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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/kitdi89 on 2023-08-11 22:30:58.

Full Disclosure: This did not actually happen today, but it’s something that still affects me.

I (33F) used to have a best friend(38M), and we will call him John (not a real name).

John is married to a woman called Lizzie (not a real name).

I met John before he got married, AND when I was dating my now ex-husband. I have been divorced since 2016 and knew John for a least 2 years before my divorce.

A little back story interruption. I got married to my ex-husband in 2015. My ex-husband was abusive towards me and threatened to kill me on at least 2 occasions. Even when I told my ex-husband that I didn’t feel safe anymore and tried to talk to him about it. (A few weeks before this talk he dented the trunk of my car because he was pissed off at me and I didn’t see him when I was backing up trying to parallel park my car and he had slammed his hands down hard enough on my trunk. This dent was a constant reminder every time I saw it that it was a situation I was growing more and more unsafe in.) He took off his wedding ring left it on an end table and completely left to stay in his semi-truck because he was a truck driver at the time. Found out later he did that because he told me if he didn’t leave that night he was so mad at me he was going to kill me.

While I was married, John and I lost connection, but after I moved back to my hometown after my divorce, we kept randomly running into each other. Like I changed jobs and he randomly would run into me when I was a work at both my jobs, there were times when I went shopping for something and we would run into each other, etc, etc. (Where I live is not that small of a town, so it was really weird that we kept running into each other.)

Needless to say, we got back in connection with each other and finally exchanged phone numbers to text and chat and build our friendship again.

I was dating someone at the time John and I reconnected but let’s just say the relationship was not going well and I ended up breaking it off with the person I was dating at the time me and John reconnected.

John told me he was divorcing his wife, Lizzie. John and I would talk about our relationships, and he knew a lot of details about how my ex-husband abused me and how bad the relationship i was in when we started talking and hanging out again.

John had feelings for me that I knew about when I was dating my ex-husband, but at the time, I did not reciprocate because I was loyal to my ex-husband.

John and I ended up developing feelings for each other. Again, I want to state John kept telling me, along with anyone who he considered a friend, that he was divorcing his wife. When I was in the middle of my divorce, I also dated someone at the time through the divorce. John and I started dating because at this time, I thought he was actually going through the process of divorce, and I thought his wife knew they were getting a divorce.

You can probably guess by now. But after months of dating, John was NOT getting a divorce while we were dating. It’s been over a year since John and I ended things, and I cut him off, but he is still married to his wife like nothing happened outside of the marriage.

I, on the other hand, seem to be mentally stuck. I have been through at least 2 abusive relationships (1 was just mentally abusive, my ex-husband was mentally and physically abusive), and my ex-best friend knew this. I can’t seem to move on because I can’t get out of the mental space that if someone I trusted as much as I did, John, that I don’t think I can trust someone else. Also, for some reason, I still find my heart longing for him and missing him. I know I shouldn’t, but as he goes on like nothing happened, I am sitting here hurting.

TL;DR, my best friend that I knew for 8+ years and knew I had been in abusive relationships, lied to me that he was getting a divorce and used me to cheat on his wife.