the evil in them.  "Jane" is always smiling, and has cutsey nicknames for every one like in high school. She is the in my opinion the queen bee who controls who everyone is friends with. If you want to be in with them, you have to exclude those who is against.       Has this ever happened to anyone else? I wrote about this about a year ago and Dr. Phil's people even contacted me to see if I would go on the show.  However, due to our social standing in the community, it would be embarrassing for my husband to have to have this aired publicly.    Would counselling help my husband and me to get past this?  Thank you for any help. K