This story is so insanely long so bear with me.
This ex bff will be called Joy.
Let's start off with how we became best friends. I used to be a part of a church (Has since left the church, partially due to Joy, story for another time) as a women's group leader. I had noticed there was a lot of surface interaction between the women in this church and wanted to create a space where we could all do life together and be honest when things are shit. Joy was invited by one of the women in the group and immediately tried to connect with everyone there. She and I were friendly but not very close for that first year. My best friend at the time was helping me lead the women's group.
The Spring of 2020 she approached me at church and told me, "I think (current best friend's husband) is flirting with me." I was shocked and asked her why she thought that. She proceeded to show me sexts that at the time seemed very one sided from my bff's husband. Something felt off about the texts but at the time I was so shocked I couldn't place it. (Now I know she had deleted the messages on her end to make it look like she was innocent in that exchange before showing them to me.) We went to the only female pastor on staff and informed her, not knowing what to do with this situation. Long story short, it was handled "in house". I noticed over time that Joy wasn't getting the support she needed as one of the victims in this situation which was upsetting to me as someone who worked for the church at the time and led the women's group. I was witnessing the church offer so much support to my best friend (which was great, I wanted her to have that) and her husband while leaving Joy out to dry. So I started spending more time with her and advocating for her innocence in private conversations.
Then COVID hit and everyone was distanced for a couple months. The woman who originally brought her to our group approached me one day and told me she wasn't going to be friends with her anymore. She didn't go into much detail other than she felt like she wasn't someone she could trust, especially around her husband. As time went on Joy and I became really close, bonding over similar personalities, deconstructing from the church, and family stressors. She told me about being adopted and how her adopted family hates her and treats her horribly. I started inviting her to family events, wanting to give her a safe space to be during the holidays.
As COVID restrictions lifted everyone started returning to church but I had already felt like it wasn't the space for me anymore. I knew too much about too many people (had worked there for a couple years at this point) and didn't approve of the way things were handled "In house".
Once I had left the church I began to notice Joy started living a double life. She would call me and complain about people she would consider her closest friends but then hang up and post online about how much she loved them. She told me one of the women in leadership was gossiping about me (feeding into me keeping my distance from them). But then her comments became more pointed when talking about her experiences in the church.
One day she was sharing her frustrations over the women in the church who didn't like her and said, "It's so dumb that they treat me like this, I could take any over their husbands if I wanted to."
To which I said, "Isn't that the reason they don't want you around?" but she laughed it off.
More strange conversations kept happening.
One time she was talking about her current bf and how he was a virgin when they met. She then said, "I've taken like, five peoples virginities."
To which I replied, "That's a really weird thing to say." Again, she laughed it off.
She texted me one day and said, "Do you think the person knows their husband follows this account? It's mostly bikini pictures?"
I replied, "No, I would assume not. Why do you know that?"
To which she said, "Oh, I was just looking at who he follows and found it. I do that sometimes when I'm bored."
"Have you done this to other peoples husbands?"
"Ya, sometimes."
I kept chalking it up to her traumatic past, that's what is leading her to make these weird comments or decisions.
With this weird pattern of comments or conversations I had decided to quit sharing personal things with her or responding to weird texts about other people. I told her I didn't want to know anything that was going on in the church unless it directly affected her.
We were about to take a trip to Washington a couple months later with one other friend of ours because Joy and her boyfriend were going through a hard time and we wanted to do something fun.
I saw her the night before our trip and she looked guilty and greeted me with, "Ugh. I hate seeing you in person because then I feel like I need to tell you things."
To which I said, "Do I even want to know?"
She said, "I slept with a man from work."
"Okay."
"He's married."
Immediately I knew I had been played in this friendship. The one thing I had spent over a year defending her for, the thing I thought she would never do, she just admitted to.
I said , "When did this happen?"
"Last week. His wife knows about me. It's like an open relationship kind of thing."
"Who told you that?"
"He did."
"So the man who is having sex with you is telling you his wife is okay with it but you haven't heard it from her? Think about it."
To which she said, "It was just so nice to be wanted and seen. With (current bf) being so indecisive about asking me to move with him, it just felt nice."
"Are you going to tell him?"
"Probably not. I don't want him to break up with me."
At this point I was having an internal stroke and told her we could talk about it later. Needless to say that Washington trip was very awkward. A week later she tried to change the timeline to when her and her bf had been on a break. But that didn't line up with the original timeline she told me.
A couple months had passed and one day she called me to tell me she was at our mutual friend's house. This friend had trusted her to go into her home and email her a speech for a wedding she was at. Joy called me to tell me she had read our friends husbands sex addiction workbook. I immediately asked her why she thought that was okay. She replied, "It was on the nightstand. They are practically begging me to read it." To which I replied, "No. Actually. they aren't. They are trusting you to respect their space."
Through all of these events I was processing it with my therapist. After this specific situation my therapist asked me, "Is she ever remorseful when she does stuff like this? Or is it a pattern?" At that moment I knew I needed to step away from this friendship.
That summer I went away to London with another friend for two weeks. While I was gone I later learned that she took advantage of one of our mutual friends, someone five years younger than her. This friend had just gone through a traumatic family situation and went to her for support in which Joy brought up the idea of hooking up. Afterwards Joy told our mutual friend not to tell me because of how I would react, insinuating I would be homophobic. My friend, knowing that I wasn't, immediately told me after I returned from my trip.
I had never been more furious at Joy.
I knew we needed to have a confrontational conversation about everything that's happened but a couple weeks later my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed emergency surgery all in the middle of moving to a new house. So that conversation was put on the back burner.
A couple months went by and my mom was doing better. I hadn't heard much from Joy since my London trip and I knew it was time to have our conversation. I reached out to her to set up a time to talk. She pretended not to be aware of the distance in our friendship and that she was just giving me space to support my mom. We made a plan to talk.
During our talk I told her, "We can't be close anymore, I don't trust you." Then laid out all the examples as to why. She listened and in the end she didn't take any accountably. When I confronted her about taking advantage of our friend she said, "I'm sorry that was the narrative you were told. I told her to tell me if she told you." When I brought up her double life and how she treats people, her response was, "Everyone else does it." I told her we don't respect or value marriages or people the same way and because of that we couldn't be close friends. (This is when she let it slip that the man she slept with was actually a full on affair and it wasn't just once.) She then told me that she hoped she could prove to me over time that she's trustworthy. She ended our conversation by saying, "I saw your mom at church today, it just made me want to cry." I had no words left. Trying to gain sympathy by bringing up my sick mom wasn't going to get her anywhere. She asked if we could grab coffee at some point and I told her that was fine and for her to reach out when she felt ready.
A few days later she removed me from following her on social media.
A couple months later she bought the house directly behind my parent's new home with her new bf.
She began spending more time with my siblings, specifically my brothers. Two of which have developmental disabilities that make it hard to read social situations.
I found out she was inviting them over to her house when she would throw parties and offer them alcohol while they were under age. Then tell them not to tell me or my parents. One of my brothers was in active addiction, which she knew about.
I informed my siblings and parents that she and I weren't friends anymore because she wasn't a trustworthy person. But due to the other people involved in her situations that they knew, I didn't go into detail. But I also wanted them to make their own decisions.
She married her new bf of less than a year the day after my birthday. Now this one is a little iffy (as in, I could be reading into this) but she knew I would always invite my friends on a birthday trip the weekend of my birthday and that it was an important tradition to me. This would be the first one she wasn't at since becoming friends. She invited half of my friends to the wedding and or asked to help. Most didn't know our history at the time. I ended up just moving the trip so all my friends could go.
Last summer when my youngest brother (17 at the time) and I were outside at my parents, Joy had come out in her own back yard.(They share a low fence) My brother said, "Oh hey, look! Joy is outside." Loud enough for her to know I heard him. I didn't look over, I just continued to walk towards my parent's house and said in a monotone voice, "How exciting." then went inside. I recently found out that wasn't a casual run in. Joy had been texting him before hand. The messages read:
(17) Brother: "She is outside."
(28) Joy: "Should I come out? What if she doesn't want to see me?"
When I asked him about it he told me she had been asking about me (they pay him to help with yard work) and he wanted to help her set up a run in for us to talk.
She has other friendships that have ended due to similar situations and she also created close friendships with the families of those friends. My assumption is that she is trying to keep tabs on if any of us are telling people about our experiences with her.
Most recently I learned one of my other brothers asked her and her husband to be the godparents to his baby due in December.
I did end up meeting with that brother to give him a full breakdown as to why I don't think she should be his child's godparents but that ultimately I would support his decision. He heard what I had to say and said he will keep all of that in mind moving forward, so jury is still out on that one.
After our friendship ended, I had the space to process it. When talking with some friends I was able to piece together so many more moments where she lied or only told me half of the truth. We discovered she would share different stories with different friends. I learned that after we stopped being friends, her family started going to her church. Apparently, her family life wasn't what she had been telling me.
As time has gone on, the same question keeps coming back to me. Is my ex-best friend a stalker?