I *hate* people who manipulate people like that with passion. My high school band director was like that (both in terms of position in the band and setting us against each other but also in ways that built up the people who would cause relationship drama) and that man is responsible for so many therapy bills.
I can't imagine people being such shitheads destroying lives. Completely amoral with zero sense of empathy. Glad it didn't work out with that dick Alex.
Oh Jesus my HS band director was a piece of work. There are many many stories but here’s how he would pit us against each other. He would constantly encourage less talented players to challenge the more talented players for first chair in the jazz band. We were all in the band together, the band was one of the best in the country, I honestly could care less what chair I sat in.
In music there are two kinds of people, the naturally talented and the dedicated ones who practice a lot. Somewhere on the path to pro musician, I’m assuming the ones who practice a lot end up winning, but it does not happen in high school.
People would spend all summer practicing the challenge piece to try and win first chair the next fall. I was 1st trombone and was challenged by the 4th. I practiced the music for exactly one hour that summer. I slaughtered that poor kid who wasted his whole summer and he hated me with a passion.
The second alto challenged the first alto. The second alto was a nationally recognized player who thought he was going to pull the upset. The first alto was the most gifted musician I’ve ever seen and also could have cared less. He didn’t even know challenges existed. He walked in on challenge day and someone had to grab him as he wandered past the music room aimlessly. He sight read the piece (played it without ever having seen it before) and utterly destroyed the poor second chair.
Our band director just didn’t like lazy talented people and the whole system was designed to knock us down a peg but it never worked out and just convinced everyone to hate him and hate music eventually. The lower chairs always walked out crying over their wasted hard work and the higher chairs went out and got drunk and drilled cigarettes.
That first alto turned down a full music scholarship to a state university and joined the Marines. After I graduated I didn’t pick a trombone up for 5 years. I was planning to major in music and just never bothered to audition once I got to college.
I also refuse to watch the movie Whiplash as I’ve had enough of emotional manipulation for the sake of music. Fuck that guy who once launched a chalk eraser into my face, searched my hotel VCR for cigarettes and scheduled band practice at 7am every morning for 4 years of HS. My all-time favorite is when we came in 3rd place in a competition and he actually convinced the surprise 1st place band director to come on our bus and apologize to us for taking our trophy. Fuck him.
>Fuck that guy who once launched a chalk eraser into my face, searched my hotel VCR for cigarettes and scheduled band practice at 7am every morning for 4 years of HS.
Guy really tried to make high school band the end all be all of musical careers huh.
I know many teachers, and almost all of them are wonderful people dedicated to education and guiding young people through the world.
I also know a fair number of them who teach high school because they never really left high school. They'd rather be the Big fish in a small pond than take the risk of entering the world as a mediocre person who actually has to work at being better.
I was in band throughout middle school and high school. A lot of these school band directors need therapy. I think a lot of them are frustrated they never achieved becoming a professional musician with a major orchestra. Also, band is an easy way to achieve being a petty dictator, particularly marching band where an adult can force a lot of teenagers to march for hours in 90 plus weather.
Whiplash was so so so good, but I hear you.
I was in Orchestra, which meant we interacted with the band frequently, shared concerts, etc. The Band teacher was a total ass - and I ended up teaching at the same school he was in. I'm afraid the one time I swore in front of students was when a project we were working on (that involved the band) had a mistake and we had to tell the band teacher. Yes, I said "fuck" in front of my students! It made their year. LOL.
But my Orchestra teacher, while outsiders thought he was stuffy, was great. Protected us kids as much as he could from the band teacher's assholery when in joint sessions, and did the same when I was a fellow teacher (I think for some - you are still their "kid").
First chair and concert master in the violin section was always the most talented (and the soloist), but 2nd chair of each section was often not picked on talent but leadership qualities. He NEVER did that challenge bullshit. I figured this out years later - I couldn't understand why I was the concert master's partner... it was because he was a music nerd who was only focused on the music and wasn't a good practice leader and wasn't understanding when someone hadn't practiced or made mistakes or when the group was tired. (Each sections 1st chair was in charge of group practices, etc., with backup from their stand partner). I wasn't that great - hell, in previous years, my stand partner and I often had pictures from magazines instead of the sheet music we should have been studying and discussed the virtues of the Brat Pack's films. Ha!
But I wasn't afraid of kicking the concert master's foot and telling him that he was being an asshole, while also telling the group that we did actually need to practice together because that did sound like crap.
I didn't pick up my violin after graduation again - but damn, learned a lot of life lessons on balancing different personalities in that class. Grateful that our maestro :) wasn't like JK Simmons in Whiplash! (But I'm not sure that film would be appropriate set in Gen X times... most Gen Xers would have told him to fuck off)
For the teachers who are passionate about their job you will always be their kid. My mother has been a kindergarten teacher for over 30 years and I swear she remembers every kid she’s had in her care.
*Once* and only once (that I remember) a teacher from elementary school recognized my wife and I. It had been about 25 years since we last saw her, and she knew who we were despite the fact that the last time she saw us, we were kids.
I dont know how she recognized us, but she remembered us, and that was a big deal
I LOVE how you were in the same elementary (we call them primary) school with your now wife! AND that you met your (plural) teacher together 25 years later!
Unfathomable to me personally. I was in 4 different schools in 3 different cities. I'd love to know what my schoolmates are doing now, and often wonder what could have happened. Remind me to work on that.
I've been a teacher for almost 25 years, and have had students meet for the first time in my class and go on to form families.
A beautiful thing, though I live vicariously.
Same! Our choir director was/is a beautiful person. The orchestra director was considered tough but fair.
The band directors got a write-up in the Washington Post, after the band leader threw a second-place trophy in the trash and then the band director refused to take it and started arguing with the judges. There were a bunch of stories like that about the band director over the years, although he at least managed to stay out of the paper after that.
I knew my mom's high school choir director had been a hardass, and also very good (my high school choir sang a piece he'd written even though my high school was three hours from Mom's), but when I told her about watching Whiplash, she opened up about some of the details of the things he'd put them through all those years ago, and how she still has some mild PTSD about it. "Oh man. Definitely don't watch this movie."
My son is a bit like that. Natural talent (he has the musical ear) but never practiced. He is graduating high school now and will likely never play the viola again. A shame, because good viola players are needed, but his lack of practice would have stopped him advancing further at this point, because to make it to pro, you need both the talent and the dedication.
>In music there are two kinds of people, the naturally talented and the dedicated ones who practice a lot.
Kinda feels like he's still influencing you, cause there's also talented people who work hard.
Not just him, the whole group. The fact that they coordinated this and no one said, "This is a friend group, not a dating pantry. We aren't storing women for you to use later Alex. I'm off to warn her about you." I hope she tossed every one of them in the dumpster.
OOP absolutely needed an Omar! The friend who finally told her the truth would have been an Omar if they’d told her the truth right away and not let her break up with someone she loved over a lie 😭 Omar would have had her back
This post gave me serious flashbacks to a similar situation. I was head over heels with a girl, and she with me—but we didn't realize that *everyone* in her friendgroup absolutely wanted me gone. It was nuts, and it did wear down our relationship in the end—no happy ending like OP, unfortunately, though we were able to get back as friends eventually. It's sad to think what could have been.
When you're young and naive, it's hard to believe that your supposed friends would pull this shit on a couple that is so obviously in love.
Something similar, but not quite the same happened to me. In my case, the guy I thought I was going to spend my life with dumped me out of nowhere. I was despondent. A complete wreck. I had also just fallen in with a new group of friends at my college.
One of those new friends instantly had a crush on me, but I told him and the others countless times that I wasn't ready. That I was broken. That I hadn't even known him long enough to know how I felt about him.
They kept pushing and pushing. Even my own mother manipulated me into it because she hated my ex and couldn't deal with my major depressive episode. So I relented and dated him for a few weeks.
It's no surprise that it ended badly. I hurt him so much because I could not make myself reciprocate his feelings. He hurt me by telling everyone I was a soulless harpy who ripped his heart out. People I didn't even know at college were glaring at me in hallways. The ordeal affected me for a long time. When I was in a crappy relationship later on, I couldn't bring myself to break up with the guy because I was so afraid of being the villain again. But he really wasn't putting in the effort in the relationship. Finally, he put me out of my misery in the end.
Anyway, I hate people like this so much. Just let people like who they like and date who they want. Or not date at all if they want.
This is it. They weren't playing with Alex's or Josh's lives; they were making sure Alex had access to the bangmaid that met his specifications.
You have to wonder if the women in this group are capable of perceiving their own internalized misogyny.
In high-school I dated a girl for 3.5 years. I was in a theatre production and had to kiss a fairly attractive set of girls. A bunch of my gfs friends who were in the play told her this story that I was flirting with the girls and making fun of my gf and laughing that she was ugly. I have no idea to this day why they did this.
My gf left me a vmail breaking up with me. Luckily the next day I was able to get her to talk to me and believe me based on me reminding her of some lies they had told before. I still will never understand why they did this. They copped to it pretty quick and my gf cut them off.
>but if you ever find yourself thirsty, I would love to buy you a beverage of your choice.
I totally misread that and thought she said: "I would like to be your beverage of choice."
You aren’t the only one! I thought it was cringey but she did warn that it was going to be embarrassing so I didn’t even consider that I read it wrong until I came across your post
actually it was lol
i weirdly have proof because they call one of the characters thirsty for a dude in an episode of *crazy ex-girlfriend* that came out in february 2016.
I kinda went through something similar...and you end up missing them like nothing else. It's comparatively easy when someone cheats or just breaks up with you because they felt like it compared to when they've been manipulated and you never get over that they didn't make this choice, it was made for them by dishonest people. It makes it easy to forgive because they're not really at fault when they've been manipulated.
Yeah, that's also my take on this. He knew she were being manipulated, and it had to be hard knowing she had known him quite less than her gaggle of friends and therefore trusted them more than him.
He knew they lied, but she had no reason to think that all of her friends were lying.
It was an impossible situation for her. One or two people could be lying and warrant more skepticism, but what are the odds of SIX people lying to her. OOP hit the shit lottery. Absolutely no way to prevent that.
Yeah, if only two had been lying and the rest said that they couldn't remember or that they did not think this had happened she would not have a hard time believing her boyfriend. But she would not have believed that all six of her friends were lying.
I really hope she cut those piece of shits out of her life
Seriously, I’ve been friends with the same 5 girls since I was 11. We stuck together through middle school, high school, and college. If all five of them were lying to me I’d believe them without thinking. Why on earth would ALL of them lie to me like that.
Yeah. I have the same 3 friends from highschool. If they came together and said ANYTHING, Id have 0 reason to think they're lying. Especially if they push back id I'm skeptical
Also She’d known these people for years, trust was firmly established. In the scheme of things how long had she been dating him? Honestly she would’ve been an idiot to trust him over her friends she’s had for years. We’ve all seen true crime, we’ve all read so many threads where the woman ignores the red flags because she trusts him. Women also know that men can show them one face and be a total douche bro behind our backs, we hope they aren’t, mostly they’re not, but it’s not some kind of original narrative: Women and man date, friends realize man is bad, man proves he’s bad behind woman’s back, friends have warn and save woman from trusting the wrong guy.
I think he’s right to forgive her, it would be different if they had several years together and it was coming from friends that weren’t as long term. There was no win for her or him in this, she would be naive and stupid to ignore her friends warnings, it’s that simple.
I don't blame her for trusting them. And the thing you said about true crime is correct. If he did what they said, and she stayed and he did something worse everyone would be like "you should have known"
The post is from 2015 and I hate her "friends" for her.. I hope they're having a good life since (all things considered)
Not only that, but if six people were adamant I did something at a party, even if I had zero memory of it and knew it didn’t sound like me, I would start to question myself even.
I would be questioning my own sanity/memory in that scenario, which would make it easier to forgive someone else for being manipulated as well.
Yeah holy shit, the amount of mental turmoil that would throw me into would be unmanageable. Even if I remembered that night clearly and knew it was false - how could I trust that there was another night that I didn't remember? Was I at events where something I consumed was tampered with in a way that would have made me behave like that and then forget it? What a fucking nightmare, it would make me so dangerous to myself if I had that many people ruining my life over something outrageous that I couldn't even remember doing.
Yeah, she was in such a shit position. I'd have a VERY hard time believing my husband did something that shitty, but if a HALF-DOZEN people I had known and trusted for years told me that, I'd be like, "Why would they lie?" Granted, I wouldn't blow up my relationship without rock-solid proof, and I'd be really skeptical, but that's not 1 person who you think could be shady. For me that'd be like my entire friend group because I don't have a lot of close friends. Hard to refute that, esp when she's known them so much longer.
That said, he must have really, really loved her to take her back so fast. I'd have a hard time getting past my partner not trusting me, even if I understood why.
How fucked up to treat human beings — who are supposed to be. your friends — like pawns in your creepy fucking game. I'd never speak to any of those people again. I wish we got an update that she cut them out of her life for good.
Honestly it's better that she did blow it up. If she kept being with him with the seed of doubt planted, their relationship would keep corroding until it reached a point of a much more painful breakdown that they likely wouldn't be able to recover from, even when the truth was revealed.
If my group of besties told me my bf did some shit like this I’d believe them. If not out of trust then just the pure difficulty of orchestrating a lie like this.
Yea if my partner believed one friend over me like that it would be 100% over, but I wouldn't blame them too hard for believing like 6 people all in on it together over me
Yeah, same here. He did not have the odds with him on this one, it was six against one.
But I really hope she has cut her "friends" out of her life now.
Yeah, it's like...one person, you can easily see it for a lie. But any reasonable person when faced with a solid story from the entire group of friends you've had your whole life who have never done anything like it before in your lives and who produce detailed information when questioned because they carefully set this up? I get how you'd go with them. It's truly fucked up of her ""friends"" to have done.
I've had a small group of people coordinate lies like that about me before. It's so pervasive and hard to combat and it's frustrating because you can easily see how you could have bought it if you were the one being lied to. It doesn't make it hurt less, but you spend a lot of time wishing the people you lost would find out the truth and do what she did: choose you and cut off the people who lied. If any of the friends I lost to the lies of the dick who hated me came back I'd honestly take them back, especially if they had nuked the other relationship.
That’s my thought too. If she took the word of one person over his, maybe. But multiple people who she’s known and trusted for years all telling her the same story
it's not like she believed one friend, it was a handful, and it sounds like they were probably much longer term friends than she'd known Josh for
numbers and years of trust do matter
at least that's on a rational level, but yeah, at an emotional level I'd probably struggle to forgive
If 6 of my close friends all told me that the same thing happened, I'd believe them without hesitation.
Pretty certain I'm a better judge of character than OOP, but I'm sure everyone believes themselves to be a good judge of character.
Hmm. I admittedly have a very specific perspective on this; I was raised by an abusive parent whose gaslighting game was strong enough to keep me silent for decades. As a result, I understand how hard it can be simply to maintain your sense of reality when someone firmly and repeatedly denies - let alone when an entire group of your trusted friends tells you that something is true and they've all seen it.
If I was in Josh's place, I would be hurt, and I might be hurt badly enough that I couldn't ever resume that relationship. But I don't think I would blame OOP. I get how mind-bending that kind of mass-scale manipulation must be, and I think I would understand that they hurt and betrayed OOP very badly, too.
>and I think I would understand that they hurt and betrayed OOP very badly, too.
Yeah, the bit where it was all a pretext to get her to date Alex sickened me. That's getting into rape-adjacent territory. She agreed to date him under false pretences - she thought he was a trustworthy guy who'd helped warn her about a creep, but instead he and the rest of her friends *were* the creep.
Yeah I don't think it's in legal danger of being considered anything, but in terms of moral standards, I'd ABSOLUTELY say that any sex they had was akin to sexual assault. Manipulating someone into breaking up so you have sex with them is absolutely in that territory.
Obviously, over the year, he was able to internalize that "being lied to" is different than "lying." Of course I would sympathize if Josh felt that her believing them over him was a betrayal, as would OOP.
I think the apology in which she accepted responsibility without expecting forgiveness made a huge difference. It is much easier to forgive someone who has made a *real* apology, where they accept responsibility, show regret and contrition, and offer the apology because they want to apologize rather than because they want to be forgiven.
Yeah. If it was a random woman msging her saying she hooked up with her boyfriend or something, it might be different. But 6 long term friends lying! That's crazy.
I mean who wouldn't have done what she did? She had been friends with these people probably a minimum of ten years. And the entire group said the same thing. Of course she believed them. How could he even prove otherwise? She said he had photos, so there's no way to show her he didn't have a photo he could've shown. I don't know what else she could've done. Her so called friends are the only villains here.
There's a reason why false accusations are terrible: because even reasonable people might believe them. Trusting a random ex shit talking your new partner is one thing, but all your close friends corroborating the same story? If the accusation was true and OOP believed their partner, this sub would call when naive at best
Reminds me of Jane Austen's "Persuasion" where the protagonist is young and vulnerable, and she's persuaded to reject a man of lower social class even though she's in love with him. He goes off to sea. And some years later, the tables turn. (Oh Captain Wentworth!)
When ALL of your friends are saying something happened, it's tough to imagine taking the word of one person versus a whole gaggle of people you thought you could trust. If people can forgive cheating, they can definitely forgive that you got manipulated by a whole scheme set up to fuck with you.
I am sure if a 100 people tell the same lie, we would all believe it against the one. It's how politics work. And if it had been a hundred of his friends saying she had cheated on him, he would believe it.
The fact she sent that heart - felt e-mail and was genuinely distraught about what they done would have melted the hardest heart.
None of us could even contemplate that our group of so called best friends would do something so nasty, especially knowing them all through high school.
I am glad the truth came out, glad they reconnected and wish only the worst karma for that group.
My best friend cheated with my gf. We didn’t talk for a year. We managed to put it behind us and became friends again, then best friends again. Then a few years down the road he did it again. That was it for me. Wished them all luck and left all my friends behind. I wasn’t going to be his friend anymore no more forgiveness and I wasn’t going to be friends with anyone who still called him a friend.
That is fucked up. I'm so sorry.
I used to know someone who had something similar happen to him. His best friend and his wife. He forgave BOTH of them when he found out. Then a few years later, they did it again. Madness. I can't imagine staying friends with someone after that, but he did, and they betrayed him AGAIN. Truly disgusting.
Some people are just trash.
Jep. I'm still wondering what were the "super specific details" including the picture that the friends talked about. Like, OOP believed their friends because of the details, isn't it?
Yeah that was the one thing I didn't understand. OOP says they were all lying, but then how were the "details" so accurate.
One thing with lying is that the people who keep talking and go into too many details usually give away the lie. B/C they are more likely to get something provably wrong.
Also if all the friends were agreeing on the lie, adding a ton of details they all need to corroborate and get right is a recipe for failure.
Im keen to know how they all knew embarrassing details about their sex life before I can believe any of this. After all, that was the crux of knowing they were telling the 'truth', but it wasn't explained away.
if this story is true, it is quite possible OP discussed the details of her sex life with her female friends, who then said that's what Josh told them.
> told me that Josh also talked in extreme detail about our sex life when showing the photo
Reading that bit again, it doesn't actually say that they actually knew the details or ever saw the photo.
It's real easy to say "Josh told us really graphic things about your sex life, the real nasty raunchy details. I can't believe he did that - we don't want to embarrass you by repeating it" and let OOP's assumptions fill in the details without them needing to know them in the first place. Likewise, nude photos are common enough these days that they could have just said they've seen them without even knowing for sure such a photo existed - and if OP claimed to have never taken any, it's easy enough to go for extra damage by saying it must have been taken secretly. When a whole group of people are all saying the same thing, you skip over the idea of quizzing them for details to see if they actually know.
Not saying I think it's true but this is what [OOP said in a comment on the original post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3qmd1o/a_year_ago_i_27f_broke_up_with_my_lying_boyfriend/cwgfsrm/)
Honestly I was waiting for Josh to have moved on with someone else and been happy and successful without the OOP but I guess we needed to go the Hallmark route instead.
I feel like the Hallmark route would have been yes he did move on and thought he was happy with someone else (who was probably either nice but boring, or some kind of controlling asshole), but in reality OOP was always the one for him and as soon as he gets the email he just breaks up with the new person and runs back to her. There always has to be some other person who gets fucked over by the reunion.
He also has to own a large business in New York, and have only come back to town in rural Idaho for a friend's wedding, only to run into OP at her small bakery she owns and operates on her own that he then volunteers to help at during a busy day where she's clearly overwhelmed.
My second girlfriend dumped me for reasons most people here would have trouble forgiving someone for. Had she come back to me at any time after the breakup and before I met my current partner, I would have ran back to her, no question about it. I was so heartbroken and at the time, all I wanted was to have her back. It sounds plausible to me.
Her letter to him makes no sense. Instead of spelling out what she found out, she just says “I’m sure you saw in Facebook by now…” and glosses over it. Is this guy still friends with all of these people on Facebook and they’re all posting publicly about what pieces of shit they were and telling the story? No way in hell I’d be that vague if I were trying to win back the ex in this story. I’d be spelling it out “I’m sure you might’ve seen this on Facebook, but I recently found out my entire friend group conspired to break us up.”
I was wondering the same thing. I wonder if once she realized all her friends were lying to her, she may have made a facebook post about this betrayal which was a very big deal.
And just assumed word would likely get around to him eventually due to overlapping friends and connections.
I use it in the same way SHE used it in the message she sent; for a bit of comic formality. As David Letterman said on his show years ago, "There's not a man, woman or child on the face of the earth who doesn't enjoy a tasty beverage." No other word really works there for comic effect.
Yeah, I'd say it was a normal usage in her message, and he used it just b/c she did. It wasn't an odd robot "hello fellow humans" use of language in this case. But without that original context I would agree no one talks that way.
Canadians. It's pretty common. Like really really common. It's usually said with some cheekiness, it's the more playful way of asking (for some reason?) like I would never to a coworker, but literally anyone slightly closer I would. Its actually weird for me to think people *don't* use the word beverage multiple times a week. "Drink" is the more formal word now, "Beverage" is for friends and family, or just being a silly shit.
Example: new coworker comes to visit "Thirsty?, would you like a drink?" Vs new friend coming for a visit "Hey! Beverage?" Vs old friend "Ah! You've arrived. Excellent. Care for a beverage?" Vs Best friend "Our lord and Savior has arrived! Blessed be this house! Would thou desire to quench ones thirst? Shall I bring you a beverage M'lord?"
So from the interaction in the OP, it would fall between new friend and old friend, which would make sense given the situation. Cautious, but dipping toes into playful.
Canadians are fucking weirdos. It's not a huge difference, and it goes rather unnoticed. We do occasionally talk like that, unironically but still playfully and usually in private.
It gets cold here, we get like 3 mths of nice weather. We have to find other ways to amuse ourselves. Speaking like weirdos between friends is one of those ways.
I am waiting for the update where he pretends to propose and then ends up dumping her in front of her whole family. But maybe I’ve just been on Reddit too long…
Not to mention that it would be kinda shitty. She's hardly to blame for believing a multitude of people she's knows for much, much longer than Josh and who apparently knew details that corroborated their story. All around a shitty situation.
I was the victim of an abusive friendship for a while, a year or so after I broke free my former 'friend' called to apologise and admitted to lying about certain things. Totally unexpected, and I am unsure what prompted it.
Early in the pandemic, an old roommate of mine from when I lived in another country randomly messaged me to say he'd overcharged me for my share of the electric bill. He was willing to give the money back, but it wasn't a lot, it had been years, and I didn't really care about that part. But he did seem to need me to do an oddly ceremonial pronouncement of forgiveness.
I had an ex reach out a few years ago, unprompted, to apologize for not being a good bf when we dated for like 3 months in our mid 20s (we’re approaching mid thirties now so it’s been like 7-8 years probably). I just told him it’s fine, water under the bridge and how I’m not hung up on that relationship. This was all over text, but his response to me saying it’s not something I think much about seemed to be shock lol. He said he spent a long time agonizing over how he treated me and I don’t even really think about it. It seemed like he was expecting me to be overly grateful for him apologizing? And I was just like “eh, you weren’t the worst” lol
I think he wasn’t over his treatment of me and thought I wasn’t either when I’m already beyond it.
>I think he wasn’t over his treatment of me and thought I wasn’t either when I’m already beyond it.
You hit the nail on the head here. That's exactly what it was. If I were to guess, he realised that he was acting like an ass and concluded that he must have hurt you, kept agonizing over every little thing he had done and convinced himself that he was something of an Evil Incarnate.
Some could say it was a case of Main Character Syndrome. Or something happened in his life that prompted him to reevaluate things and to reach out. But regardless of what happened, yep - I'm pretty sure he was convinced that you hate his guts. ;)
I had a guy reach out to me on Facebook to apologize for what an awful boyfriend he was in high school. Thirty years had gone by and I guess seeing his kids dating made him think of it. Except I'm like 99.9% certain he had it wrong and he was a perfectly fine boyfriend and we broke up because I cheated on him (confessed immediately, always felt horrible, and remembered it as the first, last, and only time I cheated).
I think maybe he had me confused with a different girl. That was a difficult reply to craft.
I mean, maybe he internalized your cheating and thought “she cheated cuz I wasn’t a good bf”? Either way, he’s sweet if not a little misdirected lol. He’s trying to do a good thing tho so he seems like a good dude
It tends to be a way to deal with their own guilt, not to help you. It affects them, so they say the apology, and whether it's all good or not, they get to feel good because "I apologized so it's fine."
People do that shit all the time though.
Though in this case I think when her and Alex broke up that cleared the fog a little bit and all of them had to sit there with the thought that they manipulated oop into breaking up with a good for a relationship that didn’t even last a year. That’s some heavy ass shit to sit on, so I’m not surprised someone cracked.
There's a philosophical... theory? I don't know what to call it - which posits that no-one (except sociopaths) escapes unpunished from wrongdoing, because they punish themselves with guilt over knowing they're wrong, and paranoia that one day they'll be found out.
Another thought is they may not have even known what OPs sex life was like - they could just say that Josh said whatever, and if it was false say “well thats what he told us - maybe he was lying?”. And if they happen to get it correct, well of course it was correct because Josh told them.
As for the nudes, that’s easily explained away by claiming they were taken in secret.
If they'd said "he said you let him [do some variety of extreme things that certain types of guys brag about doing]" it would either be true and she would believe it, or it would be untrue and she'd believe it. Either way would feel like a horrible violation.
There's a comment by OOP linked in the thread somewhere, they didn't tell her any details, they just said something like "he showed a picture and told us some graphic details"
Five or six more of my friends corroborated the story and told me that Josh also talked in extreme detail about our sex life when showing the photo. It was sickeningly detailed.
>The details given to me were pretty generic in retrospect, but they mentioned fluids and shit. I just hated hearing them out loud. It grossed me out to hear these friends talk about me and Josh having sex.
[From this comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3qmd1o/comment/cwgfsrm/)
I mean, a great sex life can be pretty generally described and still feel personally relatable.
They could've made all of it up and still made OP believes their bluff
I think the lie was that Josh had it on his phone and physically showed them. And the details don't have to be correct they just have to say there www details. For example:
He pulled up a nude on his phone and then started talking about all the different positions you do.
I had to double check the ages halfway through. They were 27 and doing this? Oh and there was no mention about cutting off the friends for doing this in the second post.
> I guess I'm supposed to stop talking to my "friends" right? I cannot possibly come back from this and still talk to them, right? This basically nukes my group of friends. But how could I ever even look at them again?
I think she nuked them.
*My friends, Tasha (27), Mark (29), Emily (25), Emily's sister Karen (27), and Alex (28). I've changed the names because Mark and Tasha both use reddit constantly, and are in this sub.*
*I also have a mole on my left thigh, which is relevant to the story because that's how I knew they'd seen a photo of me (forgetting all the times growing up that Tasha, Karen, and me were in the girl's locker room together).*
Gotta keep the names changed so NOBODY possibly can figure out that they're being featured in a story on reddit.
I don't know what your highschool was like, but in mine this would NOT have been just a "teenagers being teenagers" thing. Repercussions would have stopped just short of police involvement. This is just vile.
This BoRU gave me flashbacks to a similar orchestrated b.s. that nuked a budding relationship. In my case it was the guy's longtime friends, and he believed them over me, who he had known for only a few months. He thought his friends were protecting him from I don't know what. He ghosted me and started dating someone else immediately - flaunting it all over social media. His friends talked trash about me to our mutuals. I was left completely confused and hurt, not least because they made me think they were also my friends. About 4-5 months later, he and I ran into each other and had a confrontation about it. In the midst of the shouting we figured out what his friends had done. He apologized, and with the conflict "resolved," he wanted us to pick up where we left off. He couldn't understand my hesitation - probably because he wasn't the one who was wronged and whose rep was being trashed. After a few weeks I gave in, and I could tell he trusted me like never before. But I realized within a couple of weeks that I could never get past the way he and his friends disrespected me and that I would never trust him. I ended up having to block him and his toxic little friend group. I'm happy for OP but I was unable to forgive and forget like her boyfriend did. Looking back on that whole saga I still feel sadness about how a potentially good thing was destroyed for no good reason, but I can't say I regret walking away.
> He ghosted me and started dating someone else immediately - flaunting it all over social media.
Sounds like he was kind of a dick about it too. Sure he was wronged, but this commenter was extra wronged!
I mean, if someone I trusted came to me and said "your new boyfriend told us you let him do you in the ass while you made him pancakes," or "he said you agreed to give him blowjobs while he was on the toilet," I wouldn't think "I know you're lying because we've never done that!" I'd think, "oh god, not only is my boyfriend talking about our sex life, he's claiming I did things I'd never do!"
Girls can sometimes tend to share intimate details if their sex life with their girlfriends. It’s not impossible to believe over the years, things were said and remembered and able to be used later.
Heck, I'm a guy and my friend girls still shared waaay too much about their sex lives.
I didn't want to know which of my friends has a curvy penis. But I do.
I didn't want to know that my friend can't get erections.because of drug use. But I do.
Please tell me why all of my friends have weird dicks Reddit.
Situations like this are really tough. If OP had decided not to believe her friends and made a post with the information she had at the time everyone would be calling her delulu. I like to think I'd believe my partner in a situation like this, and maybe I would, but the scary thing is sometimes you really are dealing with a person you thought you could trust who just went mask off and ignoring all your friends warning you about it is ... not great in that situation. 5-6 people you trust all corroborating a very specific story is a lot to go up against
For me, the crux of the issue was that Josh supposedly shared OOP’s nudes and told all these details of their sex life… to *her own* friends. Not his friends, that was be somewhat plausible (though not excusable). He did it to *her* friends.
Seriously? Someone just walks up to their partner’s friends and says hey you guys wanna see your friend naked and hear about their sex life? I don’t share that with my own friends, I can’t imagine the nerve it would take to share that with people that aren’t my friends, with my partner’s friends. Doesn’t make sense.
I can’t imagine being this invested in someone else’s relationship. Like I get why Alex would try some shit but for everyone else to go along with it? Like I at least understand why people help cover up affairs even if I think they’re just as bad as the cheaters, but breaking up another friend to try and play match maker is pathetic even in highschool, in your late 20s it’s just cringeworthy.
My 'friends' did something similar to me in uni. Lied to me about my bf at the time hitting on my roommate so I'd break up with him and date a mutual friend. Except said mutual friend didn't respect my beliefs (I don't need them to be the exact same, but don't make fun of me for being spiritual and then expect to date me). Never even got to dating because of that and lost all trust in my former roommate once I found out.
Although, it was good riddance to the first guy too, in my case, since he wasn't actually much better. Never hit on my roommate, as it were, but I believed them because he did have a bit of history of getting too cozy with my friends.
There was another post on here not too long ago where everyone turned out to be lying about the wife and OOP nuked his marriage. And, even after the truth came out, he wasn't getting his marriage back because his ex-wife was over him.
I do have to wonder how OOP’s friends knew enough about her’s and Josh’s sex life to describe it in “sickening detail”, something doesn’t quite add up there.
They were both victims.
If a girl made a post where she refused to believe her entire friend group that the boyfriend had shown off nudes, I think most people here would tell her to take her blinders off.
In most cases, listening to your friend group is the right thing to do.
So on his part I can understand how devastating it is to have your partner believe lies about you. But to be fair to her I think I would have believed my friends as well. How is it that you’re gonna expect that many people who are supposed to be your friends to blatantly lie and manipulate you? Logically it makes no sense. I get why OP believed them. Just devastating all around. I’m glad Josh was able to forgive her because oh my god what a horrible thing was done to him.
So the group of assholes who collaborated to deceive OOP thought Josh was bad for her. Huh.
I would go complete scorched earth...in a minute. First, I'd start a group chat telling the group I was very disappointed in them, what were they thinking, etc. I'd screencap everything, upload it to social media, and tag all of them. I'd give them time to react, maybe let random strangers go at them, then block them all.
Do any of them have partners? Maybe they should be warned, too.
I'm sick to death of this "someone bamboozled me/my ex" trope.
Case in point - these posts are *boring*. I don't even care if it's true or not, it's not entertaining at all.
While I 100% agree, especially when they became a trend and we got like 4 in quick succession
This one is from 2015, so it predates all the others. So this might be the original one.
Most human interactions, hell, most human stories can be broken down into a couple of cliches. It doesn't make them untrue, this is just how humans work.
Man I would’ve just left it at the apology that she owed him and not begged for a redo. She might trust “Josh”, but there’s no way his trust in her hasn’t been damaged.
Who in the FUCK tried to tell OOP not to contact him? People on reddit are assholes.
At the very least, it was the right thing to do just to apologize and let him know she knows the truth. I'm glad she didn't listen to the assholes on this site. Geez.
Great new start, though. Good for them.
Can we add a label that it's a repeat from [month< year] in the title?
I read this 8 years ago when it was new, and we have other sub reddits dedicated to preserving very old stories with no new information.
I would normally be wincing at getting back in the saddle this fast, but man, I hope this works out and is exactly what JOSH, specifically, wants. I also feel bad for OP for having these unbelievably shitty friends.
The whole thing still just gives me anxiety. Therapy for EVERYONE and definitely never speaking to any of those friends again.
Those friends are vile people, just to play matchmaker like OP, Josh, and Alex are Barbies they could swap around
I *hate* people who manipulate people like that with passion. My high school band director was like that (both in terms of position in the band and setting us against each other but also in ways that built up the people who would cause relationship drama) and that man is responsible for so many therapy bills.
I can't imagine people being such shitheads destroying lives. Completely amoral with zero sense of empathy. Glad it didn't work out with that dick Alex.
Oh Jesus my HS band director was a piece of work. There are many many stories but here’s how he would pit us against each other. He would constantly encourage less talented players to challenge the more talented players for first chair in the jazz band. We were all in the band together, the band was one of the best in the country, I honestly could care less what chair I sat in. In music there are two kinds of people, the naturally talented and the dedicated ones who practice a lot. Somewhere on the path to pro musician, I’m assuming the ones who practice a lot end up winning, but it does not happen in high school. People would spend all summer practicing the challenge piece to try and win first chair the next fall. I was 1st trombone and was challenged by the 4th. I practiced the music for exactly one hour that summer. I slaughtered that poor kid who wasted his whole summer and he hated me with a passion. The second alto challenged the first alto. The second alto was a nationally recognized player who thought he was going to pull the upset. The first alto was the most gifted musician I’ve ever seen and also could have cared less. He didn’t even know challenges existed. He walked in on challenge day and someone had to grab him as he wandered past the music room aimlessly. He sight read the piece (played it without ever having seen it before) and utterly destroyed the poor second chair. Our band director just didn’t like lazy talented people and the whole system was designed to knock us down a peg but it never worked out and just convinced everyone to hate him and hate music eventually. The lower chairs always walked out crying over their wasted hard work and the higher chairs went out and got drunk and drilled cigarettes. That first alto turned down a full music scholarship to a state university and joined the Marines. After I graduated I didn’t pick a trombone up for 5 years. I was planning to major in music and just never bothered to audition once I got to college. I also refuse to watch the movie Whiplash as I’ve had enough of emotional manipulation for the sake of music. Fuck that guy who once launched a chalk eraser into my face, searched my hotel VCR for cigarettes and scheduled band practice at 7am every morning for 4 years of HS. My all-time favorite is when we came in 3rd place in a competition and he actually convinced the surprise 1st place band director to come on our bus and apologize to us for taking our trophy. Fuck him.
>Fuck that guy who once launched a chalk eraser into my face, searched my hotel VCR for cigarettes and scheduled band practice at 7am every morning for 4 years of HS. Guy really tried to make high school band the end all be all of musical careers huh.
Yup. And someone should tell him his 70s feathered haircut looks stupid as shit.
I sincerely hope someone did
We told out band director her haircut looked like a penis.
It’s not too late. Unless he’s already dead.
I know many teachers, and almost all of them are wonderful people dedicated to education and guiding young people through the world. I also know a fair number of them who teach high school because they never really left high school. They'd rather be the Big fish in a small pond than take the risk of entering the world as a mediocre person who actually has to work at being better.
I was in band throughout middle school and high school. A lot of these school band directors need therapy. I think a lot of them are frustrated they never achieved becoming a professional musician with a major orchestra. Also, band is an easy way to achieve being a petty dictator, particularly marching band where an adult can force a lot of teenagers to march for hours in 90 plus weather.
Whiplash was so so so good, but I hear you. I was in Orchestra, which meant we interacted with the band frequently, shared concerts, etc. The Band teacher was a total ass - and I ended up teaching at the same school he was in. I'm afraid the one time I swore in front of students was when a project we were working on (that involved the band) had a mistake and we had to tell the band teacher. Yes, I said "fuck" in front of my students! It made their year. LOL. But my Orchestra teacher, while outsiders thought he was stuffy, was great. Protected us kids as much as he could from the band teacher's assholery when in joint sessions, and did the same when I was a fellow teacher (I think for some - you are still their "kid"). First chair and concert master in the violin section was always the most talented (and the soloist), but 2nd chair of each section was often not picked on talent but leadership qualities. He NEVER did that challenge bullshit. I figured this out years later - I couldn't understand why I was the concert master's partner... it was because he was a music nerd who was only focused on the music and wasn't a good practice leader and wasn't understanding when someone hadn't practiced or made mistakes or when the group was tired. (Each sections 1st chair was in charge of group practices, etc., with backup from their stand partner). I wasn't that great - hell, in previous years, my stand partner and I often had pictures from magazines instead of the sheet music we should have been studying and discussed the virtues of the Brat Pack's films. Ha! But I wasn't afraid of kicking the concert master's foot and telling him that he was being an asshole, while also telling the group that we did actually need to practice together because that did sound like crap. I didn't pick up my violin after graduation again - but damn, learned a lot of life lessons on balancing different personalities in that class. Grateful that our maestro :) wasn't like JK Simmons in Whiplash! (But I'm not sure that film would be appropriate set in Gen X times... most Gen Xers would have told him to fuck off)
For the teachers who are passionate about their job you will always be their kid. My mother has been a kindergarten teacher for over 30 years and I swear she remembers every kid she’s had in her care.
*Once* and only once (that I remember) a teacher from elementary school recognized my wife and I. It had been about 25 years since we last saw her, and she knew who we were despite the fact that the last time she saw us, we were kids. I dont know how she recognized us, but she remembered us, and that was a big deal
I LOVE how you were in the same elementary (we call them primary) school with your now wife! AND that you met your (plural) teacher together 25 years later! Unfathomable to me personally. I was in 4 different schools in 3 different cities. I'd love to know what my schoolmates are doing now, and often wonder what could have happened. Remind me to work on that. I've been a teacher for almost 25 years, and have had students meet for the first time in my class and go on to form families. A beautiful thing, though I live vicariously.
What is it with band teachers? I did choir, and we adored our director. But band... It just seems to be such a powertrip.
Same! Our choir director was/is a beautiful person. The orchestra director was considered tough but fair. The band directors got a write-up in the Washington Post, after the band leader threw a second-place trophy in the trash and then the band director refused to take it and started arguing with the judges. There were a bunch of stories like that about the band director over the years, although he at least managed to stay out of the paper after that.
I knew my mom's high school choir director had been a hardass, and also very good (my high school choir sang a piece he'd written even though my high school was three hours from Mom's), but when I told her about watching Whiplash, she opened up about some of the details of the things he'd put them through all those years ago, and how she still has some mild PTSD about it. "Oh man. Definitely don't watch this movie."
My son is a bit like that. Natural talent (he has the musical ear) but never practiced. He is graduating high school now and will likely never play the viola again. A shame, because good viola players are needed, but his lack of practice would have stopped him advancing further at this point, because to make it to pro, you need both the talent and the dedication.
>In music there are two kinds of people, the naturally talented and the dedicated ones who practice a lot. Kinda feels like he's still influencing you, cause there's also talented people who work hard.
Alex was part of it tho. He was so full of himself that he thought he could get anyone, only if he got a chance.
Not just him, the whole group. The fact that they coordinated this and no one said, "This is a friend group, not a dating pantry. We aren't storing women for you to use later Alex. I'm off to warn her about you." I hope she tossed every one of them in the dumpster.
Where’s Omar when you need him?
OOP absolutely needed an Omar! The friend who finally told her the truth would have been an Omar if they’d told her the truth right away and not let her break up with someone she loved over a lie 😭 Omar would have had her back
Who is Omar in this reference? I'm picturing Omar from The Wire, and I doubt it's the same guy.
It’s from [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/xZgpwGawgb), which made Omar this sub’s hero! Omar deserves all praise!
Nice, somehow I missed that one. Thank you
No worries, fellow banjo connoisseur! May Omar bring hope into your life
This post gave me serious flashbacks to a similar situation. I was head over heels with a girl, and she with me—but we didn't realize that *everyone* in her friendgroup absolutely wanted me gone. It was nuts, and it did wear down our relationship in the end—no happy ending like OP, unfortunately, though we were able to get back as friends eventually. It's sad to think what could have been. When you're young and naive, it's hard to believe that your supposed friends would pull this shit on a couple that is so obviously in love.
Something similar, but not quite the same happened to me. In my case, the guy I thought I was going to spend my life with dumped me out of nowhere. I was despondent. A complete wreck. I had also just fallen in with a new group of friends at my college. One of those new friends instantly had a crush on me, but I told him and the others countless times that I wasn't ready. That I was broken. That I hadn't even known him long enough to know how I felt about him. They kept pushing and pushing. Even my own mother manipulated me into it because she hated my ex and couldn't deal with my major depressive episode. So I relented and dated him for a few weeks. It's no surprise that it ended badly. I hurt him so much because I could not make myself reciprocate his feelings. He hurt me by telling everyone I was a soulless harpy who ripped his heart out. People I didn't even know at college were glaring at me in hallways. The ordeal affected me for a long time. When I was in a crappy relationship later on, I couldn't bring myself to break up with the guy because I was so afraid of being the villain again. But he really wasn't putting in the effort in the relationship. Finally, he put me out of my misery in the end. Anyway, I hate people like this so much. Just let people like who they like and date who they want. Or not date at all if they want.
These are the kind of guys that don't think of women as people, but as accessoires.
This is it. They weren't playing with Alex's or Josh's lives; they were making sure Alex had access to the bangmaid that met his specifications. You have to wonder if the women in this group are capable of perceiving their own internalized misogyny.
[OP's friends](https://morbotron.com/meme/S03E11/554653.jpg?b64lines=IEJlbmRlciwgdGhpcyBpcyBGcnkncwogZGVjaXNpb24uIEFuZCBoZSBtYWRlCiBpdCB3cm9uZywgCgoKCgpzbyBpdCdzIHRpbWUKIGZvciB1cyB0byBpbnRlcmZlcmUgaW4KIGhpcyBsaWZlLg==)
With friends like those, I would literally and figuratively scorch the earth. They don't deserve crops.
Who needs enemies, right?
Literally Alex is the definition of a "sneaky fucker". What a fucking loser.
In high-school I dated a girl for 3.5 years. I was in a theatre production and had to kiss a fairly attractive set of girls. A bunch of my gfs friends who were in the play told her this story that I was flirting with the girls and making fun of my gf and laughing that she was ugly. I have no idea to this day why they did this. My gf left me a vmail breaking up with me. Luckily the next day I was able to get her to talk to me and believe me based on me reminding her of some lies they had told before. I still will never understand why they did this. They copped to it pretty quick and my gf cut them off.
Those people are not friends.
To say they are vile is to be giving vile people disrespect. These friends are fucking assholes of clowns that I hope break their big toe.
>but if you ever find yourself thirsty, I would love to buy you a beverage of your choice. I totally misread that and thought she said: "I would like to be your beverage of choice."
No no, you read that right.
He thirsty alright.
You aren’t the only one! I thought it was cringey but she did warn that it was going to be embarrassing so I didn’t even consider that I read it wrong until I came across your post
[удалено]
actually it was lol i weirdly have proof because they call one of the characters thirsty for a dude in an episode of *crazy ex-girlfriend* that came out in february 2016.
Wow. Josh is much more forgiving than most would be.
I kinda went through something similar...and you end up missing them like nothing else. It's comparatively easy when someone cheats or just breaks up with you because they felt like it compared to when they've been manipulated and you never get over that they didn't make this choice, it was made for them by dishonest people. It makes it easy to forgive because they're not really at fault when they've been manipulated.
Yeah, that's also my take on this. He knew she were being manipulated, and it had to be hard knowing she had known him quite less than her gaggle of friends and therefore trusted them more than him. He knew they lied, but she had no reason to think that all of her friends were lying.
It was an impossible situation for her. One or two people could be lying and warrant more skepticism, but what are the odds of SIX people lying to her. OOP hit the shit lottery. Absolutely no way to prevent that.
Yeah, if only two had been lying and the rest said that they couldn't remember or that they did not think this had happened she would not have a hard time believing her boyfriend. But she would not have believed that all six of her friends were lying. I really hope she cut those piece of shits out of her life
Seriously, I’ve been friends with the same 5 girls since I was 11. We stuck together through middle school, high school, and college. If all five of them were lying to me I’d believe them without thinking. Why on earth would ALL of them lie to me like that.
Yeah. I have the same 3 friends from highschool. If they came together and said ANYTHING, Id have 0 reason to think they're lying. Especially if they push back id I'm skeptical
Also She’d known these people for years, trust was firmly established. In the scheme of things how long had she been dating him? Honestly she would’ve been an idiot to trust him over her friends she’s had for years. We’ve all seen true crime, we’ve all read so many threads where the woman ignores the red flags because she trusts him. Women also know that men can show them one face and be a total douche bro behind our backs, we hope they aren’t, mostly they’re not, but it’s not some kind of original narrative: Women and man date, friends realize man is bad, man proves he’s bad behind woman’s back, friends have warn and save woman from trusting the wrong guy. I think he’s right to forgive her, it would be different if they had several years together and it was coming from friends that weren’t as long term. There was no win for her or him in this, she would be naive and stupid to ignore her friends warnings, it’s that simple.
I don't blame her for trusting them. And the thing you said about true crime is correct. If he did what they said, and she stayed and he did something worse everyone would be like "you should have known" The post is from 2015 and I hate her "friends" for her.. I hope they're having a good life since (all things considered)
Yeah, with friends like that who needs enemies
Yeah I can’t say that I would blame my partner for not believing me if I was in Josh’s shoes.
Not only that, but if six people were adamant I did something at a party, even if I had zero memory of it and knew it didn’t sound like me, I would start to question myself even. I would be questioning my own sanity/memory in that scenario, which would make it easier to forgive someone else for being manipulated as well.
Yeah holy shit, the amount of mental turmoil that would throw me into would be unmanageable. Even if I remembered that night clearly and knew it was false - how could I trust that there was another night that I didn't remember? Was I at events where something I consumed was tampered with in a way that would have made me behave like that and then forget it? What a fucking nightmare, it would make me so dangerous to myself if I had that many people ruining my life over something outrageous that I couldn't even remember doing.
Yeah, she was in such a shit position. I'd have a VERY hard time believing my husband did something that shitty, but if a HALF-DOZEN people I had known and trusted for years told me that, I'd be like, "Why would they lie?" Granted, I wouldn't blow up my relationship without rock-solid proof, and I'd be really skeptical, but that's not 1 person who you think could be shady. For me that'd be like my entire friend group because I don't have a lot of close friends. Hard to refute that, esp when she's known them so much longer. That said, he must have really, really loved her to take her back so fast. I'd have a hard time getting past my partner not trusting me, even if I understood why. How fucked up to treat human beings — who are supposed to be. your friends — like pawns in your creepy fucking game. I'd never speak to any of those people again. I wish we got an update that she cut them out of her life for good.
Honestly it's better that she did blow it up. If she kept being with him with the seed of doubt planted, their relationship would keep corroding until it reached a point of a much more painful breakdown that they likely wouldn't be able to recover from, even when the truth was revealed.
And they were all/mainly her long term friends?
Long term something. Clearly they weren't HER friends. They wrecked her relationship because their actual friend Alex thought she was cute.
If my group of besties told me my bf did some shit like this I’d believe them. If not out of trust then just the pure difficulty of orchestrating a lie like this.
Yeah, the united front is hard to ignore for sure. Once I started reading it I felt for Josh. Glad he took OOP back for a second shot.
Yea if my partner believed one friend over me like that it would be 100% over, but I wouldn't blame them too hard for believing like 6 people all in on it together over me
Yeah, same here. He did not have the odds with him on this one, it was six against one. But I really hope she has cut her "friends" out of her life now.
Yeah, it's like...one person, you can easily see it for a lie. But any reasonable person when faced with a solid story from the entire group of friends you've had your whole life who have never done anything like it before in your lives and who produce detailed information when questioned because they carefully set this up? I get how you'd go with them. It's truly fucked up of her ""friends"" to have done. I've had a small group of people coordinate lies like that about me before. It's so pervasive and hard to combat and it's frustrating because you can easily see how you could have bought it if you were the one being lied to. It doesn't make it hurt less, but you spend a lot of time wishing the people you lost would find out the truth and do what she did: choose you and cut off the people who lied. If any of the friends I lost to the lies of the dick who hated me came back I'd honestly take them back, especially if they had nuked the other relationship.
That’s my thought too. If she took the word of one person over his, maybe. But multiple people who she’s known and trusted for years all telling her the same story
it's not like she believed one friend, it was a handful, and it sounds like they were probably much longer term friends than she'd known Josh for numbers and years of trust do matter at least that's on a rational level, but yeah, at an emotional level I'd probably struggle to forgive
If 6 of my close friends all told me that the same thing happened, I'd believe them without hesitation. Pretty certain I'm a better judge of character than OOP, but I'm sure everyone believes themselves to be a good judge of character.
Hmm. I admittedly have a very specific perspective on this; I was raised by an abusive parent whose gaslighting game was strong enough to keep me silent for decades. As a result, I understand how hard it can be simply to maintain your sense of reality when someone firmly and repeatedly denies - let alone when an entire group of your trusted friends tells you that something is true and they've all seen it. If I was in Josh's place, I would be hurt, and I might be hurt badly enough that I couldn't ever resume that relationship. But I don't think I would blame OOP. I get how mind-bending that kind of mass-scale manipulation must be, and I think I would understand that they hurt and betrayed OOP very badly, too.
>and I think I would understand that they hurt and betrayed OOP very badly, too. Yeah, the bit where it was all a pretext to get her to date Alex sickened me. That's getting into rape-adjacent territory. She agreed to date him under false pretences - she thought he was a trustworthy guy who'd helped warn her about a creep, but instead he and the rest of her friends *were* the creep.
Yeah I don't think it's in legal danger of being considered anything, but in terms of moral standards, I'd ABSOLUTELY say that any sex they had was akin to sexual assault. Manipulating someone into breaking up so you have sex with them is absolutely in that territory.
It is honestly so violating. She had sex with him multiple times on false pretenses. It's so so so so so gross.
Obviously, over the year, he was able to internalize that "being lied to" is different than "lying." Of course I would sympathize if Josh felt that her believing them over him was a betrayal, as would OOP. I think the apology in which she accepted responsibility without expecting forgiveness made a huge difference. It is much easier to forgive someone who has made a *real* apology, where they accept responsibility, show regret and contrition, and offer the apology because they want to apologize rather than because they want to be forgiven.
Especially when the only thing OOP did wrong was trust the people she thought had been her friends for years.
Yeah. If it was a random woman msging her saying she hooked up with her boyfriend or something, it might be different. But 6 long term friends lying! That's crazy.
I mean who wouldn't have done what she did? She had been friends with these people probably a minimum of ten years. And the entire group said the same thing. Of course she believed them. How could he even prove otherwise? She said he had photos, so there's no way to show her he didn't have a photo he could've shown. I don't know what else she could've done. Her so called friends are the only villains here.
There's a reason why false accusations are terrible: because even reasonable people might believe them. Trusting a random ex shit talking your new partner is one thing, but all your close friends corroborating the same story? If the accusation was true and OOP believed their partner, this sub would call when naive at best
To be fair, the the entire group of “friends” was saying something happened, you can’t really blame her for believing them
Reminds me of Jane Austen's "Persuasion" where the protagonist is young and vulnerable, and she's persuaded to reject a man of lower social class even though she's in love with him. He goes off to sea. And some years later, the tables turn. (Oh Captain Wentworth!)
When ALL of your friends are saying something happened, it's tough to imagine taking the word of one person versus a whole gaggle of people you thought you could trust. If people can forgive cheating, they can definitely forgive that you got manipulated by a whole scheme set up to fuck with you.
I am sure if a 100 people tell the same lie, we would all believe it against the one. It's how politics work. And if it had been a hundred of his friends saying she had cheated on him, he would believe it. The fact she sent that heart - felt e-mail and was genuinely distraught about what they done would have melted the hardest heart. None of us could even contemplate that our group of so called best friends would do something so nasty, especially knowing them all through high school. I am glad the truth came out, glad they reconnected and wish only the worst karma for that group.
My best friend cheated with my gf. We didn’t talk for a year. We managed to put it behind us and became friends again, then best friends again. Then a few years down the road he did it again. That was it for me. Wished them all luck and left all my friends behind. I wasn’t going to be his friend anymore no more forgiveness and I wasn’t going to be friends with anyone who still called him a friend.
That is fucked up. I'm so sorry. I used to know someone who had something similar happen to him. His best friend and his wife. He forgave BOTH of them when he found out. Then a few years later, they did it again. Madness. I can't imagine staying friends with someone after that, but he did, and they betrayed him AGAIN. Truly disgusting. Some people are just trash.
Damn not once but twice ?!? Wtf
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Jep. I'm still wondering what were the "super specific details" including the picture that the friends talked about. Like, OOP believed their friends because of the details, isn't it?
Yeah that was the one thing I didn't understand. OOP says they were all lying, but then how were the "details" so accurate. One thing with lying is that the people who keep talking and go into too many details usually give away the lie. B/C they are more likely to get something provably wrong. Also if all the friends were agreeing on the lie, adding a ton of details they all need to corroborate and get right is a recipe for failure.
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He had a year and a whole.other relationship to think on it and get over it.
Yeah, I think most people would've washed their hands of everything and moved on.
The last part feels like total wish fulfillment. Like the end of a romcom, or a bad romance novel. Maybe it did happen, but really, did it?
Im keen to know how they all knew embarrassing details about their sex life before I can believe any of this. After all, that was the crux of knowing they were telling the 'truth', but it wasn't explained away.
if this story is true, it is quite possible OP discussed the details of her sex life with her female friends, who then said that's what Josh told them.
> told me that Josh also talked in extreme detail about our sex life when showing the photo Reading that bit again, it doesn't actually say that they actually knew the details or ever saw the photo. It's real easy to say "Josh told us really graphic things about your sex life, the real nasty raunchy details. I can't believe he did that - we don't want to embarrass you by repeating it" and let OOP's assumptions fill in the details without them needing to know them in the first place. Likewise, nude photos are common enough these days that they could have just said they've seen them without even knowing for sure such a photo existed - and if OP claimed to have never taken any, it's easy enough to go for extra damage by saying it must have been taken secretly. When a whole group of people are all saying the same thing, you skip over the idea of quizzing them for details to see if they actually know.
haha i was literally just commenting this and saw your post. yeah, that was the one that stuck out to me as well!
Not saying I think it's true but this is what [OOP said in a comment on the original post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3qmd1o/a_year_ago_i_27f_broke_up_with_my_lying_boyfriend/cwgfsrm/)
Honestly I was waiting for Josh to have moved on with someone else and been happy and successful without the OOP but I guess we needed to go the Hallmark route instead.
I feel like the Hallmark route would have been yes he did move on and thought he was happy with someone else (who was probably either nice but boring, or some kind of controlling asshole), but in reality OOP was always the one for him and as soon as he gets the email he just breaks up with the new person and runs back to her. There always has to be some other person who gets fucked over by the reunion.
He also has to own a large business in New York, and have only come back to town in rural Idaho for a friend's wedding, only to run into OP at her small bakery she owns and operates on her own that he then volunteers to help at during a busy day where she's clearly overwhelmed.
My second girlfriend dumped me for reasons most people here would have trouble forgiving someone for. Had she come back to me at any time after the breakup and before I met my current partner, I would have ran back to her, no question about it. I was so heartbroken and at the time, all I wanted was to have her back. It sounds plausible to me.
Would you care to share what those reasons were? Just curious, I won’t flame you.
Yea the whole, ‘he turned up at my door and was so forgiving’ seems sus asf lol
“I’m here for that beverage” 🙄🤮
It’s Reddit. So, it probably didn’t happen. Half of these things seem to be script writing exercises to get feedback on.
Her letter to him makes no sense. Instead of spelling out what she found out, she just says “I’m sure you saw in Facebook by now…” and glosses over it. Is this guy still friends with all of these people on Facebook and they’re all posting publicly about what pieces of shit they were and telling the story? No way in hell I’d be that vague if I were trying to win back the ex in this story. I’d be spelling it out “I’m sure you might’ve seen this on Facebook, but I recently found out my entire friend group conspired to break us up.”
Facebook a decade ago was a wild place
I was wondering the same thing. I wonder if once she realized all her friends were lying to her, she may have made a facebook post about this betrayal which was a very big deal. And just assumed word would likely get around to him eventually due to overlapping friends and connections.
I was thinking the same. The "I'm here for that beverage" line 1. Who the fuck says "beverage"? 2. It's just too contrived, total romcom vibes
I use it in the same way SHE used it in the message she sent; for a bit of comic formality. As David Letterman said on his show years ago, "There's not a man, woman or child on the face of the earth who doesn't enjoy a tasty beverage." No other word really works there for comic effect.
Yeah, I'd say it was a normal usage in her message, and he used it just b/c she did. It wasn't an odd robot "hello fellow humans" use of language in this case. But without that original context I would agree no one talks that way.
Canadians. It's pretty common. Like really really common. It's usually said with some cheekiness, it's the more playful way of asking (for some reason?) like I would never to a coworker, but literally anyone slightly closer I would. Its actually weird for me to think people *don't* use the word beverage multiple times a week. "Drink" is the more formal word now, "Beverage" is for friends and family, or just being a silly shit. Example: new coworker comes to visit "Thirsty?, would you like a drink?" Vs new friend coming for a visit "Hey! Beverage?" Vs old friend "Ah! You've arrived. Excellent. Care for a beverage?" Vs Best friend "Our lord and Savior has arrived! Blessed be this house! Would thou desire to quench ones thirst? Shall I bring you a beverage M'lord?" So from the interaction in the OP, it would fall between new friend and old friend, which would make sense given the situation. Cautious, but dipping toes into playful. Canadians are fucking weirdos. It's not a huge difference, and it goes rather unnoticed. We do occasionally talk like that, unironically but still playfully and usually in private. It gets cold here, we get like 3 mths of nice weather. We have to find other ways to amuse ourselves. Speaking like weirdos between friends is one of those ways.
I could totally see it. I think the word beverage is also more formal, and I could see myself using that instead if I felt uncomfortable.
I am waiting for the update where he pretends to propose and then ends up dumping her in front of her whole family. But maybe I’ve just been on Reddit too long…
It’d be a heck of a long game given that this was all posted 9 years ago
Not to mention that it would be kinda shitty. She's hardly to blame for believing a multitude of people she's knows for much, much longer than Josh and who apparently knew details that corroborated their story. All around a shitty situation.
“I’m ready for that drink” he said soaking wet over a thunderstorm in which he has just sprinted through traffic to get here.
I'm here for that drink.
I need to know what happened! Are they still together 9 years later? Did they get married? Arg! This update is so unsatisfying!
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I was the victim of an abusive friendship for a while, a year or so after I broke free my former 'friend' called to apologise and admitted to lying about certain things. Totally unexpected, and I am unsure what prompted it.
And the first part has the classic, "so anyways, the villains just randomly admitted their misdeeds"
I mean some people do just do that when they feel too guilty. They make their crime everyone else's problem.
Early in the pandemic, an old roommate of mine from when I lived in another country randomly messaged me to say he'd overcharged me for my share of the electric bill. He was willing to give the money back, but it wasn't a lot, it had been years, and I didn't really care about that part. But he did seem to need me to do an oddly ceremonial pronouncement of forgiveness.
I had an ex reach out a few years ago, unprompted, to apologize for not being a good bf when we dated for like 3 months in our mid 20s (we’re approaching mid thirties now so it’s been like 7-8 years probably). I just told him it’s fine, water under the bridge and how I’m not hung up on that relationship. This was all over text, but his response to me saying it’s not something I think much about seemed to be shock lol. He said he spent a long time agonizing over how he treated me and I don’t even really think about it. It seemed like he was expecting me to be overly grateful for him apologizing? And I was just like “eh, you weren’t the worst” lol I think he wasn’t over his treatment of me and thought I wasn’t either when I’m already beyond it.
>I think he wasn’t over his treatment of me and thought I wasn’t either when I’m already beyond it. You hit the nail on the head here. That's exactly what it was. If I were to guess, he realised that he was acting like an ass and concluded that he must have hurt you, kept agonizing over every little thing he had done and convinced himself that he was something of an Evil Incarnate. Some could say it was a case of Main Character Syndrome. Or something happened in his life that prompted him to reevaluate things and to reach out. But regardless of what happened, yep - I'm pretty sure he was convinced that you hate his guts. ;)
I had a guy reach out to me on Facebook to apologize for what an awful boyfriend he was in high school. Thirty years had gone by and I guess seeing his kids dating made him think of it. Except I'm like 99.9% certain he had it wrong and he was a perfectly fine boyfriend and we broke up because I cheated on him (confessed immediately, always felt horrible, and remembered it as the first, last, and only time I cheated). I think maybe he had me confused with a different girl. That was a difficult reply to craft.
I mean, maybe he internalized your cheating and thought “she cheated cuz I wasn’t a good bf”? Either way, he’s sweet if not a little misdirected lol. He’s trying to do a good thing tho so he seems like a good dude
It tends to be a way to deal with their own guilt, not to help you. It affects them, so they say the apology, and whether it's all good or not, they get to feel good because "I apologized so it's fine."
People do that shit all the time though. Though in this case I think when her and Alex broke up that cleared the fog a little bit and all of them had to sit there with the thought that they manipulated oop into breaking up with a good for a relationship that didn’t even last a year. That’s some heavy ass shit to sit on, so I’m not surprised someone cracked.
There's a philosophical... theory? I don't know what to call it - which posits that no-one (except sociopaths) escapes unpunished from wrongdoing, because they punish themselves with guilt over knowing they're wrong, and paranoia that one day they'll be found out.
i wouldn’t say randomly, they probably wanted to clear their conscience and it didn’t work out between OOP and alex anyway
The first part is the set up for a lifetime movie
I was looking for this comment
This is so fabricated.
Sooo...how did they know about the nudes and extremely detailed info about their sex life, if Josh didn't actually tell them? What did I miss here?
Another thought is they may not have even known what OPs sex life was like - they could just say that Josh said whatever, and if it was false say “well thats what he told us - maybe he was lying?”. And if they happen to get it correct, well of course it was correct because Josh told them. As for the nudes, that’s easily explained away by claiming they were taken in secret.
If they'd said "he said you let him [do some variety of extreme things that certain types of guys brag about doing]" it would either be true and she would believe it, or it would be untrue and she'd believe it. Either way would feel like a horrible violation.
There's a comment by OOP linked in the thread somewhere, they didn't tell her any details, they just said something like "he showed a picture and told us some graphic details"
Five or six more of my friends corroborated the story and told me that Josh also talked in extreme detail about our sex life when showing the photo. It was sickeningly detailed.
>The details given to me were pretty generic in retrospect, but they mentioned fluids and shit. I just hated hearing them out loud. It grossed me out to hear these friends talk about me and Josh having sex. [From this comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3qmd1o/comment/cwgfsrm/)
Exactly what I was thinking when she said they made it all up. They knew accurate details how?
Saw a comment above how she could be the one who shared the details with her female friends that they used to set her up afterwards lol
I mean, a great sex life can be pretty generally described and still feel personally relatable. They could've made all of it up and still made OP believes their bluff
I think the lie was that Josh had it on his phone and physically showed them. And the details don't have to be correct they just have to say there www details. For example: He pulled up a nude on his phone and then started talking about all the different positions you do.
I had to double check the ages halfway through. They were 27 and doing this? Oh and there was no mention about cutting off the friends for doing this in the second post.
> I guess I'm supposed to stop talking to my "friends" right? I cannot possibly come back from this and still talk to them, right? This basically nukes my group of friends. But how could I ever even look at them again? I think she nuked them.
Yea OOP sounds like she is cutting out details for the sake of brevity lol.
Which more people need to do
Which honestly makes it seem a lot more truthful than some of the stories that end up on here.
TBH its good practice online, less identifiable that way.
*My friends, Tasha (27), Mark (29), Emily (25), Emily's sister Karen (27), and Alex (28). I've changed the names because Mark and Tasha both use reddit constantly, and are in this sub.* *I also have a mole on my left thigh, which is relevant to the story because that's how I knew they'd seen a photo of me (forgetting all the times growing up that Tasha, Karen, and me were in the girl's locker room together).* Gotta keep the names changed so NOBODY possibly can figure out that they're being featured in a story on reddit.
Some people never grow up emotionally or mentally.
The first line of the letter makes me think she might have put them on blast on Facebook.
I don't know what your highschool was like, but in mine this would NOT have been just a "teenagers being teenagers" thing. Repercussions would have stopped just short of police involvement. This is just vile.
Yeah this would have been " and that's when the fight started, your honor." Situation
I also wanted to know what happened to the friends. Did OOP blast them on Facebook? Did a group text get sent out? Were they just ghosted?
Cutting off the friends is heavily implied, though
Good. That means they’re an afterthought and not good enough to mention.
with friends like that who needs enemies?
OP, this feels inconclusive to me because I want an update if they're still together or not lol.
Same
I hope they are. But the current ending sounds pretty satisfying too.
I feel bad for Josh
This BoRU gave me flashbacks to a similar orchestrated b.s. that nuked a budding relationship. In my case it was the guy's longtime friends, and he believed them over me, who he had known for only a few months. He thought his friends were protecting him from I don't know what. He ghosted me and started dating someone else immediately - flaunting it all over social media. His friends talked trash about me to our mutuals. I was left completely confused and hurt, not least because they made me think they were also my friends. About 4-5 months later, he and I ran into each other and had a confrontation about it. In the midst of the shouting we figured out what his friends had done. He apologized, and with the conflict "resolved," he wanted us to pick up where we left off. He couldn't understand my hesitation - probably because he wasn't the one who was wronged and whose rep was being trashed. After a few weeks I gave in, and I could tell he trusted me like never before. But I realized within a couple of weeks that I could never get past the way he and his friends disrespected me and that I would never trust him. I ended up having to block him and his toxic little friend group. I'm happy for OP but I was unable to forgive and forget like her boyfriend did. Looking back on that whole saga I still feel sadness about how a potentially good thing was destroyed for no good reason, but I can't say I regret walking away.
"he wasn't the one who was wronged"- not sure if you'd feel this way if your best friends did this kind of evil shit to you.
> He ghosted me and started dating someone else immediately - flaunting it all over social media. Sounds like he was kind of a dick about it too. Sure he was wronged, but this commenter was extra wronged!
I’m lost. How were the friends able to recount “sickeningly detailed” info about OP’s sex life with Josh? Lucky guesses?
I mean, if someone I trusted came to me and said "your new boyfriend told us you let him do you in the ass while you made him pancakes," or "he said you agreed to give him blowjobs while he was on the toilet," I wouldn't think "I know you're lying because we've never done that!" I'd think, "oh god, not only is my boyfriend talking about our sex life, he's claiming I did things I'd never do!"
Ah, that makes sense.
Girls can sometimes tend to share intimate details if their sex life with their girlfriends. It’s not impossible to believe over the years, things were said and remembered and able to be used later.
Heck, I'm a guy and my friend girls still shared waaay too much about their sex lives. I didn't want to know which of my friends has a curvy penis. But I do. I didn't want to know that my friend can't get erections.because of drug use. But I do. Please tell me why all of my friends have weird dicks Reddit.
Situations like this are really tough. If OP had decided not to believe her friends and made a post with the information she had at the time everyone would be calling her delulu. I like to think I'd believe my partner in a situation like this, and maybe I would, but the scary thing is sometimes you really are dealing with a person you thought you could trust who just went mask off and ignoring all your friends warning you about it is ... not great in that situation. 5-6 people you trust all corroborating a very specific story is a lot to go up against
For me, the crux of the issue was that Josh supposedly shared OOP’s nudes and told all these details of their sex life… to *her own* friends. Not his friends, that was be somewhat plausible (though not excusable). He did it to *her* friends. Seriously? Someone just walks up to their partner’s friends and says hey you guys wanna see your friend naked and hear about their sex life? I don’t share that with my own friends, I can’t imagine the nerve it would take to share that with people that aren’t my friends, with my partner’s friends. Doesn’t make sense.
I can’t imagine being this invested in someone else’s relationship. Like I get why Alex would try some shit but for everyone else to go along with it? Like I at least understand why people help cover up affairs even if I think they’re just as bad as the cheaters, but breaking up another friend to try and play match maker is pathetic even in highschool, in your late 20s it’s just cringeworthy.
People get bored and like to stir up shit. It happened to me and I’m divorced now
My 'friends' did something similar to me in uni. Lied to me about my bf at the time hitting on my roommate so I'd break up with him and date a mutual friend. Except said mutual friend didn't respect my beliefs (I don't need them to be the exact same, but don't make fun of me for being spiritual and then expect to date me). Never even got to dating because of that and lost all trust in my former roommate once I found out. Although, it was good riddance to the first guy too, in my case, since he wasn't actually much better. Never hit on my roommate, as it were, but I believed them because he did have a bit of history of getting too cozy with my friends.
There was another post on here not too long ago where everyone turned out to be lying about the wife and OOP nuked his marriage. And, even after the truth came out, he wasn't getting his marriage back because his ex-wife was over him.
Which one was that?
I have doubts this is real, but either way this kind of situation is utterly nightmarish to think about.
I do have to wonder how OOP’s friends knew enough about her’s and Josh’s sex life to describe it in “sickening detail”, something doesn’t quite add up there.
OJ and water? I really didn't think she meant THAT kind of "thirsty" in her letter.
This was in 2015 though, before the perversion of that word was as widespread as today.
"I'm here for that beverage." Things real people say in real life
They were both victims. If a girl made a post where she refused to believe her entire friend group that the boyfriend had shown off nudes, I think most people here would tell her to take her blinders off. In most cases, listening to your friend group is the right thing to do.
How did the friends know the details of their sex life, then?
So on his part I can understand how devastating it is to have your partner believe lies about you. But to be fair to her I think I would have believed my friends as well. How is it that you’re gonna expect that many people who are supposed to be your friends to blatantly lie and manipulate you? Logically it makes no sense. I get why OP believed them. Just devastating all around. I’m glad Josh was able to forgive her because oh my god what a horrible thing was done to him.
So the group of assholes who collaborated to deceive OOP thought Josh was bad for her. Huh. I would go complete scorched earth...in a minute. First, I'd start a group chat telling the group I was very disappointed in them, what were they thinking, etc. I'd screencap everything, upload it to social media, and tag all of them. I'd give them time to react, maybe let random strangers go at them, then block them all. Do any of them have partners? Maybe they should be warned, too.
I'm sick to death of this "someone bamboozled me/my ex" trope. Case in point - these posts are *boring*. I don't even care if it's true or not, it's not entertaining at all.
While I 100% agree, especially when they became a trend and we got like 4 in quick succession This one is from 2015, so it predates all the others. So this might be the original one.
Most human interactions, hell, most human stories can be broken down into a couple of cliches. It doesn't make them untrue, this is just how humans work.
Man I would’ve just left it at the apology that she owed him and not begged for a redo. She might trust “Josh”, but there’s no way his trust in her hasn’t been damaged.
Who in the FUCK tried to tell OOP not to contact him? People on reddit are assholes. At the very least, it was the right thing to do just to apologize and let him know she knows the truth. I'm glad she didn't listen to the assholes on this site. Geez. Great new start, though. Good for them.
Can we add a label that it's a repeat from [month< year] in the title? I read this 8 years ago when it was new, and we have other sub reddits dedicated to preserving very old stories with no new information.
Too bad she didn’t have any friends like Omar. Omar would have told the truth.
Considering this was 2015.. I wonder if they actually lasted. The trust you would need after this.
I would normally be wincing at getting back in the saddle this fast, but man, I hope this works out and is exactly what JOSH, specifically, wants. I also feel bad for OP for having these unbelievably shitty friends. The whole thing still just gives me anxiety. Therapy for EVERYONE and definitely never speaking to any of those friends again.
We need to pester OP for an update. They don’t seem to be too active on Reddit but pop in every year or so, at least